S.F. prepares for internal resistance to IT project

Plan discusses ‘sacrificial lamb’ to send message city’s serious about upgrades

As Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber prepares to present the findings Wednesday of a third-party review of a multimillion-dollar project that he calls a key to modernizing Santa Fe city government, internal documents show the highly touted initiative may be in trouble.

Earlier this year, members of the project’s executive steering committee even prepared a “resistance management plan” that discussed the possibility of making an example of any dissenters at City Hall.

“When all else fails and the change is in jeopardy, creating a ‘sacrificial lamb’ sends a powerful message,” the plan states. “It lets the organization know that they are serious about the change and that resistance will not be tolerated.”

The plan states that creating a sacrificial lamb “is only used after other options have failed and the change is at risk.”

It then states that the idea was listed only for “informational purposes” and is “not necessarily” serious.

The findings of a highly anticipated outside review will be released during a news conference at 11 a.m. at Santa Fe Community Convention Center.

While city spokesman Matt Ross rejected repeated requests since last week to release the findings of the report ahead of the news conference, documents previously obtained by The New Mexican under an openrecords request show that the so-called Enterprise Resource Planning and Land Use System Modernization Project faces myriad challenges.

“City staff are unaware of key process flows and functionality as should be expected in this stage of the implementation,” the city’s project management firm, BerryDunn, wrote in a report on Aug. 23. “At this pace of learning, it will likely be challenging for staff to increase their proficiency by go-live to the level needed to execute daily operational tasks in the software.”

The 29-page report outlined a slew of other challenges and offered a handful of options that included delaying certain parts of the project by up to a year. This would not only increase the cost but potentially create other problems in the process.

The outside review is expected to address potential delays.

In addition to performing a socalled Independent Verification and Validation of the project, the nearly $21,700 contract between the city and Acro Service Corp. called for the firm to develop a corrective action plan that includes a time line and cost estimates to correct weaknesses and deficiencies. The firm was also required to submit weekly risk assessments during the monthlong review. The city also refused to release those assessments until Wednesday.

“We are releasing everything we have publicly [Wednesday], which is exactly what I told you on Thursday,” Ross said in an email Tuesday. “I’m sorry that’s not the time line you would prefer, but it is misleading to pretend that’s the same as rejecting your request.”

The New Mexican requested an interview Tuesday with Webber. But Ross said the mayor would answer questions at the news conference, along with City Manager Erik Litzenberg and six senior staff members involved in the project.

“With a new leadership team in place, we commissioned an independent study to evaluate the work that had been done so far on the city’s big Enterprise Resource Planning software upgrades — and to help us chart the path forward,” Webber tweeted Tuesday morning. “We’re releasing the results of the study and taking questions on how we plan to move this critical modernization project forward.”

While the massive technological systems upgrade is designed to move the city from a paper-based operation into the 21st century, buy-in from city employees appears to be an ongoing problem.

Wednesday’s release of the third-party review by Acro Service Corp. comes just two days after the departure of Deputy City Manager Renée Martínez, who was overseeing the project, and two months after the firing of Becky Casper, a city fiscal administrator who played a prominent role in the rollout of the initiative. The city announced earlier this month that Martínez was leaving to take a job as a deputy in the city of Albuquerque’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services.

“I received the job offer [three] weeks ago and the city of Albuquerque was anxious for me to start as soon as possible,” Martínez said in an email last week when asked why she was leaving in the middle of the project.

“I began to speak to the city of Albuquerque, Mayor [Tim] Keller and his team, last June when a colleague suggested I inquire about the recently vacated Chief Technology and Innovation Officer position,” she added. “The conversations evolved to how I may help with the goals of the Department of Finance and Administrative Services. So, the timing has no connection with the ERP project.”

Martínez said the city has “a lot of hard work remaining to finish the other phases of the project” but that the city administration was committed to its success.

“The city is in a good position with the new senior leadership team in place to re-engage with the project and make adjustments in staffing and approaches that are necessary at this time,” she wrote.