Project Odyssey : What they do in the Shadows

I’m still reading through the detail of this project, however one thing is clear in my mind, $15m won’t cut it. We’ll get to that later. What I want to do in this blog is look at the answers that have been given so far and remind people why this is important. So, we’ll go through each response and then I’ll put out there projects of a similar size and what they cost. Because, one of these things is not like the other.

But let’s start with this:

Example costs (sorry, I can’t name people here):

1. Wellington City Council’s website replacement – $2m plus.
2. Insurance company replacing 3 core systems – similar size (a few years ago). $150m.
3. IRD IT Transformation – $1.5B – $2B.
4. Cost of infrastructure replacement in a similar size organisation – $27m.
5. Cost of scoping a change to core systems, gathering requirements, similar size organisation – $135m.
6. Cost of Auckland Super City gathering requirements for IT upgrade – $100m.
7. Estimate cost of IT transformation in full amalgamation for Wellington (excluding many costs) – $150m.
8. Moving a financial application from old, to new hardware, smaller organisation – $5m.
9. Replacement cost of financial system, similar size organisation – $13m.
10. Replacement cost of HR system, similar size organisation – $9m.

Cost of replacing 70 IT systems at Wellington City Council – $15m.

I could go on, and I could reference these, but I’m off to have a beer shortly (it’s actually Saturday in blog world, this is just timed to post on Monday morning, though, a beer at 10 on Monday morning sounds attractive.)

Here’s we are currently:

1. The scope and requirements for Project Odyssey have been reduced, significantly, which is what I based my plus $100m on originally. In August 2014 the Council talked to Computer World New Zealand and outlined that there were 120 systems to be replaced, that at least four Councils were involved, and that Odyssey was part of a “three legged” approach to replacing IT. Now, it is only WCC and only 70 systems.

2. The costs still seem very lean. It cost the WCC over $2 million to replace their website a year or two ago. It has so far cost them $1.4m just to get to this stage, which if added to the $15.1m makes it $16.5m. Similar projects I have seen cost significantly more, examples above. So, I don’t believe the figure.

3. The wider IT transformation spoken about in August 2014, is certainly going to be a hell of a lot more than what the WCC are stating for Odyssey.You see, the overlap between Odyssey and the wider computer work is very unclear. The real question is, how much is WCC going to spend on IT transformation over the next few years?

4. Questions haven’t been answered. The WCC seems to either have lost, or simply not use minutes and other forms of correspondence, at least in respect to this work.

5. There is, outside of these questions, a belief that “off the shelf” packages are cheaper. They are almost never cheaper. They take great modification to operate within a unique business environment. This again, drives up cost.

6. After de-scoping parts of Odyssey (see 1) the Council is very keen to divorce itself from amalgamation discussion and any other IT projects that it is either part of, or leading. “Three legs”, remember?

7. There is no link, in my opinion, between this work and Smart City.

8. Governance does not explain how the Mayor and Councillors will take responsibility to ensure this is a success. Whatever “this” is. Also, the DFA of the Chief Executive should be checked again, now we have gone from $10m, to more than $15m. I.e. That overall price may drive it to full Council.

9. The answer to “how is it that WCC can say this about hour high-tech capital” and then make a decision that appears to be at variance with their strategy to build a high-tech capital, isn’t answered.

10. The Council have not answered whether or not they think that there is not one single IT company in New Zealand that can do this work.

11. Readers should analyse questions 12 – 16 and draw their own conclusions on the tender process.

12. The fact that the Mayor and Councillors don’t seem to have information about what the IT transformation is going to cost, in total, including Odyssey, and are confused about what is going on (rightfully), should be ringing warning bells everywhere.

So many more questions! How much is all of this really going to cost when you add the “three legs” into the mix? How does it relate, or not, to amalgamation? What is actually going on between Councils around shared services? How do we get more transparency? How does the community get involved in these discussions?

This is important. This is a test of Council to engage with the community, in fact, to engage with the Mayor and Councillors as well. It is about transparency, some parts of the Council do very well at this, but some sections persist with the old culture of the cone of silence. The cost will be high, the total cost should be known and managed by the Mayor and Councillors, not a sub-group in the bowels of the organisation that is accountable to only itself. We should know what marvellous services we are going to get for all this money. We should be sure that this project, whatever it is, should fit with the overall goals and strategy of the Council along with modern concepts such as Smart City.

The confusion will persist until the truth comes out. That is all. Remember, I am not saying this is an incorrect decision and the wrong thing to do, it might well be the case. However it smells fishy and it raises questions of engagement, not only between Council and public, but Councillors and the Council. It also looks to be part of a wider drive on privatisation and amalgamation. But we’ll get to that later.

Detailed Question Analysis

These questions were sourced from this article. All I have received directly is an answer to the OIA questions. The WCC dumped all this information to every media outlet they could without responding to me directly, most likely in a hope they would pick it up before I posted… Nice one Richard. You see, they all contacted me first. So next time, just send it directly or at the same time?

1. What is the total expected cost of Project Odyssey with a view to replacing all the 120 IT Systems, over what period, including all costs, and noting items that have not been costed?

The Council claims that it will replace 70 of their 120 systems, it will take 18 – 20 months, will cost $15.1 (document says $15.3, but this was a confirmed finger error), over some period, this will save the Council $27.5m. Bargain. Spend $15m and save $27.5m.

I dispute those costs, I just can’t see in my experience how that can be.

2. What are the 120 systems that are being replaced?
There is a wide variation, however, it includes high cost items such as financials.

3. Where is the business case that supports that cost?
“The Business Case as presented to the Odyssey Steering Committee is held within WCC document management.”

A trite and petty answer. The business case has been supplied as part of the OIA request. It is clear that the question asks for a copy of the business case. This is beneath the Council to respond this way.

4. Why is Project Odyssey a pre-requisite to amalgamation as the Deloitte Report states?
“The Council has not made Odyssey a pre-requisite for amalgamation. This is a question best put directly to the Local Government Commission.”

Someone has though. So we have some obfuscation going on here. You can’t tell me that these parties haven’t discussed this, because it’s in the formal Deloitte report and any sensible project would understand what else relies on it. Wouldn’t it.

5. Why was the public not engaged to get feedback on their requirements including residents, resident groups, businesses, and the education sector in particular?
“Extensive requirements gathering from all WCC business units was undertaken. These business units provide the services to those and other groups, and requirements gathered from subject matter experts in those areas reflect the needs of those groups.”

Not answered. The answer in my opinion is dinosaur thinking. While the rest of the world gathers requirements now from customers inwards to IT, dinosaurs still gather requirements from IT and forget about the customer. It’s not good enough in my opinion to wax lyrical about the amount of consultation they did with staff.

6. Why does the WCC think that there is not a single IT company in Wellington or New Zealand that can complete this work?
“The Council undertook an open procurement process, and briefings were held with local technology companies detailing the breadth of the Councils requirements. An extensive evaluation of the responses we received was undertaken, following an open RFP that encouraged consortium approaches. No potential vendor was excluded.”

Not answered.

7. Why has a monolithic system been chosen as opposed to modern methodologies of multiple suppliers with a strong integrator?
“This is not a monolithic system, and does not replace all of the applications currently used by the Council. As stated above, the project is targeting approximately 70 of the Councils 120 different systems. What this project will achieve is to streamline the fragmented, and expensive to maintain, current arrangements.”

Ha, it doesn’t now does it! But the already intent was just that, as outlined in the tender documents and publicly available presentations along with the fact the original target was 120 systems, over at least four councils. They’ve changed their requirements. The question is, when. Because strictly, under tender rules, if you change requirements mid-tender, or at the end, then the tender must be restarted.

8. How does this decision support the WCCs drive to invest more in local IT and its High-Tech Capital initiatives?

“The current applications landscape at WCC is a complex picture, built over a long time — resulting in systems that do not integrate as well as is desirable, Contain duplicated data, and are increasingly difficult and costly to maintain. These now present an increased threat to the stability of Councils service offerings.
This situation will worsen as time passes, and may reach a point Where business interruption from these systems failures will simply not be sustainable. This will create a significant impact on Councils ability to service its customer’s needs. Before we reach that point, we must act – and this is a fundamental driver for this project.
We are putting in place a modern progressive system, able to provide better reliable functionality in self-service and online services for staff and the public
The Odyssey programme supports the use of Wellington based ICT resources. For example, TechnologyOne has its head office in Brisbane, but the Wellington office employs 21 staff. The Odyssey programme office and the WCC ICT function employs Wellington based ICT staff. These staff are heavily involved in the implementation of Odyssey. The Odyssey programme also utilises a Wellington based ICT company to deliver programme IQA services.”

Not answered. What I expect to see is a link between what Council delivers, and what it’s strategic goals are. I agree with the fact that the system must be replaced, or it will over time fail, but it seems to me that the question around local IT is still not being answered.

9. How does this decision support Smart City initiatives?
The implementation of Odyssey will improve the Councils ability to provide online services and self-service abilities for “Council staff and the public. For the public it will mean access to council services anytime, anywhere and on any smart device.”

This is a fraction of Smart City. It seems that the Council doesn’t have their head around the concept. In a full smart city model, you don’t deliver the external functionality, or seek to control it, you let the community do it, after building a Community Cloud or similar. By itself, this will increase the cost of the project.

10. How will the Mayor and Councillors ensure that this project is 100% successful given they are ultimately responsible for it?
“This is a big change programme. As with any project of this size, there will be teething issues. With the right people and systems in place, we will work through any issues in an open and transparent process.

The CEO, Executive Leadership Team and the Programme Steering Committee are responsible for the successful delivery of the programme.”

Standard answer, but not answering the question. How will the mayor and Councillors ensure the project is 100% successful?

11. Will any minutes of future governance, and other, future meetings in relation to Project Odyssey be made public
“Each request for information, including requests for copies of meeting minutes, will be assessed at the time of the request. The Council works within the framework provided by the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act when assessing information requests.”

Yup. This highlights a total lack of transparency. Rather than making the information available, like, I note, the majority of the Council does, when it comes to this project we are going to have to formally and legally request all documents. If I were Mayor and Councillors I’d be worried, because it, in my opinion, shows a very old culture that excludes not only the public, but also them.

12. How many staff at the WCC are former employees of TechnologyOne, and vice versa”
“There are 1500+ employees at the Council. A review of all employees to determine who are former TechnologyOne employees has not been carried out. To ascertain how many Council employees have previously worked for TechnologyOne would require substantial research of the Councils Human Resources files, and follow up with each member of Staff.”

Nonsense. You’d send an email out, just like every agency does when OIA’s come out, asking all staff if they had ever been a TechnologyOne staff member. In my opinion, further lack of transparency and an attitude toward not wanting to provide information.

“However, I can advise you that in the Councils IT team, which is likely to be of more relevance to you, there is one former employee of TechnologyOne – employed by the Council as the Odyssey Programme Manager. The Council was aware of this previous employment as it was declared up front by the Odyssey Programme Manager. The Council is unaware of any former employees of WCC now working at TechnologyOne.”

I’m going to leave people to determine their own thinking on this.

13. Were any former employees of Technology One involved in the writing of the RFP
“The Odyssey Programme Manager was involved in the writing of the RFP, though the decisions as to the final makeup of the RFP were made by the Steering Group, not the Odyssey Programme Manager.”

I’m going to leave people to determine their own thinking on this.

14. Were any former employees of Technology One involved in the evaluation of the RFP
There were a number of people involved in the evaluation of the RFP.
This included the Odyssey Project Steering Group, the Councils Procurement Manager, and the Councils IT senior leadership team. The Odyssey Programme Manager was also involved.”

I’m going to leave people to determine their own thinking on this.

15. Were any former employees of Technology One involved in the process of managing the RFP?
The Odyssey Programme manages all activities in the Programme, though as pointed out above the Steering Group make the final decisions.

I’m going to leave people to determine their own thinking on this.

16. How were conflicts of interest managed and what was the nature of these?
Conflict of Interest statements have been signed by all who have direct involvement in the Programme, Potential conflicts of interest have been raised, none of which were significant enough to require formal management.

17. Were the requirements for the RFP changed at any time in the process. Particularly after initial questions from responders and short listing. If they were, how did the new requirements differ from the original requirements?
NO.

Nice big capital letters there. It has changed. How do they explain this from the 15th of August 2014? Note, read the entire article for context, I am quoting for brevities sake.

The Odyssey project, as it is known, will provide a single platform for core applications. There are currently more than 120 systems. The council is seeking to cut the cost of IT per user from $13,600 to between $4000 and $6000. Four of the six councils in the region will take part in Odyssey. They are Wellington, the Greater Wellington Regional Council, Porirua and Upper Hutt. The other two, Hutt and Kapiti, are keeping a watching brief on the project, Jayasinha says. The four will all contibute to the cost. After gathering the information, Wellington council decided an integrated system across customer relationships and service management, regulatory management, land and property management, asset management, human resources management and financial management was the way to go. The third leg is shared services, encompassing such things as data storage, a communications network and a single IT help desk.

So Odyssey was about 120 systems across four councils and it is now about 70 systems only for WCC. That would be a requirements change wouldn’t it? What is also interesting is that Council is desperately trying to limit this discussion to Odyssey, the cost looks low right? The reality is that there are “three legs” to the total IT transformation. So is this “vote splitting?” Where you are going to spend tens of millions, maybe more than hundred, over successive years, however to keep it below the radar and in line with DFA, you chop it into smaller pieces. I don’t know.

One new question then springs to mind. How much is Project Odyssey, plus the other “two legs” actually going to cost? You see, I thought that was what Odyssey is… A project to transform IT across four councils replacing 120 or more systems. What they are playing here is very different from that. And it’s still not $15m in my opinion.

18. How many other Councils have signed up to the solution?
“This is an internal Wellington City Council project.
The requirements were shared with other Councils in the region before release of RFP. However, we were not asking the other Councils to become involved. We were advising them of the project and what we were doing.
Some of these Councils retain a Watching brief on the progress of Odyssey.
None of the other Councils have made any financial investment, or any commitment to invest.”

That’s at variance with what they stated last August. So what’s with that?

19. How many local jobs will this create for Wellington
“11 Wellington based employees of TechnologyOne will be involved in the Odyssey project. Local companies and individuals have already been involved in the programme so far, fulfilling various roles, and will continue to do throughout. Although this may not be considered a local job created, but it is local resources engaged.”

Fair enough. Half answers the questions.

20. How many jobs will be lost within the IT Department at the WCC as a result of this project?
“At some time after completion of Odyssey a review of the remaining application landscape – its support requirements and enhancementupgrade pipeline – will determine the extent of any change in size of the Councils IT team.”

Riiiight… So they didn’t factor staff costs into the Project Odyssey business case? Which would be remiss. But if they did, then we assume the answer to this to be “none.” Or they just don’t want to answer the question.

21. Is it true that there is a split within Council over this project, with wider Council not supporting the decision?
“There will always be different views in respect of the solutions to problems that arise, and the Odyssey project was not exempt from this. This is a normal state of affairs.
There are in the region of 200+ of the Council team directly engaged in the Programme. Staff from different business units, and even teams within units, put forward different thoughts on how the outcomes sought could be achieved, and these were listened to by the Steering Group. The Steering Group, through detailed debate were able to make a unanimous decision on the direction to take.”

It’s “normal” for the Council to be split.

22. Were the Common Capability services offered by DIA analysed, if not, why not, and if yes, why were they discounted?
There is no overlap between the services offered under DIAs Common Capability and the functionality we seek to implement.

I don’t agree. Here is the list of current services that can be bought from DIA. The reason for these services existing is to save money by consolidating services across government, including local government. A lot of local government are using these services already, successfully, but it seems that WCC wants to be exempt from that. Why?

DIA offers web services, security services, desktop services, content management services, infrastructure services, IT managed services (outsourcing), software procurement and licensing services, back office (productivity) services, telephony services, network services, identity services, and shared workspace services.

But apparently not a single one of these is in scope of Project Odyssey. Get me a Tui Billboard. Stat. These are absolutely in scope of the “three legs” greater strategy and I would argue also Project Odyssey.

23. What roles were represented on the RFP evaluation team? I.e. IT, Finance, Innovation, etc.
“Business lnformation & Technology; Building Resilience; Customer Services and Parking; Building Compliance & Consents; Business Reporting, Analysis & Performance; City Events; City Housing; City Networks; City Planning & Design; City Planning and Design; Community Networks; Democratic Services; External Relations; Finance; Financial Accounting; Financial Strategy & Planning; Head of Innovation; Health, Safety & Wellness; HR; Organisational Development; Parks, Sport & Recreation; Positively Wellington Venues; Property; Research, Consultation & Planning; Strategic Asset Management Planning; Strategy.”

24. What roles are represented on the steering committee for the project?
“The Odyssey Steering Committee is compromised of the CEO, the ELT (Director, Governance; Director, City Growth & Partnerships; Chief Financial Officer: Director, Strategy & External Relations; Chief Operating Officer; Chief Asset Officer; Director, Human Resources), the manager of WCCs Strategic Asset Planning team, an independent advisor, and a senior member of another Council in the region.”

25. What expertise do the RFP evaluation team and steering committee have?
“The RFP evaluation team have experience of their individual business units, the services offered, and the knowledge of the functionality required.
The Steering Group is made up of the WCC executive, an independent advisor with extensive experience in IT and government, and the experience of a senior representative of another Council in the region.”

26. How much has the RFP cost to run to this point?
“External costs to date, including inception, RFl, RFP and evaluation through to December 2014: 1.4m”

Ouch, that’s a lot.

You also requested that the Council makes the following information public:
1. The Business Case for Project Odyssey

Can be found here with redaction.

2. The gift register for the IT Department at the WCC.

Can be found here with redaction.

3. Without naming companies or individuals, release the data on why responders were NOT successful.

Refused because they are still in the procurement process. However, the WCC publicly announced who had won. So why not answered?

4. The scoring documents including how responses were weighted. Note: Not the scoring itself of individual responses.

Refused because they are still in the procurement process. However, the WCC publicly announced who had won. So why not answered?

5. Without disclosing company or individual information, information related to any conflicts of interest and how they were managed.

Answered as above.

6. Correspondence and meeting minutes between the WCC and the GWRC in relation to Project Odyssey.

Partially answered. Apparently there is no correspondence or meeting minutes, only a presentation, which can be found here.

7. Correspondence and meeting minutes that mention Amalgamation.

“The Council holds no correspondence, or meeting minutes, concerning project Odyssey, mentioning amalgamation.”

Well, that’s probably true, as in question 6 they don’t appear to keep minutes or correspondence.

8. The RFP proper and all related materials that were released to the market.

Can be found here with redaction.

Ian Apperly is a Freelance Writer and sometimes ICT Consultant. "I've been in IT for over twenty years and a freelance writer for longer. I live in Wellington, New Zealand, the city on the edge of the world."@ianapperley on twitter. Blogs at http://strathmorepark.org/ . Appears occasionally at scoop.co.nz .

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