Three Main Objectives
Roseville, Calif. – Today in part two of a 3-part series on the City of Roseville’s pursuit of technological excellence, guest contributor Ivan Farkas covers three main goals/objectives. For those that missed it, you can catch part 1 of the series here.
The Citywide Technology Work Plan (pdf below) for the Fiscal Year 2024\25 Outlines Three Main Objectives
Roseville’s Citywide Technology Work Plan for the Fiscal Year 2024/25 (and beyond) highlights three primary goals for improving citywide security and services.
Goal A: Focus on People and Foster Partnerships
Goal A catalyzes the citywide tech transformation by forging trusted partnerships. It aims to improve perception of IT reliability and communication by providing clear goals and following through. This requires continual assessments of demands and available resources. As examples, Roseville can further increase transparency, trust, and partnership potential through routine service reviews, intranet presence, functional area contacts, and “maturity” in metrics to ascertain the most relevant data.
Relevant data should also be available through “balanced scorecard metrics” via an accessible dashboard-type presentation. As a result, clear and actionable goals are easier to align with the business needs of operating departments.
Departmental cross-training yields more fruitful collaborations
Partnerships and cross-training between IT and other departments is necessary for a fruitful tech transformation. The roadmap outlines a need to promote departmental knowledge through improved on-boarding and training programs, while providing opportunities for collaboration through meetings, lunches, and resources like system diagrams.
Developing a “responsibility matrix”
Assessment is as essential as analysis. Defining departmental and employee goals allows assessment by developing a RASCI (Responsible, Accountable, Support, Consulted, Informed) responsibility matrix. An infrastructure audit for a gap analysis on best practices can show the size of the gap between the city’s current tech status and its goals. Expanding the recruitment pipeline through temporary help services, internships, and increased outreach can help the city manage its networks and projects.
Goal B: Optimize Civic Operations and Efficiency
Goal B centers on optimizing city operations by increasing process efficiency. Automation and intelligence distribution technologies are vital for streamlining workflows and back-office processes. Accordingly, IT documentation tracks existing tool use and efficiency while extracting insights from collected data.
Working with data and customer collaborations can illuminate departmental and overall IT accomplishments, shortcomings, and financial status to discover opportunities for employing new or existing technologies. These evaluations will allow proactive-rather than reactive-IT responses that align with citywide interests.
Marketing and evaluating existing technologies
Marketing existing technologies increases transparency and utility of available tools. For example, developing a matrix for each IT service can boost organization by documenting each service and application. These matrices can provide cybersecurity assessments while enhancing incident response efficiency.
After implementing new technologies and training strategies, or modifying existing ones, staff surveys and scorecard-style reports can reveal their impact and show areas for future improvement.
Goal C: Ensuring Infrastructure Reliability and Security Citywide
Goal C leverages the previous assessments, integrations, and modernized training strategies to ensure reliable, secure, safe technology operations citywide.
Reliability begins with security
Simple security measures include educating city staff on secure use of hardware and software. In turn, increased security allows automating and remote monitoring of formerly manual processes, saving time and resources.
Additionally, improving High Availability (HA), a system’s ability to maintain operations in the event of component failure, is an important aspect in solidifying citywide disaster recovery posture in case of system failures, disasters, or cyber attacks. Disaster recovery posture relies on anticipating and preemptively mitigating tech risks through practices like Cloud backups, frequent testing, patch updates, and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR). EDR handles cyber-threats at user endpoints, including laptops and servers.
Further security measures may involve approval forms for access to sensitive or privileged information. Additionally, creating an expert training program for Small-to-Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), partners, and stakeholders, including the Emergency Management Team (EMT) and Technology Insider Group.
Leveraging tech to inform intelligent budgeting
Roseville’s work plan includes an onus on financial project spreadsheets and constantly updated pecuniary data to anticipate service costs and prevent funding burdens.
Big data, AI, and spending forecasts can inform budget allocations to essential services, including law enforcement. For example, funding distribution over the past fiscal year has eyed upgrades like the police department VMware ESXi servers, which allow multiple virtual processes to run through a physical server.
Inspiring and Supporting Future Technologists and Engineers
Roseville is simultaneously setting the foundation for future innovations by inspiring and supporting upcoming generations of technologists through the Placer Robotics facility for school-aged children. Additionally, the Roseville Venture Lab offers a like-minded community and other resources for hopeful innovators and entrepreneurs.
Placer Robotics sharpens STEM skills
Placer Robotics drives engagement through fun, student-centered robotics challenges (like competitive relays and combat robotics) that focus on hands-on experience to build Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) skills.
Roseville Venture Lab supports entrepreneurship
The Roseville Venture Lab is an entrepreneurial center established to inspire innovators, boost businesses, offer mentorships, and spur job growth.
This partnership is a public-private entity comprising the City of Roseville and Growth Factory, a Rocklin-based startup accelerator. The Roseville Venture Lab builds community among innovators and entrepreneurs by providing a coworking space and hosting events, programs, and partnerships for workforce development.
related
Roseville’s commitment to the pursuit of technological excellence: Part 1
