March 7, 2007

IM/IT Rationalization Report

by Richard Morin

Consultation Committee meetings with the IM group have not occurred since the summer 2006 and only recently and after pressure have they been resumed.

There have been many changes in management personnel involved with this project; only one representative from management at the March meeting had prior involvement with the committee.

For clarification, management is using the term “consolidation” during these meetings to refer to the initial process by which IT/IM functions, their equipment and personnel are removed from the control of current organizations and placed in a holding cell within the IM organization. This will be followed by the “rationalization” phase during which processes will be reorganized, streamlined, and supposed redundancies eliminated. It is these processes to which I am referring when I use these terms.

Transfers of organizations to IM group

Thus far, transfers of two groups from within the NCR to ADM (IM) group have been completed. In total this has involved only 55 civilian positions. As far as I can determine only 2 or three AS-classified positions were involved, the rest being CS positions represented by PIPSC.
It is planned that between April/May 2007, the DMIS organization, DHRIM, DIECS, and ADM (HR Civ) CIO will be transferred to the IM group. Transfer of these organizations is currently in progress and management seems confident that this part of the process will be completed within the indicated timelines.

These transfers will involve larger numbers of positions and it is probable that in addition to transferring the IT/IM functions performed by these groups, some of their current administrative and logistical support positions will have to be transferred as well. It is then that more UNDE-represented positions are likely to become affected.

Union representatives on the committee have requested a breakdown by classification group of positions which are to be transferred to the IM group. This information should be made available for each organization as it begins the consolidation process and will allow us, as the project evolves, to keep tabs on the extent to which our membership is involved. Management has agreed to provide this information and initial data should be available before the next meeting scheduled for late April.

There remain a large number of organizations within the NCR region for whom the process has not yet commenced. Presently management is indicating a target date of March 31, 2008 for consolidation of these groups. Overall, it appears that the consolidation process is occurring but at a much slower pace than was originally intended; at almost every meeting we see target dates shifting to the right.

There is a strong possibility that positions could be reclassified and transferred to a different classification group during this process. There have been a number of cases where this has already occurred and details will be reported and be discussed during upcoming meetings. Concerns were also raised at this meeting that some competitions to fill positions formerly occupied by contractors seemed to be structured so as to favour particular individuals.

We were provided with paper copies of the final Gartner report. This report, which we had asked for some time ago, was an Overview of IT infrastructure and operations at 24 locations across the country. This assessment represented the commencement of the whole IT/IM rationalization process. Now, the department is indicating that it will not be using this information which is unfortunate as in the last analysis, much of the data indicated that DND IT operations compared favourably to comparable operations within other organizations.

Quebec Pilot Project

The most critical item on the agenda was the announcement that implementation of a Quebec pilot project is imminent and will involve all DND non-tactical IT infrastructure and personnel within the region. The Quebec pilot is intended to develop consolidation methodologies which can be used in other regions. While we understood that a pilot project was planned by the IM group, we were originally informed that it would be conducted after completion of the consolidation process in Ottawa, rather than at the same time. Another change is that Bagotville will now be a part of this process.

Union representatives voiced concern that a model developed entirely in one region is to be applied to the rest of the country. The issue here is the lack of consistency between regions in equipment, infrastructure, software, the types and number of support personnel and how they are organized. Each region presents a different combination of air, land or naval elements. These elements all have different mission objectives, and have evolved different IT strategies to meet them. So what might be a minor adjustment in one region could represent a major disruption in another. It should also be noted that the current intention, once the pilot in Quebec is completed, is to apply this model simultaneously to the rest of the country and not region-by-region as was originally planned. June 31, 2007 is the current target for completion of consolidation exercise in Quebec, and March 31, 2008 is the target date for consolidation in the rest of the country.

Most concerning was the announcement that the pilot project will be implemented, not by the IM group itself, but by army staff in Quebec (SQFT). In effect, the IM group has “farmed-out” this portion of the project. This brings an entirely new group to the table, one which has not been party to any of the previous discussion and who may well have their own agenda. It means that the IM group will have at best an arms-length view of the situation and I am not convinced that they will be able to effectively monitor or control the situation on the ground. Discussion at this meeting also suggested that Army personnel in Quebec were being given fairly wide latitude in implementing the pilot. The project could therefore easily take a very different shape and direction than that envisioned to date, especially now that the airbase at Bagotville is involved. Apparently the IM group also has reservations in this regard as we were told that “…To maintain visibility and evaluate pilot progress, an IM Group senior staff officer (to be named later) will be located in Montreal”.

No practical information on how this pilot is to proceed was available. We were informed that a briefing session was held at Valcartier on Feb 28, but details from that briefing were not available, beyond the fact that there was an intention to form a “committee” at Valcartier. There were objections from union representatives concerning this point as we felt that a project having potential implications for employees throughout the region required feedback from more than just one base. Also we would have liked to have some details as to what the mandate of such a committee would be and who would be sitting on it.

Summary and Conclusions

The project has been moving ahead, but at a much slower pace than originally intended. In fact there is the impression that one reason the department is crashing its schedule, by pushing ahead with simultaneous implementation in the regions and by farming out the Quebec pilot, is an attempt to meet its own deadlines.

In terms of the Quebec pilot, announcements at this meeting have created more questions than answers. For example; if SQFT is being given the latitude we suspect, what are their plans and what are they telling people on the ground in Quebec?  Does this match up with what we are being told by IM Group in Ottawa? Do we have access to the staff officer being parachuted into Montreal? Will project mangers in Quebec provide us with the detailed breakdowns concerning organizations, positions and affected position classifications that we have been promised as part of the reorganization occurring within the NCR?  To the extent that consultative processes for this part of the project have been outlined by the department, they seem weak and limited. There does not seem to be a communication plan. So these are the issues which we have taken up and which will be pursued with the department as the project moves into Quebec. Keeping in mind that this pilot has implications for the rest of the country, it would be nice to gain an overview of the process and be able to critique it as the pilot unfolds, rather than after the fact. Remembering also that IM group representatives will now be at least one step removed from the process themselves, it would also be a good idea if we ensured that there is good 2-way communication within our own network. I have no doubt that we will soon be informing the IM group as to how their project is actually unfolding as opposed to how, based on second hand reports, they think it is unfolding.