Bordeaux Métropole - Successful transformation of integrated information systems with EA

Capitalize on knowledge of Information Systems to drive business transformation.

Bordeaux Métropole (formerly the Urban Community of Bordeaux) is a Public Establishment for Intermunicipal Cooperation (EPCI), which brings together 28 municipalities spread over both banks of the Garonne, covering nearly 750,000 constituents. The 2014 law governing the creation of metropolitan areas in France aimed to pool shared services (Finance, HR, IS, etc.) under the responsibility of local authorities. This means each of the 28 municipalities can decide to pool one or more skills on a modular basis - an arrangement that leads to great organizational complexity.

To pool an Information System (IS), 14 other municipalities and Bordeaux Métropole collaborated. The objective for these 15 different entities was to build a harmonized common repository.

The Directorate General for Digital and IS (DGNSI) of Bordeaux Métropole was created on January 1, 2016, and represents nine different departments, with 300 agents, 450 professions to cover, and 15 different IS cultures.

The main challenges of the Department of Information Systems of the Metropolis were to:

• Get control of legacy applications and share this knowledge with all of the 300 IS agents so that they can utilize it
• Pilot the transformation by having a global vision of IS to build a roadmap for transformation
• Create a common IS culture through methods, a shared vocabulary, and a standardized description through a single repository.

"One of the major challenges of our project was to promote the emergence of a common culture in terms of information system.“

Draw up an exhaustive IT inventory to support its transformation

The challenge for Bordeaux Métropole was to set up a shared repository, making it possible to link applications and the various IT objects with the capacities and business processes.

A single repository was created to centralize knowledge of IT assets. To connect the teams and create a common IS culture, all employees were consulted to give a name to this common repository. The chosen one was "CASSIS" for CArtography of the SIS. In addition, a dedicated sharing site called “K6Web" has been created to share and distribute information.

To include the whole DGNSI in the city's transformation projects, working groups of 7 departments out of the nine existing ones are organized regularly to establish precise specifications of the needs related to the repository.

At the end of the first phase, Bordeaux Métropole undertook a pragmatic approach based on specific principles:

1. Turn constraints into value drivers
2. Respond to an expressed need and challenge objectives
3. Prioritize and arbitrate the objects according to the identified managers to preserve the quality of the repository
4. Start with the majority/priority cases before working on the marginal or complex cases
5. Work by iteration by explicitly justifying all the data
6. Implement a "Minimum Viable Product" (MVP) strategy

A pragmatic, iterative approach

This is a somewhat unusual approach in public services because the procurement code requires precise determination of the need before the start of a project. This usually favors adopting the V-cycle method: carrying out the different stages of the scheme one after the other and limiting backtracking.

Bordeaux Métropole's policy was to innovate by implementing an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) Product strategy, which consists of launching a first "modest" version ("Skateboard" version). Developing it based on the needs reported by all 300 IS employees through a "User Club" created for this purpose.

Bordeaux Métropole chose the application portfolio management solution, HOPEX IT Portfolio Management, to map its entire application portfolio. The choice of solution was mainly based on two criteria:

• The relevance of the IT Portfolio Management solution to support Bordeaux Métropole in a merger context
• The ergonomics of the HOPEX IT Portfolio solution Management.

Two MEGA International consultants were able to accompany Bordeaux Métropole to determine the specific needs of the organization and best guide the teams of urban planners in their transformation projects. Once the specifications were finalized, the tool was configured to meet the identified needs.

This phase of preparation and configuration was fundamental to facilitate the adoption of the solution by the various stakeholders, allowing the construction within the organization of a collective, a vocabulary, and a common culture. The work was carried out with the help of a MEGA International consultant to train three functional administrators, who taught all the employees involved in this transformation project within the IS.

The responsiveness of the administrators to take requests into account has created a strong team spirit and a feeling of collective achievement among all the various stakeholders. This enablement of the teams also makes it possible to adjust the solution's roadmap according to feedback from the field. Indeed, the roadmap of the information system is not set in stone; it is defined by all the stakeholders based on operational needs. Thus, all the functionalities that have not been considered are rejected, and the stakeholders are regularly re-questioned to understand how their needs have evolved.

These iterations are possible thanks to establishing a “Users Club," a portal that collects users' expectations. A questionnaire was thus shared with the 300 agents of the DSI to manage the need for changes and adjust the settings if necessary. The process is then renewed every 6 to 12 months to implement a process of continuous improvement and adaptation.

 

"The most important criteria for us was that HOPEX corresponded exactly to our need and our context merging of the different IS of the metropolis.“

A successful transformation of the information system

Bordeaux Métropole has carried out an advanced mapping of its application portfolio and published all the information in an internal portal, available to all of the community's stakeholders.

The benefits were immediate:

1. Better knowledge of IS - Applications, Technologies, Actors, Suppliers: Breakdown by "current state" / Average age of applications / Identification of orphan applications /Impact of obsolescence, etc.
2. Implement a single platform for all stakeholders to decentralize the information entry on the repository. This choice reflects Bordeaux Métropole's desire to "get information as close as possible to its source."
3. Knowledge is shared with all parties and stakeholders via the intranet portal
4. Dissemination of heritage maps transmitted to municipalities quarterly
5. Dissemination of reference data (SI) to other DGNSI repositories through Web Services.

We are proactively growing the project.

The main challenge for this ambitious project is to continuously find ways to transform constraints into value to make the supply more reliable.

With a proactive approach to control obsolescence, the rationalization of applications to serve the organization's transformation is a significant element for Bordeaux Métropole.

"To federate the different teams that make up the DGNSI, we have decided to have a pragmatic, - but above all iterative approach – which is still rare in our organization.“

Next steps

• Perpetuate the methods and the new common culture
• Strengthen proactivity to control and accelerate transformation
  
   

Solutions

• HOPEX IT Portfolio Management
• HOPEX IT Architecture
• HOPEX platform
• MEGA Services Team

About Bordeaux Métropole

Bordeaux Métropole is the urban organization of Bordeaux. It is a French metropolis located in the department of Gironde in the New Aquitaine region, which includes 28 municipalities of the Bordeaux agglomeration.