ICT Strategic Plan 2008 – 2011 Executive Briefing

Prepared by SMS Management and Technology April 2008

Executive Br ief ing

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Introduction

In November 20071, The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) commissioned the development of an ICT Strategic Plan and Roadmap. The ICT Strategic Plan builds upon the work undertaken in the 2005 Strategic IT Review and provides a set of resourced, prioritised initiatives for AFMA to implement over the next 3 years to 2011, and maintain in the out years.

The investment required to implement the initiatives in the ICT Strategic Plan, over the next three years, is approximately $7.3 million. The investment programme incorporates 16 discrete initiatives, covering 49 recommendations.

This document should be read in conjunction with the approved version of the ICT Strategic Plan.

Background

Since 2005, the landscape of the Commonwealth fishing industry has changed in a number of areas. The reduction of the number of participants in the industry and the transition of AFMA from an Authority to a Commission are two of the most significant impacts on AFMA. The move towards co-management options is one significant strategic direction to address lower revenues and increase stakeholder expectations of AFMA.

One of the initial tasks in the development of the ICT Strategic Plan was to assess the status of the previous Recommendations from the 2005 Strategic IT Review, as a foundation for further initiatives in the ICT Strategic Plan. Interviews conducted during the development of the ICT Strategic Plan highlighted that AFMA focussed on implementing individual recommendations (or ‘cherry picked’) from the 2005 Strategic IT Review rather than focussing on an aligned set of activities. The assessment against implementation of the Recommendations highlighted a number of capability gaps and business, technology, communication and information challenges.

A high priority for AFMA is to improve its ICT support and delivery to business in order to become a proactive organisation. AFMA currently 1 RFT F2007/1323, “Provision of ICT Architecture, Business Case Development and System Specification Services”

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suffers from low levels of design, technical and project management capability, which places AFMA at risk of not delivering against its outcome of ecologically sustainable and economically viable Commonwealth fisheries. An additional challenge for AFMA is that as the industry continues to decline in terms of participants and overall total allowable catch, the critical mass that would justify investment in the development and maintenance of further systems becomes less significant.

AFMA now finds itself facing the ‘wicked problem’2 of trying to resolve a situation which has, historically, been difficult to reconcile, at both a delivery and public policy level. The lack of investment leading up to the Strategic IT Review in 2005, followed by investment decisions since then has led to the current situation of attempting to balance business needs in a degrading ICT environment.

Critical Drivers

The high level critical drivers for the Strategic ICT Plan cover the following areas:

• for AFMA to introduce simplified and streamlined systems and process to reduce fisheries management costs to industry;

• for improved and increased reporting to Government;

• to improve AFMA’s system interoperability and information interchange with other Government Agencies and Departments;

• for provision of accessible, accurate and consistent data;

• to provide AFMA staff and stakeholders with the capacity to make better decisions through improved accessibility, presentation and discovery of information;

• to facilitate a greater degree of self management by industry; and

• for AFMA IT to manage delivery of systems to support business capabilities.

High-Level Objectives

The high level objectives for the Plan are to enable AFMA to focus on:

• ensuring AFMA and decision making bodies have effective, accurate and timely information to maximise decisions;

2 APSC, “Tackling Wicked Problems -A Public Policy Perspective”, 2007.

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• process and system renewal to support reductions in AFMA costs and deliver more efficient, effective and relevant services, and

• stakeholder and customer facing processes and provision of information to support changes to fisheries management and reduce costs to Industry.

These high-level objectives have been summarised from the five objectives in the ICT Strategic Plan.

Summary of Initiatives

A total of 16 initiatives, covering 49 recommendations, have been developed for consideration by the AFMA Board:

1. Improve Services to Industry

2. Improve Business and IT Alignment and reengineer aspects of AFMA business

3. Governance Process ( )

4. Improve Procurement and Contract management processes and performance

5. Staff upskilling programme ( )

6. Improve ‘On-the-boat Data’ Collection

7. Data Warehouse Development ( )

8. Implement Business Intelligence Capability ( )

9. Implement effective Corporate Records Management

10. Finalise Pisces Programme and add CRM ( )

11. E-business ( )

12. Application Rationalisation

13. Infrastructure and Applications Rationalisation and Technology Baseline ( )

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14. IT Market Testing

15. Information Security ( )

16. Identity and Access Management

The eight initiatives marked with a ( ) are considered to have the biggest business impact, and between them cover 37 of the 49 recommendations. These nine initiatives will cost approximately $5.5m over 2008 – 2011.

A profile of each initiative is included in the ICT Strategic Plan, and is linked to one or more of AFMA’s sub-outputs, as described below:

Capabilities and Benefits The proposed initiatives have been developed through grouping recommendations into areas of capability that will deliver benefits to AFMA. The initiatives, in turn, have been grouped under three capabilities:

• improved service to AFMA customers and stakeholders,

• improved Information and Data Management and Use, and

• improved organisational effectiveness that support AFMA’s service delivery and information/data stewardship.

The relationship between the initiatives and themes is illustrated in the following diagram:

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Each group of initiative aligns with one of the three themes, and contributes to delivering outcomes that are derived from the three Strategic Themes.

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The proposed initiatives in the ICT Strategic Plan will contribute to the following business functions within AFMA, as depicted in the following diagram:

Costs The initiatives have been costed over three years, commencing in FY 08/09. Costs are indicative, with detailed planning required via business cases. A summary is provided in the following table:

Year Cost

2008/2009 $2,978,750

2009/2010 $2,918,000

2010/2011 $1,336,000

Total $7,232,750

A more detailed breakdown of costs is provided in the ICT Strategic Plan.

Progress since 2005

Generally, progress was made against the HIGH and LOW priority recommendations, with little or no progress against the MEDIUM priority recommendations. This can be attributed to:

• ‘cherry picking’ the implementation of individual recommendations, rather than as an aligned set of activities,

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• a lack of understanding of what had to be done after the Review was delivered,

• a absence of IT Governance, and

• a lack of an implementation plan.

Based on the assessment of the recommendations, there has been some progress against establishing a better IT environment (via Strategic Theme 5 above). There has been limited progress in progressing in areas such as business optimisation (Strategic Theme 2 above) and information and data (Strategic Theme 4 above). The corollary to this is that AFMA is now investing in activities such as the Information Summit (held 28 March 2008) to work with industry and other stakeholders to address issues of data and information collection, reporting and use.

Despite this, potentially, negative assessment against the progress of recommendations, AFMA has made inroads in improving the organisational structure and delivery and support capabilities. Since the appointment of the AFMA CIO, Mr Mark Farrell, in September 2007, the following activities have been undertaken or commenced3:

• initiating a review of the 2005 Strategic IT Review and development of the ICT Strategic Plan and Implementation and Capability Roadmap;

• conducting and implementing a IT Security Review and Threat Risk Assessment;

• planning to consolidate servers, upgrade the network and desktops, implement a mobile computing capability and for AFMA to join Fedlink;

• procurement, via a Request For Quote, for an e-log capability;

• planning and consideration of requirements for e-monitoring;

• review of the progress of PISCES in preparation for the e-licensing project, and implementation of new management arrangements for the PISCES project.;

• planning for the Data Warehouse; and

• engaging Gartner to provide executive support to the CIO with access to organisational technology assessments, experiences

3 This list has been based on work undertaken in the development of the ICT Strategic Plan and from the TPI IT Benchmarking activity in March 2008.

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and templates to support improving management of AFMA IT activities; and

• sourcing and engaging two resources to augment the ‘business management capability’ of the FIS Branch.

AFMA has made progress in addressing some of its challenges, and must continue its work of organisation and technology renewal to build a technical and organisational capability to deliver and support affordable systems to support AFMA’s business.

Current IT Costs

From a cost perspective, AFMA has been assessed as spending 10%4 of its operating expenses on IT, which includes data entry and management, project development and infrastructure. This compares to 7%5 for Whole-of-Government and up to 9% for Fedral Government in North America.6

The TPI Benchmarking activity, in March 2008, performed cost attribution of IT spending to IT towers; such as desktop, helpdesk, LAN ports, network and applications development. The conclusion was that AFMA’s IT costs were generally low and the opportunity to outsource was minimal. The TPI benchmark confirmed the earlier findings in this report that AFMA has generally underfunded IT investment over several years.

In the coming 3 years, AFMA should be prepared for increased IT costs, as a percentage of operating expenses. These costs will be due to funding the activities to implement this ICT Strategic Plan and responding emerging ‘participation’ costs such as security compliance and management of Fedlink.

Moving Ahead

The plan for the future will involve AFMA managing an ICT environment that is ‘path-based’, which means it can respond to emerging requirements from AFMA users and deliver efficient, effective and relevant services to industry and other stakeholders.

4 Source: TPI IT Benchmarking Activity, March 2008 5 ABS survey of government ICT expenditure, 2002-2003. The date of this report predates a number of Departments joining Fedlink, ACSI 33 compliance, adoption of Blakberries and additional expenditure associated with secure gateway environments and email privacy/security markings. 6 .Sourced from“Gartner 2006-2007 IT Spending and Staffing Report: North America”, Gartner, 5 March 2007

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Holistically, the system will provide the foundation for growth rather than pin AFMA down to its current operating environment.

The foundation for the actions that AFMA needs to take over the next 3 years should be built on reducing complexity of its business through streamlining fisheries management processes and practices. In part, this will be achieved by continuing to trial and enact co-management in key fisheries in consultation with industry and a regulatory review of the rules and regulations applying to fishing management. ICT management needs to be supported with steady investment in deliberate and planned activities to replace legacy systems and implement new solutions on a simplified technology infrastructure.

The balancing aspect to the new arrangement is that as industry assumes more responsibility, there will be a requirement for more IT capability and capacity to support audit operations. This concept is illustrated below through the use of co-management ‘sliders’ that illustrate changes in the level of responsibility for industry to take on more responsibility for Regulation and Management, with AFMA building more capacity in Audit.

Industry taking more

responsibility

Industry taking more

responsibility

Industry taking more

responsibility

Industry taking more

responsibility

AFMA introduces moreaudit capability

AFMA introduces moreaudit capability

2008

-20

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2008

-20

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As AFMA moves the Regulation and Management controls towards greater industry responsibility, AFMA will need information systems, and supporting technology, that enable greater auditing and assurance capability.

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Actions

AFMA needs to drive the refresh of its IT environment and introduce new ICT capabilities to support achieving its outcome of “Ecologically sustainable and economically efficient Commonwealth fisheries”.

The ICT Strategic Plan proposes 16 initiatives that focus on:

• delivering enhanced services to AFMA stakeholders and customers.

• managing data and information quality to support business processes and organisational reporting,

• improving accessibility to information by staff and stakeholders,

• adoption of a programme and project management approach to managing its activities, and

• provision of mobile ICT support for AFMA staff.

The initiatives will be undertaken across the three main functions associated with fisheries management: compliance and licensing and quota management and monitoring and research.

Governance and decision making.

A critical requirement for AFMA is that it must have the capability to execute the direction and intent of the Board in relation to the ICT Strategic Plan. In addition to the initiatives proposed in the ICT Strategic

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Plan, the Executive must lead change through the use of appropriate Governance mechanisms to:

• monitor progress against the ICT Strategic Plan,

• give direction and provide advice when problems, risks and issues arise,

• manage high-level engagement with Government and Industry,

• be accountable to Managing Director and the AFMA Board,

• build trust within AFMA and with industry, and

• support the introduction of new business capabilities.

Development of the ICT Strategic Plan

The development of the ICT Strategic Plan included reviewing the influences on the development of the Plan and interviewing AFMA executive and staff and other stakeholders, including the Board and Industry. The ICT Strategic Plan comprises:

• a strategic IT intent,

• strategic themes,

• principles,

• critical drivers,

• objectives,

• a set of recommendations,

• a set of initiatives to address the recommendations, and

• a technology roadmap for implementation.

These elements were used in the development of an enterprise architecture for the current AFMA environment, which in turn guided the development of the initiatives for AFMA to implement over the next three years to 2011.

The following diagram illustrates the flow of inputs and interaction between the elements of the ICT Strategic Plan:

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AssessCapacity

LicenseFishers

MonitorCompliance

The proposed initiatives in the ICT Strategic Plan were developed by:

• assessing the current operating environment, including business imperatives;

• reviewing the status of recommendations from the 2005 Strategic IT Review;

• building a view of the desired position of AFMA in the future, including technology and organisational capabilities;

• developing a target architecture and updated service delivery model;

• building a roadmap of activities, within an integrated project delivery framework, for AFMA to undertake over the next 3 years; and

• developing a cost model that provides a clear breakdown of implementation costs within a realistic delivery timeframe.

In conjunction with the development of the ICT Strategic Plan, a number of other activities, including the ICT Cost Benchmarking Activity, undertaken by TPI7, and the Business Transformation Strategy were considered, and used in the development of the ICT Strategic Plan.

Issues facing AFMA

A number of issues were identified from interviews undertaken with AFMA Executives, Staff, Board Members and external stakeholders. At a high level, these relate to the need to mature AFMA’s IT environment in terms of identifying, defining and managing the introduction of IT 7 Delivered to AFMA in March, 2008

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capability and provide the best return on IT investment. Issues were divided into four groups:

1. Fisheries Management Data and Information,

2. Fisheries Management Processes and Systems,

3. Working with AFMA Stakeholders and Customers, and

4. Technology Delivery and Support.

The following table provides a sample of the some of the details behind the issues:

Issue Group Sample of Detailed Issues

1. Fisheries Management Data and Information

• lack of analytical capability to match legacy data and consolidated transaction data.

• improving the quality, accessibility and consistency of data and information to supports key decision.

2. Fisheries Management Processes and Systems

• the continuing8 need for a capability to support improved decision making and management of data to support fisheries management activities.

• requirement for clear, articulated business processes.

3. Working with AFMA Stakeholders and Customers

• the need for systems and processes to provide better services for AFMA’s stakeholders and customers.

• the need to move away from managing industry’s business and potentially over-servicing them.

4. Technology Delivery and Support

• the need for more effective governance within AFMA to ensure that IT investment decisions provide a capability in support of AFMA’s business.

• the need for technology forecasting via business input, to enable the CIO to assess AFMA’s technology landscape and initiate activities to meet emerginf business needs.

Further details are provided in the ICT Strategic Plan.

If these issues were considered in isolation, AFMA could be seen to be in a precarious predicament - this is not the case. Like any other organisation, AFMA faces the typical challenges of maintaining its IT infrastructure in a business environment that, increasingly, is demanding more services and support, with typical staffing and skills challenges.

AFMA has initiated several activities, described in the ICT Strategic Plan, that indicates it understands what needs to be done and that it is actively meeting the challenges to work more efficiently and effectively to improve its relevance to its stakeholders.

8 This was identified in the 2005 Strategic IT Review.

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The proposed strategic IT intent for this ICT Strategic Plan is to develop and sustain an IT capability to position AFMA, in association with industry, as a practical and innovative fisheries manager, through the use of modern, science based fisheries management practices, supported by utilising leading edge technology.

Three strategic themes were developed to provide the impetus for the proposed initiatives. The themes are:

Strategic IT Intent and Strategic Themes

• Organisational Effectiveness. The first two themes are primarily outwards focussed and reflect a similar situation for AFMA in 2005. AFMA must deliver cost effective, efficient and relevant services to its stakeholders and must build its general business, governance and management capacity to enable it to procure, develop, deliver and manage new capabilities to support its core business of managing fisheries.

• Enhanced Service Delivery. From the interviews undertaken with AFMA and Industry, enhanced IT service delivery is a key tenet for the Plan.

• Information and Data Stewardship. AFMA needs to improve management of its data and information holdings.

Implementation Roadmap

The following roadmaps illustrate the implementation path of the proposed initiatives, with year-by-year costs, as well as a capability development view of benefits and savings. A full version, with costs and staffing profile, is included in the ICT Strategic Plan.

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Purple shaded boxes are costs to be carried forward under ‘business as usual, with yellow shaded boxes funded from the decommissioned logbook programme.

2008/2009

Number Initiative APS FTE Contractors Hardware Licensing Services1 Improve Services to Industry2 Improve IT and Business Alignment and reengineer aspects of AFMA bus 13 Governance Process $120,0004 Improve Procurement and Contract management processes and performa 0.755 Staff upskilling programme $90,0006 Improve On-the-boat Data Collection 27 Data warehouse development 1 18 Implement Business Intelligence Capability9 Implement effective corporate Records Management10 Finalise Pisces Programme and add CRM 1 1 $500,00011 E-business 0.5 1 $50,000 $50,000 $20,00012 Application rationalisation13 Infrastructure Rationalisation and Technology baseline 1 2.5 $20,000 $5,00014 IT Market Testing15 Information security 0.5 1 $20,000 $50,000 $200,00016 Identity and access management

7.75 6.5Subtotals $813,750 $1,040,000 $90,000 $100,000 $935,000

Year 1 - 2008/2009

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2009/2010

Number Initiative APS FTE Contractors Hardware Licensing Services1 Improve Services to Industry 0.2 $20,0002 Improve IT and Business Alignment and reengineer aspects of AFMA bus 13 Governance Process4 Improve Procurement and Contract management processes and performa 15 Staff upskilling programme $60,0006 Improve On-the-boat Data Collection 27 Data warehouse development 18 Implement Business Intelligence Capability 1 1 $20,000 $50,0009 Implement effective corporate Records Management 0.5 1.510 Finalise Pisces Programme and add CRM 1 1 $100,00011 E-business 1 0.5 $50,000 $20,00012 Application rationalisation13 Infrastructure Rationalisation and Technology baseline 1 2 $200,000 $50,00014 IT Market Testing 0.2 0.615 Information security 0.5 $200,00016 Identity and access management

10.4 6.6Subtotals $1,092,000 $1,056,000 $220,000 $150,000 $400,000

Year 2 - 2009/2010

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2010/2011

Number Initiative APS FTE Contractors Hardware Licensing Services1 Improve Services to Industry2 Improve IT and Business Alignment and reengineer aspects of AFMA business3 Governance Process4 Improve Procurement and Contract management processes and performa 15 Staff upskilling programme $60,0006 Improve On-the-boat Data Collection7 Data warehouse development8 Implement Business Intelligence Capability 19 Implement effective corporate Records Management 0.2510 Finalise Pisces Programme and add CRM 1 $100,00011 E-business12 Application rationalisation 113 Infrastructure Rationalisation and Technology baseline 214 IT Market Testing $20,00015 Information security $200,00016 Identity and access management 0.2 0.5 $20,000

3.2 3.75Subtotals $336,000 $600,000 $0 $0 $400,000

Year 3 - 2010/2011

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