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An Organizational Assessment of the

Oregon Employment Department

July 3, 2013

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Introduction

In March of 2013 Michael Jordan, Chief Operating Officer for the State of Oregon,

and Laurie Warner, Director of the Oregon Employment Department,

commissioned a team to do an organizational assessment of the Oregon

Employment Department (OED). The assessment was focused on the work

environment and staff morale, Information Technology and Finance, which

included budget, accounting and procurement.

The team was led by Clyde Saiki, Interim Chief Human Resource Officer for the

Department of Administrative Services, and was composed of the following

members with the following goals and objectives:

Human Resources

Clyde Saiki

Interim Chief Human Resource Officer

Department of Administrative Services

Krista Fegley

Human Resources Manager

Oregon Department of Forestry

Larry Merritt

Human Resource Analyst 3

Department of Human Services

The HR Team assessed the OED work environment and employee morale. The HR

team interviewed employees and reviewed pertinent HR information provided by

employees and the OED HR office. A particular area of emphasis was the way

employees were being treated by management and their peers.

Finance

Chuck Hibner, Team Lead

Administrator, Office of Payment Accuracy and Recovery

Department of Human Services

Traci Cooper

Chief Financial Officer

Oregon Business Development Department

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April Carpenter

Legislative Budget Analyst

Oregon Department of Transportation

The Finance Team conducted a review of the accounting, budget and procurement

sections of OED. The team interviewed employees, reviewed contracts, looked at

fund transfers, reviewed fiscal documentation and reviewed financial systems.

Information Technology

Virginia Ellwanger, Team Lead

Chief Information Officer

Oregon Department of Transportation

Sandy Wheeler

Chief Information Officer

Department of Consumer and Business Services

Ron Winterrrowd

Manager, Transportation Application Development

Oregon Department of Transportation

The IT team assessed a variety of issues including, IT governance, IT procurement,

strategic planning and IT project management. The team also interviewed

employees, reviewed IT contracts, quality assurance reports and reports from IT

contractors.

Background

OED was created in 1993 and is an active partner in developing the state’s

workforce. The agency’s mission is to promote employment of Oregonians through

developing a diversified, multi-skilled workforce, promoting quality child care,

and providing support during periods of unemployment.

The department has 38 Worksource Oregon field offices across the state that serve

job seekers and employers by helping workers find suitable employment;

providing qualified applicants for employers; supplying statewide and local labor

market information. Three call centers provide unemployment insurance benefits

to workers temporarily unemployed through no fault of their own. In the 2011-13

biennium OED had approximately 1400 employees and a biennial budget of 3

billion dollars of which 2.5 billion was payment of unemployment benefits.

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The department offers a number of services. It serves employers through timely

recruitment of a qualified workforce, customizing state and local labor market

information for use as a business planning tool, and by offering job-matching

services based on the need of each employer. Labor market economists and

research analysts identify major workforce policy areas that require additional

research and present their findings and ideas for solutions to decision makers.

Statewide, regional, and local economic information is prepared for use by

employers, community leaders, and policy makers. The department helps job

seekers find jobs that match their skills and employers' needs, provides them with

up-to-date information about trends in occupations and skills needed for success in

the job market, and works with other agencies to direct them to appropriate

training programs and job experiences. The Employment Department's Child Care

Division promotes and regulates child care. The Office of Administrative hearings

provides contested case hearings for 66 agencies, boards and commissions.

The Department is divided into five divisions; Unemployment Insurance, Business

and Employment Services, Labor Market Information, Child Care and the Office

of Administrative Hearings.

George Dunford is the Chief Administrative Officer and Louis Melton-Breen is the

Deputy Director. The Budget, Finance, Procurement Units and, temporarily, IT

report to Mr. Dunford. HR, Facilities, ITSC Project, Child Care, Internal Audit,

Government Relations, and Communications report to Ms. Melton-Breen. They

both report to Laurie Warner, the Director.

Limitations to Assessment

The major limitation to this project was the time allotted for the team complete the

assessment. While the average audit can take six months to a year, this assessment

was limited to 45 days, which has kept the findings at a summary level. In the

summary below, the team has provided an overview of our findings,

recommendations and several areas where we feel further study and evaluation is

necessary.

Methods

Findings were based on interviews with current and former OED employees,

contractors, employees from other agencies and the review of contracts, financial

records and other documents.

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HR Team Findings

The HR team interviewed a total of 33 current employees, five former employees,

and a contractor. The team also reviewed pertinent information provided by

employees and the OED HR office.

Work Environment

OED employees we interviewed fell into three groups. Most of the

employees interviewed fell into one of the first two groups. The first group

of employees felt that things were fine and getting better. They attributed the

contention and turmoil to employees who were afraid of change and who

were unwilling to look at doing things differently. The second group

consisted of employees who were very concerned about the work

environment and culture of the agency. They reported instances of bullying,

disrespectful behavior, and targeting of employees. Employees reported

seeing other employees being yelled at, being criticized in front of other

employees, and having work assignments withheld. The third group of

employees was hesitant to talk to us and did not share very much

information.

The first group of employees who felt that things were fine and getting better

was primarily employees who worked in the Budget, Finance and

Procurement sections and some of the employees in the IT section. They felt

that management had begun to hold people accountable and were trying to

improve systems and processes. They did not report any instances of being

treated disrespectfully or being targeted.

The second group of employees reported a work environment in which they

disliked coming to work, they were ostracized by other employees, they felt

they were treated disrespectfully, and they felt their contributions were

demeaned. They reported either personal or observed incidents of being

treated disrespectfully, bullying and employees being targeted by the Chief

Administrative Officer (CAO). At least four of these employees either left

the department or were removed from their positions.

These same employees reported multiple instances of inappropriate

comments being made by the Chief Administrative Officer and the Manager

of the Policy and Program Unit to and about employees in meetings.

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These employees reported feeling uncomfortable speaking out in the work

environment and if they did they felt they were subject to negative

repercussions.

The third group of employees was very hesitant to talk to us and their

interviews were relatively short. They did not share much and seemed

reluctant to voice their opinions.

There is a definite lack and absence of trust between the groups. Multiple

employees in the functions that reported to the Deputy Director told us that

they did not trust the things said by employees who reported up to the CAO.

Multiple employees in the functions that reported to the CAO told us that

they did not trust the things said by employees who reported up to the

Deputy Director. This is a major issue that must be addressed before the

department can begin to function at an appropriate level. The lack of trust

contributes to the dysfunctional work environment that was relayed to the

HR Team by many of the employees we interviewed.

Recommendations

There needs to be immediate action to remedy the divisive environment.

This may mean employee removals, changes or reassignments to remove the

divisive elements from the department. At a minimum we would recommend

the Director remove the CAO.

A plan has to be developed and implemented to bring employees together

and rebuild trust. The barriers between the three groups have to be addressed

and broken down. The department may need to bring in an outside entity to

assist with this effort.

Clear, concise and uniform expectations need to be set for employees at all

levels of the department on how they communicate, interact and treat each

other and then employees should be held accountable for meeting those

expectations.

This is especially true for Executive Team members and managers who

should be held to a very high standard in these areas. It is unacceptable for

employees to be targeted, treated inappropriately or treated disrespectfully

so that they see no other alternative but to leave the department.

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Communication and Transparency

Based on the team’s interviews, communication and transparency seem to be

major issues in the department and need to be improved.

Employees at all levels feel that communication is selective. Multiple

employees we interviewed feel that they are ‘out of the loop,’ and some of

them volunteered that they believe their coworkers also feel ‘out of the

loop.’ Many of the employees we interviewed had not heard about the

assessment and did not know why they were being interviewed. Other

employees outside of the Executive Team told us that in the absence of

information there were many rumors about why we were there and what we

were doing.

Multiple employees reported that the CAO communicated differently with

employees that he liked or favored, compared to those employees he did not

like or trust. For example, the CAO told one higher-level manager that he

could not trust her because she reported to the Deputy Director. Multiple

employees perceive that the CAO withholds information and does not

acknowledge employees that he felt were not aligned with his agenda.

Multiple employees communicated that they are afraid to challenge and

speak out against the CAO because they saw him take actions that they

perceived resulted in employees who did not support him being removed

from their positions or the agency.

Employees expressed concerns about transparency. One example they gave

was the budget. Two Executive Team members expressed concern that they

had trouble getting budget information from the OED Budget Unit. At times,

these two employees asked why their budget was being reduced and were

not given any information or reason for the action. One employee who was

responsible for the budget in their Division reported trying to get budget

information for 8 months and never being given the information.

Recommendations

Steps need to be taken to improve communication within the department. An

inclusive communication strategy must be developed and implemented so

that employees don’t feel that they are “out of the loop”. The Director

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should implement a consistent and systematic method of communicating

with employees on an ongoing basis. The Director needs to increase her

visibility, interaction and communication with employees.

There needs to be transparency in the budget process. Division

Administrators and key employees should receive regular budget reports and

be involved in decisions on their budget.

Expectations need to be set for Executive Team members for the way they

communicate with employees. Executive Team members hold critical

positions within the agency and open and transparent communication should

be a basic expectation of these positions. Expectations in this area should be

set for the Executive Team members and they should be held accountable

for meeting these expectations.

Executive Team

There appeared to be divisions among the department’s Executive Team

members. Communication and trust has broken down between some team

members.

Two members of the Executive Team expressed concerns that they were

going to be targeted by the CAO for talking to us.

Employees reported that they were in meetings where the CAO belittled and

made inappropriate comments about another Executive Team member.

One Executive Team member reported that there is the appearance of

favoritism on the Executive Team and that it creates a very divisive situation.

Executive Team members reported that their standing meetings were not

always forums for decision making. There was concern that some critical

agency decisions are made by small groups behind closed doors by a few

members with no communication back to the entire team.

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Recommendations

There needs to be a more in depth assessment of Executive Team members

and their roles within the organization. With the breakdown of trust and

communication there needs to be a restructuring of the team or some team

members may need to be reassigned or removed from their positions.

Expectations need to be set for Executive Team members on how they

communicate, interact and treat each other and employees. Executive Team

members need to be held accountable for meeting those expectations.

A plan has to be developed and implemented to rebuild communication and

trust within the Executive Team. The department may need to bring in an

outside entity to assist with this effort.

Budget and Finance Team Findings

The Budget and Finance team interviewed Executive level program managers as

well as managers and employees from each of the business support areas of budget,

accounting and procurement. In summary and similar to the conclusions reached

by the HR team, we found that employees fell into three groups. The three groups

were those who felt everything was fine; those who felt things were really bad; and

those who did not share much at all.

Although the team was not able to spend much time analyzing each support area,

an in depth review of capabilities and current practices for the budget and

procurement areas is recommended.

Organizational Issues from budget / finance / purchasing interviews

Employees expressed concerns about communication and trust and reported

that these were problem areas.

Several employees mentioned that there is high tension throughout the

organization. Further, multiple employees mentioned that they feel they

can’t question or push back because troublemakers are managed out of the

organization (and gave several examples of where they felt that this had

actually happened).

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Employees in these work areas perceive that the Deputy Director and the

CAO don’t get along and the department had devolved into two distinct

camps in the organization (warring factions).

Recommendations

Define clear, concise and uniform expectations for acceptable behavior

through definitive agency leadership actions. Address change management

from the top level of the organization all the way through to line staff.

Conduct advanced training for leadership development and exercises

focused on building trust. Consider adopting the DHS leadership model.

The Department needs to establish responsibility and ownership for

managing sub-leases, lease contracts and collection of rent from tenants and

set up processes to properly manage these activities.

Clearly define and communicate roles & responsibilities (including decision

making) for: the Contracting Unit, Accounting Unit, and Budget Unit as

service delivery areas.

Implement an agency-wide customer satisfaction survey for administrative

functions. Anonymity should be an option for those surveyed. This would be

a tool to open lines of communication and foster a responsive atmosphere.

Provide organized internal training from the support services to their

customers to standardize processes and service levels.

The service delivery to internal business lines needs improvement in all

assessed areas, to some degree, and a metric for improvement is necessary.

Procurement Unit Issues

The lack of knowledge and expertise in particular types of contracts appears

to be an issue.

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At times rubber stamping of purchases and contracts was an acceptable unit

practice due to workload issues and not wanting to slow down the

procurement process.

There are workload issues due to understaffing and turnover in the

Procurement Unit.

IT contracting expertise needs to be improved. It appears that there is no

systemized training and employees are expected to learn on the job.

Policies and procedures are out of date. There is a lack of training for

customers on the procurement process and contract administration

responsibilities.

Program staff expressed concerns that the Procurement Unit has a

compliance-based approach rather than a collaborative, problem-solving

approach geared toward helping program staff meet their goals. However,

there is little explanation of what steps or actions are necessary to meet these

expectations. This has created a communication breakdown between the

Procurement Unit and program staff. The result is program staff feels that

they are subjected to the “find the rock” treatment by the Procurement Unit.

Communication is an issue. Often the exchanges between purchasing and

program employees are unpleasant and unproductive.

Recommendations

There needs to be a more in-depth assessment of the Procurement Unit. The

assessment should include a closer look at process and capabilities of unit

employees. The results of the assessment should be used to design individual

specific training plans for procurement employees and to improve the OED

procurement process.

Conduct communication training for procurement employees and develop

expectations for the unit as a provider of service to the program units.

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Continue the efforts to update procurement policies and procedures. Design

customer training modules, and modify each to incorporate lessons learned

from the in-depth assessment mentioned above.

Conduct an assessment with the OED program units to identify workload

volume and negotiate agreements regarding levels of service and

expectations with Service Level Agreements (SLA).

Migrate to “deliverables based” contracts to help ensure successful outcomes

of projects.

Budget Issues

The transparency of budget activities is an issue both internally, budget to

program, and externally, budget to CFO/BAM and LFO.

Current budget reports to divisions and programs are short on detail and not

granular enough for program manager use.

Budget Unit activities around the movement of limitation and budget within

the agency are not transparent which increases the risk of mismanagement

and non-compliance. Significant budget decisions are made by the Policy

and Program Manager without knowledge of the affected programs. Further,

often interpretation of significant rules and grant requirements are handled

by the Policy and Program Manager which increases the risk that these

decisions could lead to outcomes not acceptable to agency leadership and

others internal and external to the organization.

Employees expressed concerns regarding comments made by the Budget

Unit and their belief that they run the show versus their role as a service

provider to the service delivery programs.

It is unclear (unknown) as to what the budget and payback ramifications are

of the Federal funds expended on IT projects that did not result in programs

that were functional for users.

In some program areas staff feels that assigned budget analysts do not

understand the business well enough to be helpful.

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Communication is an issue. As with procurement employees, there are

unpleasant exchanges between budget and program employees. This was a

mixed bag as some program areas had no issues and others said they try to

avoid interaction with the Budget Unit.

Trust is broken between the Budget Unit and the DAS Chief Financial

Office (CFO, formerly BAM) as well as with the Legislative Fiscal Office

(LFO). These strained relationships could, and to some extent have,

hindered the agency’s legislative budget process.

Recommendations

There needs to be a more in-depth assessment of the budget process and the

Budget Unit. This assessment should include an evaluation of recent budget

transactions to ensure that the risk to the agency of inappropriate or

unacceptable expenditures is minimized.

Use the results of the assessment to design individual specific training plans

for Budget unit staff and process improvements that will allow staff to

handle the work load at peak times.

Conduct communication training for employees and develop an expectation

that the unit is a service provider to the program units.

Conduct an assessment with the OED program units to identify workload

volume and negotiate agreements regarding levels of service and

expectations with Service Level Agreements (SLA).

Conduct budget training to bridge the gap of “misunderstandings” between

Business units and the Budget Unit. Discuss process, timelines, and roles &

responsibilities of each team.

Repair trust issues with DAS/CFO and LFO and increase transparency of the

OED budget. Shift relationship and attitude to that of partners, rather than

opponents by increasing communication, inclusion and transparency.

Provide ample review time for submitted requests and documentation.

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Restructure budget to capture administrative functions in one Summary

Cross Reference (SCR) budget structure, per multiple requests by CFO. This

will support transparency and ease of Policy Package application.

When budget adjustments are made that adjust limitation, or operational

targets for the programs, promptly provide a report illustrating the budget

change and narrating why the change was administered.

Accounting Unit Issues

There is a heavy reliance on transactional approvals by external parties (e.g.

budget manager, project manager, program manager sign-offs) to ensure

appropriateness of the transaction they are accounting for.

There are concerns about the movement of administrative expenditures

between grant funds within Unemployment Insurance (UI) that deserves

further review.

Recommendations

Maintain healthy skepticism and utilize contracts, purchase agreements,

budget documents and grant agreements, as needed, as a secondary

verification source.

Conduct training with business units (including IT) about the importance

and process of recording time accurately and timely to programs and

projects. This should decrease the amount of adjustments necessary.

Information Technology Team Findings

Introduction

Over the last 5 years OED IT systems have come under pressure due to the severe

recession and the increased workload to deliver unemployment related services.

The department’s IT systems are old and need to be updated and modernized.

Several IT projects were initiated to address issues with these systems. The IT

projects strained relationships internally between IT and the business units. They

have also strained relationships externally with the Department of Administrative

Services and the Legislative Fiscal Office.

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The IT Team interviewed 3 former employees, and 13 current employees. Eleven

of the current employees were in IT. The others were in Auditing and

Administrative Services. Two additional IT employees provided written documents

to us after we completed our interviews. We also interviewed four people outside

OED, who were from LFO, Online Business Systems, Public Knowledge and

Enterprise Technology Services (DAS).

General documents reviewed by the IT Assessment team included: quality

assurance documents, contract documents, project artifacts including meeting

minutes, project status reports and project close reports, IT procurement documents,

contracts and work orders, organizational charts, external and internal audit reports,

documents submitted to the Oregon Chief Information Office, IT Strategic Plan

documents and staff submitted interview preparation notes.

The Information Technology department of the Oregon Employment Department

(OED) is in need of leadership, governance, priority setting, methodology, contract

administration, and appropriate HR practices. There is heavy turnover in IT staff

and the morale should be improved quickly to prevent losing any more trained staff

or the department risks its ability to respond to system outages and may be unable

to continue serving the public with their existing systems.

The IT team reviewed the OED Information Technology Services (ITS)

organization and provided the following findings and recommendations regarding

the health of the department, IT program/project management practices, and the

department’s new IT governance structure. As part of the assessment the team also

provided a perspective on the Identity and Access Management project.

Work Environment Issues

The IT assessment team concluded that HR practices contributed to low

employee morale and placement of employees in positions that were not

well suited to their skill set. Employees are appointed to positions that they

may or may not be suitable for, they are not coached and then their job

duties were significantly changed. There appears to be little coaching or

mentoring; employees are just moved to other positions and they resign or

retire.

There are multiple reports of managers threatening the jobs of other

managers and employees at meetings. Three people reported that at a

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meeting regarding I&AM status, they were asked to provide their resignation

letter with a future date so that when the system failed, they could be

terminated. Three people reported that they felt like they had a “target on

their back”. One person reported that a chair was thrown across the room

during a meeting by the Budget Manager. One person reported that he was

continually asked about being on trial service and felt he was going to be

released.

Dissenting views appear to be discouraged. In the technical arena, it is very

important to have open, honest discussions with various viewpoints. Only

then can you reach solutions that all can agree on, that meet requirements

and have employee buy-in.

There are indications that the ITS Management team does not work together

as a team. The ITS Management team did not seem to have a clear

understanding of the authority and duties of the CAO in his role as Interim

CIO.

The current leadership team of the Director, Deputy Director and CAO is

making changes to help improve the IT organization, but they are not

making the changes in a manner that helps the entire agency buy-in to the

change. For example, the IT governance committee does not include IT

Managers. Such a committee has little chance of success at educating and

informing IT employees of business needs and priorities, and no chance of

them buying into the desired direction.

It is unclear to the IT organization what the role of Transformation Systems

International and Online Business Services (contractors) are. The team asked

for, but did not receive the deliverables from the Transformation Systems

International contract; therefore, it is unclear as to what services they are

providing to the department. The deliverables of the Online Business

Systems contracts have caused confusion and mistrust among OED IT

employees because of their questionable accuracy.

Recommendation

Review all IT positions. The review should include MQ’s and skill sets to

determine if people are in their positions appropriately. We recommend that

leaders skilled at being change agents be brought in to drive changes at OED.

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Appoint an experienced CIO and evaluate where ITS should be placed

organizationally within the department.

Evaluate contract performance and deliverables provided by Transformation

Systems International and Online Business Systems. Determine whether or

not contractual performance and deliverables are consistent with the

contractual requirements agreed to by these vendors.

Begin team building across ITS and charge the ITS managers with

coordination of resource planning across the various areas of ITS.

Transparency and Communication Issues

Communication and transparency are issues within ITS. There were

numerous reports of closed-door meetings regarding IT issues that did not

include ITS line managers. Little to no communication occurs as to the result

of these meetings. Documents are prepared and not shared with ITS line

Managers and employees. The Strategic Plan was developed with little or no

ITS input. There was turn-over in positions, both in business and ITS, and

transfer of knowledge did not take place.

Two employees reported that ITS employees were instructed by the CAO

not to meet with external parties without an Executive Manager present.

External communications with the DAS Chief Information Office and

Legislative Fiscal Office (LFO) were lacking and not timely.

One employee reported that he was instructed by the CAO to modify a

report with information that he knew was inaccurate. He had meeting

minutes and project status reports that validated that what he was being

asked to report was incorrect.

Two employees reported that reports produced by vendors did not accurately

reflect input or status provided by employees. They stated that the vendor

that provided the I&AM assessment report, “wrote the report they were told

to write”.

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Recommendations

Encourage open and transparent communication throughout ITS and

between ITS and the rest of the department. Require managers to

communicate meeting results and other pertinent information to employees.

Post meeting minutes to increase transparency and communication to ITS

and department employees.

ITS managers and employees should be included in IT strategic planning

efforts.

Develop clear expectations that employees will provide clear, prompt, and

transparent communications with LFO, DAS CFO, EISPD and the State

CIO’s Office.

IT Governance Issues

IT Governance was at too low of a level in the organization during the 2009

-2011 time frame. When the recession hit, multiple projects were added to

the IT workload, senior managers left with poor hand off and no continuity

with regard to IT sponsorship work. These projects were not prioritized and

IT was left relatively unsupported. The CIO and Deputy CIO left the

organization. Project sponsors and attendees to the Governance briefings and

status updates changed. Project expectations and commitments were not

passed on.

Currently, IT Governance has been reformed but does not include ITS line

management or employees.

Business units are acquiring IT products and services without going through

the IT governance body.

Recommendations

Restructure the current IT governance model to include ITS managers.

Initially all sections of ITS should be represented on the governance board.

Results of Governance Board meetings should be shared with all ITS and

department employees.

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Include IT employees in the oversight of all IT contracts and purchases.

Contract Management Issues

Contract administration is not in line with best practices. IT contracts appear

to have multiple amendments for multiple purposes, some that are not in

line with the original statement of work. On several of the IT contracts that

the team reviewed, OED created amendments detailing work that utilized

contractors that might not be the most qualified for that additional scope of

work. It was not clear whether this was done for expediency or other

reasons, but the practice we believe leads to poor contractor selection

decisions.

It is unclear that what OED contracted for was actually delivered. A number

of the reports pertaining to IT projects were not sent to the team as

requested. Some of the QA reports the team received were not final copies,

did not have signatures and one had draft comments included in the

margins, although the report was from October 19, 2012 and should have

been already finalized. The revision and signature page was missing in

seven of the eleven QA reports provided to the team.

Recommendations

The contract administration process needs to be reviewed and brought in

line with contracting best practices. This includes reviewing and

restructuring the contract library in a manner that allows for easy

tracking of projects, contract deliverables and payments. Appropriate

retention policies should be applied and any revisions should be subject

to an authorization and approval process. The team also recommends

contract administration training for the Project Management Office. ITS

needs to work closely with the OED Procurement Office to implement

these changes.

Review and evaluate existing vendors and determine if they are meeting

the deliverables set forth under their contracts. The review should also

include an evaluation of the quality of the deliverables they have

produced for the department.

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IT Management Practices Issues

It appears that a number of IT Management practices are lacking

including:

o Project Management

o Software System Development Lifecycle

o IT Capacity Planning

o IT Standards and Procedures

o Work Management

Recommendations

Continue and encourage development of best practices in the Project

Management Office.

Hire a consultant that has expertise in IT business processes such as ITIL

and CMM and have the consultant work with ITS leadership to

implement best practices.

Train and support ITS and business staff that work on IT projects using

appropriate IT methodology.

Identity and Access Management Project

The State of Oregon had begun a project on Identity and Access Management as a

state enterprise project. The project had not moved forward and OED required such

a system for their business partners and so undertook the project on their own.

The IT assessment team was asked to review the I&AM project due to budget

overruns, delays in deployment, reports of unsatisfied customers and inconsistency

in information provided by the technical staff on the status of the OED project. The

project was cancelled yet the system was in production for approximately 50

business customers.

The OED OPRS system that was undergoing development required the

functionality of an I&AM system to be completed and so it was imperative that an

I&AM project be completed for OED in a timely manner.

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I&AM Project

The team understands that there are three major components to I&AM:

Oracle I&AM products, Registration and Org Affiliation. It is important

to note that when doing a system assessment, these specific components

need to be evaluated separately.

The Registration and Org Affiliation were written in-house and appear to

be the basis of the issues. The Oracle I&AM products are stable products

and OED has other Oracle databases and IT employees to support them.

There are proposed system fixes to the in-house developed products

currently residing in the test environment that were not allowed to be put

into production.

The system is in production now and being utilized by OED staff,

partner agency staff and about 50 businesses that were part of the pilot

project. Because it takes a significant amount of time for businesses to

use the Registration and Org Affiliation components the I&AM system

has not been made widely available to Oregon businesses. If the system

is shut down, a solution must be found for these users.

The I&AM Assessment points to the OED solution as “monolithic” and

gives the recommendation that this project should be separated into parts

that each system can use when needed. Rather, the solution should be

considered as an overarching strategy with the systems staged to take

advantage of the final solution. The value of having an enterprise I&AM

solution is that different applications can take advantage of that one

unified approach.

The I&AM Assessment did not report on what it would take to make the

system workable.

The I&AM Assessment stated that “documentation from the I&AM

project initiation would indicate that Microsoft based IAM solutions or

solution components were not evaluated or considered”. We believe that

there was not a mature Microsoft solution available at the time of the

original product selection and is not clear today whether or not this

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Microsoft solution will meet OED requirements, nor why the vendor

singled this product out.

The I&AM Assessment did not do a cost comparison regarding licenses.

They noted that the cost to move to a Linux platform was significant as

Linux licensing was on a “per user basis”. Consideration was not given

to the OED license agreement which, according to State Data Center

personnel is on a “per processor” basis. The “fragility” of the AIX

architecture was noted in the report; however, Oracle runs on AIX for

other state agencies as well and it is considered to be a reliable platform.

The Statement of Work for the I&AM Evaluation Report has the

following tasks for OBS:

1) Evaluate and Assess the I&AM solution

2) Prepare written analysis of alternatives for moving forward….

Including but not limited to: what alternatives exist for fixing I&AM

and creating a path to a clear, favorable outcome? What are the pros

and cons of each alternative: What are the resources required,

including but not limited to skills, staff hours, tools schedule, cost and

risks?

3) Prepare written recommendations…. How can the Department obtain

the best value from the investment already made in I&AM? Which

alternative is recommended and why?

The final report did not provide alternatives for fixing I&AM, nor did it

provide the resources required, nor the cost and risks for alternatives.

Costs would have been a major factor in the decision making process for

any alternative, and yet none were detailed in the report.

Recommendation

Form a team of non-OED, state employees with the requisite skills, giving

them access to Oracle, Zirous, etc. to review and evaluate the current

architecture and system. Educate business users on the technology and

security considerations and work to meet their requirements. There appears

to be a similar situation occurring with the Document Management System

project and we recommend a similar evaluation of this project also be

completed.