From the January 2010 issue of Municipal Interface:
The Municipal Reference Model: Smarter Government by Design
By Roy Wiseman
Peel Region, Ontario
In what is a breakthrough for municipal government in the 21st century, the Municipal Reference Model has become a living entity at last. After years of work, a team of Canadian municipalities has created a Web-based service with automated tools for defining and planning municipal programs and service delivery.
This accomplishment has been made possible by MISA/ASIM Canada. Under the auspices of this national coalition of municipal IT associations, the Municipal Reference Model Version 2 Project, or MRMv2, has created a pilot project for the new service and is planning to raise more funds to make it available for use by municipalities across the country.
This means that Canadian municipalities will become the first in the world to have a national service available to them for describing, organizing, and planning their service delivery in a consistent manner using a standard set of software templates and modelling tools.
What is the Municipal Reference Model?
The Municipal Reference Model (MRM) is a set of concepts and tools that can help municipalities define and describe their business in terms of the programs and services that they provide - in the terms that are most meaningful to municipal clients, residents, taxpayers and stakeholders. Describing what we do is the first step in improvement. In this regard, the MRM can be used for both external and internal services and can be a key tool assisting municipalities in transformation projects, ranging from organizational restructuring to specific service improvements to creating an IT architecture.
The key components of the MRM are:
· Meta-model, consisting of a standard defined vocabulary of municipal terms including program, service, output, outcome, target group and client as well as the relationships among these concepts;
· Reference model, consisting of a standard set of municipal programs, services and processes that may be provided by any municipality in Canada;
· Repository and tools that permit individual municipalities to load, analyze, and compare their services and related characteristics with other municipalities, including performance targets and results;
· A framework that describes how all MRM elements work together and provides the necessary context for using MRM;
· Guidance on how to use MRM for specific purposes such as business process redesign, municipal strategic planning, program/service reviews, financial planning, performance management and information technology planning.
MRMv2 Project Phase 1 Planning, RFI, Evaluation, and RecommendationThe MRMv2 Project started in October 2007. Its the purpose was to upgrade (re-establish) the previous MRMv1 Model (c1995), aligning it with related reference models in use by the Government of Canada (GSRM), Province of Ontario (PSRM) and other recognized reference models and making it available to the municipal community through a software tool (MRM Design Workbench: Smarter Government by Design).
Phase 1 (October 2007 to September 2009) included the following:
a) Planning the project;
b) Raising start-up funding for the initial work - $90,000 raised from 12 municipalities;
c) Planning and specifications for MRM version 2 features;
d) Preparing and issuing a request for Information (RFI) soliciting interest from the private sector in partnering with MISA to create the MRMv2;
e) Evaluating responses to the RFI and beginning negotiations with the successful vendor (IBM);
f) Undertaking with IBM an Industry Business Value Assessment (IBVA) study to confirm interest from municipalities across Canada in the proposed MRMv2 solution;
g) Evaluating and accepting a proof of concept from IBM, illustrating how a solution meeting the requirements of the RFI and the IBVA participants could be implemented using various IBM business modelling software products;
h) Raising the additional funding required to develop the initial implementation, including licensing the required software from IBM - $235,000 raised from 10 Canadian municipalities and a further $20,000 from the Joint Councils (PSCIOC and PSSDC, representing the CIO and Service Delivery communities, respectively, from all levels of government in Canada).
MISA/IBM Relationship Agreement
Phase 1 concluded with approval by the MISA/ASIM Canada Board of a five-year Relationship Agreement between MISA and IBM, with the following key components:
- MISA and IBM will jointly develop throughout the five-year term of the agreement an MRMv2 package.
- The package will be built using IBM business modeling software tools (Rational Requirements Composer, Rational Software Modeler, Rational Requisite Pro) along with Lotus Quickr (used for the collaboration site). MISA will license these software tools from IBM.
- IBM will develop, at its cost, and provide to MISA enhanced interfaces among the above software products to facilitate data movement and increase integration.
- IBM will, in addition, provide professional services to implement the MRM Design Workbench within these software products at no cost to MISA.
- MISA will make the resulting MRM Design Workbench available (under conditions still to be established) to its members and other public and private sector organizations in Canada, provided that MISA acquires the requisite number of (concurrent use) software licences to support such use.
MISA will provide IBM with non-exclusive access to the MRM (meta-model and reference model) for incorporation in IBM software and services, which it can make available internationally -- and within Canada, for organizations who prefer to deal directly with IBM, rather than through MISA.
(As implied, the non-exclusive provision means that MISA can make similar arrangements with other vendors who wish to build software solutions around the MRM. While the IBM software will be used for the MRM collaboration and business modeling site, supported by MISA, this does not restrict others from providing add-on or alternative solutions, or from incorporating MRM concepts in existing products.)
MISA/KPMG Relationship Agreement
In addition to the agreement with IBM, MISA has been negotiating a parallel Relationship Agreement with KPMG. Although negotiations are not yet complete, KPMG has similarly been providing essential and substantial professional services to the project at no cost. (In 2008, KPMG acquired Chartwell IRM, developers of the original MRMv1, under contract to MISA Ontario and providers of MRM-related consulting services to numerous municipalities and other governments across Canada and internationally.
MRMv2 Project Phase 2
Development, Implementation and Roll-Out
Following completion of the Relationship Agreements and interim negotiations to confirm continued KPMG support, Phase 2 of the MRMv2 Project is now under way. This phase involves developing and implementing the MRMv2 solution, first for a small group of pilot municipalities, then to other municipalities who have contributed resources to the project, and finally to other interested municipalities across the country.
The anticipated milestones for Phase 2 are as follows:
a) The software tool MRM Design Workbench (MDW) has been built using various IBM products. A team from the City of Toronto has played a key role in working with the IBM team to develop and test the solution to confirm that it will meet municipal requirements.
b) The resulting MRM Design Workbench has been approved by a Design Review Group, consisting of representatives from a number of small and large municipalities and reasonably addressing their needs (understanding that not all features and capabilities will be available within the initial release).
c) The MRM Design Workbench has been uploaded to a Web site hosted by eSolutions Group (who also support the MISA Ontario Web site).
d) A small working group has been established to confirm the initial meta-model contents (specific terms, definitions), with this work to be completed by the end of February 2010.
e) A group of Ontario municipalities has undertaken the work of creating an initial Reference Model (standard set of services and associated descriptions), with this work to be completed by the end of March 2010.
a) Four municipalities (Toronto, Peel, Halton and Edmonton) have agreed to undertake pilot implementations (loading data into the MRM Design Workbench and beginning to use this to address a business need in their municipality). Pilot implementations will begin in February 2010.
b) Various user guides and other documents are currently being prepared for use by the pilot group and other eventual users.
c) Limited implementations in other contributing municipalities familiar with MRM concepts will begin in approximately April 2010.
d) Implementation in the remaining contributing municipalities (those not already familiar with the MRM) will begin in July 2010.
e) The program governance and funding models will be defined by the end of March 2010. This will include a precise definition of the services that participating municipalities will receive (in addition to access to the software) for their contribution to the MRMv2, such as how much and what type of training, consulting and other support will be provided.
f) Additional funding will be required in 2010 since the funding raised to date has already been spent or is committed to support the initial implementation, such as the operation and support of the web site.
g) Implementation for those who have not currently contributed will begin in the fall or winter of 2010-2011, based on a fee schedule to be determined as part of the funding model.
With respect to the "tool" to enable municipalities to use the MRM, there are several elements of the solution that interconnect in the MRM Design Workbench. The top layer is composed of the business use cases (the uses to which the tool will be put, such as organizational realignment). The second layer defines functional tasks required for each type of business use case. The third layer has MDW features that will provide the desired functioning, and the fourth layer provides the data sets from which the customized models will be developed.
KPMG has undertaken responsibility for documenting the business use cases that provide the foundation for this work. To date, 41 cases have been identified.
A sample list includes: organizational design, role and responsibility mapping, multi-jurisdictional service delivery, service level review, customer satisfaction survey, strategic plan development, IT strategic planning and 3-1-1 implementation. Based on its consulting experience, KPMG is able to identify a set of steps (functional tasks) that a municipality may undertake to address these business uses. Fortunately, many of the tasks are common to many of the use cases (including defining or reviewing programs and services, providing map services to organizational structure, and revising service accountabilities.)
A final point is that only four of the 41 use cases will have been fully documented and implemented in the initial release of the MRM Design Workbench. Two of these relate to essential cases required by MISA to manage and administer the service: 1. Manage MRM Models (Meta Model and Reference Model), and 2. Manage (Add/Delete) Municipal Subscribers. A third, Manage "My Municipality" participation in MRMv2 Program, represents another foundation piece, permitting a municipality to begin to use the service. Finally, one 'municipal operations' use case (Organizational Design and Restructuring) has been included in the initial release.
Notwithstanding the above, it is assumed that a substantial portion of the reusable functional tasks will have already been defined and documented as part of the above use cases - much higher than implied by the four-of-41 ratio. It is also worth noting that each use case merely uses existing features of the software so no new software coding is required. Nevertheless, the project team may be required to generate additional reports, matrices or input screens to support new functional tasks associate with the new business uses.
Visionary Project
This has been an exciting year for the MRMv2 Project. Much has been accomplished as we have moved from a concept to a working tool. The tool is admittedly raw, and more work will continue to be required during 2010, informed by the initial pilot and subsequent implementations. Realistically, we should have a usable and useful product by mid-year, but continued development will be required to incorporate newly identified capabilities throughout 2010-2011.
Current plans include a major presentation and training session on this project at the MISA Ontario Annual Conference, to be held in Niagara Falls in June 2010. It would be reasonable to anticipate similar sessions at other regional conferences later in the year and in early 2011.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge those who have contributed time and resources to the project:
- Members of the Steering Committee, representing initially a number of Ontario municipalities but with increasing participation from across the country;
- IBVA participants and members of various working groups and design review groups from across the country;
- Staff from the Region of Peel and City of Toronto who have provided substantial project management and project team resources to the project, during the RFI, proof of concept and design phases;
- IBM representatives who have believed in the project since the initial RFI and have continued to negotiate for resources within IBM to allow the project to proceed;
- KPMG representatives, who have been with the MRM project from the beginning (since Chartwell was awarded the contract for the original MRMv1) and who are truly the visionaries behind the MRM and continue to provide support to the project;
- MISA visionaries (circa 1990) for conceiving and then moving forward on a project that was years ahead of its time and whose full implications we are only just beginning to understand.
Roy Wiseman is Chair of the MRMv2 Steering Committee and chief information officer at the Regional Municipality of Peel. He can be reached at roy.wiseman@peelregion.ca.
