The High Cost of Fractured Technology: Part One

Tyler Podcast Episode 15, Transcript

Our Tyler Technologies podcast explores a wide range of complex, timely, and important issues facing communities and the public sector. Expect approachable tech talk mixed with insights from subject matter experts and a bit of fun. Host and Content Marketing Director Jeff Harrell – and other guest hosts – highlights the people, places, and technology making a difference. Give us listen today and subscribe.

Episode Summary

Engaging with citizens is more critical than ever. The desire for a seamless experience is high, and the pandemic has put an ever-increasing dependence on technology. Tyler internal expert Mike Teeters helps us understand the concept of a government technology stack and why it is so important to local government.

Transcript

Mike Teeters: All four of those are really core pieces to what we think of the GovTech Stack framework. I'm going to add two other pieces here that underpin on that those two pieces really relate to, how do I ensure that all of that infrastructure has high availability and resiliency? And that's where cloud services really come in.

Jeff Harrell: From Tyler Technologies, it's the Tyler Tech Podcast, where we tackle issues facing communities today, and highlight the people, places, and technology making a difference. I'm your host, Jeff Harrell. I'm the director of content marketing for Tyler Technologies. I really appreciate you listening. The problem we are looking at today is the challenge of fractured technology. Citizens are looking for seamless experiences with their local government. And in this time of social distancing, the reliance on technology is greater than ever. Well, today, we turn to one of our internal experts, Mike Teeters, who is Tyler's Manager of Corporate Development Products, to help us understand this concept of a government technology stack and why it's important. I think you'll find the concepts Mike shares very interesting. So here's part one of my two-part conversation with Mike Teeters.

Jeff Harrell: I know the industry is talking a lot about the acceleration of technology because of this pandemic that we're all living in. What do governments have to remember to remain successful as they move forward and into the future?

Mike Teeters: Yeah. In today's environment, especially with this immediate pain from COVID-19, I think you've got a bit of a double edged sword when organizations think about what they need to do to be successful. COVID has provided this catalyst, if you will, for accelerating tech investments. Little bit of a silver lining there. The flip side is that pressure has introduced some confusion and arguably some risk in terms of how do I make the right investments in order to address some of these challenges today. I think in order to mitigate that and really to ensure that they're still on a success path, emphasize a few points, if I could, to any organization. One is there's lots of other organizations that are going through what you're going through. And so there's a lot of good examples. If you look out at your peer group, you look at industry organizations that have data, and have really done some analysis in number crunching to provide guidance. You can also look at your community and the feedback that you're getting from stakeholders outside of your organization and other relevant sources, if you will, that can help you prioritize projects, making sure that the things that are going to be most important and most impactful, pop up to the top of your priority list. So that would be one thing.

Mike Teeters: The second thing I think is to set expectations around what those outcomes are going to be as you start to prioritize projects. And again, because you're under some pressure, you might be able to push forward with some technology investments that you might have held off on in order to fill some gaps, but you probably want to set reasonable expectations on what's going to come out of that, very much, this idea of crawl, then walk, then run. Again, people get really excited because they think about, we've accelerated something, but very much the idea that you want to make, what I would call, methodical steps forward. And I'm sure we'll dig into some of that on some of your other questions. And then the last piece here, which I would argue is critical for anything to be successful, is communicate, communicate, communicate. Providing really clear and transparent communication as projects are executed. All three of those elements are really parcel to ensuring you're going to be successful.

Jeff Harrell: And Mike, I know our Chief Strategy Officer, Jeff Puckett, has said recently that there's really two ways forward for local governments. One would be finding new ways to use existing systems. And two would be adopting a modern government technology stack to ensure scalability into the future. Can you talk a little bit about those two different paths?

Mike Teeters: Yeah. Jeff's points I think really highlight to a transition that we're seeing in public sector, leveraging these current technology investments that they've already made while also investing in solutions that are going to be able to support new delivery models in the future. And so there's challenges there around what we use today to do our regular operating processes, and then the potential that we have to introduce new novel, really game changing processes to this overall service delivery model that they have using new technology solutions. Let's use COVID 19, which we just talked about as a way to maybe illustrate how those two paths could relate to the GovTech Stack components. And I'll pick one area, just citizen engagement, because I think that's one, all of us can really relate to when we think about COVID-19. When the pandemic struck and municipalities ran into a situation where they had to shut the doors to City Hall, they were forced to rely on these alternate channels of communication and service delivery. Now, our website or a mobile app, social media, these other tools that we use for communication became even more important. The ability to conduct the business of government, if you will. So for example, taking payments for city services, being able to do that over the web, or over the phone, using, say, interactive voice response, or other channels became more important. And then, of course, just the day-to-day business that they do, just like any of us, using remote working tools, cloud office suites, video conferencing solutions to conduct those day-to-day operations. So all of that suddenly became a big thing.

Mike Teeters: And so if you look at what most governments had, they probably had some capabilities to do some of those things, but in other instances, it really became important for them to quickly introduce new technology models or solutions in order to support providing a broader set of channels. So you've got your existing investment that you've already made in these core technologies that you're using, but now you've also got a driver to invest in modern solutions. And I'd say, if you think about that next step, investing in modern solutions, really, you're looking at things that start to pull all these elements together. So again, using our COVID example, I'll just give you one quick Tyler solution that we've introduced. We launched a virtual court service, which works for municipal courts. That's a great example of something that really compliments a lot of what municipal courts do day in and day out. But now it really becomes an even more critical piece of their overall service delivery model because now there's a new channel for them in terms of communication, document sharing, and different court activities. Not only does that address this near term COVID challenge, but let's be honest, now it introduces a completely new way that a municipal court can serve the community that they're in. It means that, when you think about longer term objectives, in terms of case resolution and overall citizen satisfaction, they're able to tick those boxes right off the bat. Some of that was forced because of COVID, but it fits into their longer term picture.

Mike Teeters: And so you can see how, both leveraging the existing tech that you have, but also thoughtfully applying these modern solutions and making those investments fits really well. We mentioned earlier that COVID was a catalyst for that. I think that's probably a great example of how those two things work together, their existing case management solution, and then this new piece that now allows to really add a service delivery channel that they didn't have a year ago. Really effective, I think.

Jeff Harrell: So we're going to dive into GovTech Stack itself here in a second, but before we do that, could you tell us a little bit about what happens when jurisdictions don't have one?

Mike Teeters: Yeah, good analogy for this would be thinking about the GovTech Stack in the way that we might think about a blueprint for a home. And so the GovTech Stack, which we'll talk about in more detail, includes these various components in the same way that when we look at a blueprint for a house, it includes the foundation, the walls, the roof, plus the plumbing, the electrical wiring, and so forth. And so you take all of those pieces together. Once you've built your house, now you're able to really satisfy these goals that the family has. I've got a safe place to live. I've got security in knowing where my possessions are and my family is. I've got a healthy environment that I can live in. So all of those outcomes are targeted, if you think about, in owning a house. So I think you can apply that analogy similarly around the Gov Stack. And if you don't have a clear vision in terms of what an organization, a public agency, municipality is really trying to achieve in terms of service delivery and outcomes that they're targeting for their constituents, I think then it's very problematic when it comes to prioritizing investments. The GovTech Stack concept really lays out, if you will, the blueprint elements that you can think about. When we have a lack of investment or absence of investment in those different components, it really can, ultimately, impair an organization from having the ability to meet their service delivery or targeted outcome goals. I've got one piece of the house that's out of whack. It can be challenging for them in order to realize overall goals that they want.

Mike Teeters: So the upshot here is stakeholders, whether they're council members, or city residents, or business owners can be frustrated, unhappy, disappointed because there's inability for them to get service delivery outcomes that they're looking for. And again, I think we'll be able to talk through some examples of that, but I think that can really be the challenge, is there's this disconnect between what's expected and then what we're actually able to deliver.

Effects of Outdated Technology

Jeff Harrell: That's a great analogy. I've not heard the blueprint analogy before. It made me think of the house that you look at there. They've added an addition after the fact, it doesn't quite fit, doesn't look like it's part of the house, maybe the foundation or the plumbing's jacked up a little bit. I think that's a great analogy. What does outdated or fractured technology look like right now for cities that don't have a good, solid GovTech Stack?

Mike Teeters: I think, for those cities, you end up in a situation where you're acquiring technology solutions in a piecemeal fashion. And what that means is you're ultimately solving these small problems, if you will, that are within a department or within a particular scope of concern, if you will, without really thinking about how does this investment fit into the broader picture. And that's where I think that blueprint analogy really helps. The upshot, if you will, of all that, and why it matters is because, again, if you think about the goals that a particular organization lays out in terms of service delivery or targeted outcomes, it can be really challenging for them to deliver on that. And we see that through our own experiences. Uneven or poor citizen experience, internal processes that really don't function well, if you will, are ungamely. And ultimately, then we also run into blockages in terms of how we can connect business processes together, share data, and so forth. A really good example here might be, and I think one that would be visible for a lot of people would be say a bill paying experience in a municipality. So let's say I pay my municipality a monthly utility bill. I pay a monthly parking pass, use the city garage where I work downtown. I pay for my kids seasonally to participate in city leagues. I'm a small business owner. I have to pay an annual business license fee, and so forth. So for a lot of municipalities, all of those different activities are handled in different departments. And it could mean that I need to go to different locations. There's different payment experiences. I literally have to write each one of them a check, or whip out my visa card to pay each one.

Mike Teeters: Now, contrast that with an experience that we have today, when we think of Amazon, or Apple, or another big e-tailer where I get a complete experience, if you will. I can do all these activities through one payment experience. Now, I realize it's not completely apples to apples. We think about a big e-tailer, we think about city government, but I think a lot of people have a reasonable expectation that, hey, if I'm consuming city services and I'm paying for them, couldn't I just go to one spot, find all the things I need to pay for, and just pay for them there? And that's a really simple example where I think it gets even further compounded. I used to an example of just a city resident, but you could imagine if you were say a property developer, now I've got to go to a bunch of different agencies. There's a bunch of different regulations that I need to satisfy. It really can be frustrating. And on the municipality side, that frustration really is reflected in the fact that it's hard for them to streamline business activities. It gets challenging for them in order to execute on the business processes they have. So I think when we think about what are those costs, there's a lot of practical costs involved here, in terms of service throughput, delivery time, citizen satisfaction. And all those are really measurable things. You can actually lay out metrics and get a very tangible feel for, hey, this is what, what it means and how it's impacting us as a municipality.

GovTech Stack Explained

Jeff Harrell: Yeah. Mike, that example really resonates with me. We actually own a rent house down in college town, where my daughter lives, and I pay the bills. And so I've got to pay three different bills. Two of them are on auto pay. The third one doesn't even take auto pay. It's painful. Yeah. And I forget which ones I've paid and haven't paid. And so yeah, that example definitely resonates with me. Well, let's dive into this idea of a GovTech Stack. I'm in marketing. Idea of mark tech stack and the financial world you've got FinTech Stack. What do we mean when we say GovTech Stack? What, what exactly are we talking about? Is this a prepackaged solution? What exactly are we talking about?

Mike Teeters: I would think of GovTech Stack as really a roadmap or a strategy based on this framework That we've laid out. It's a way of thinking about the various technology investments that we might make, our technical infrastructure and the systems that we use in order to support the business processes or service delivery operating processes that we have within our organization. And by taking a step back and thinking of this as a collection, if you will, of components, this stack, it helps us to think about things a little bit differently than we might when we just look at that as just one singular monolithic solution. I think it's important then if you adopt that approach, it opens up the doors for leaders to think about ways that they can, over time, update, and modernize those components, and really add new capabilities to what they're able to bring to their constituents. I think the good news for any organization, and you asked, is this something that you just buy prepackaged, is that you can assemble these components over time. There's certainly vendors that offer off-the-shelf, I'm using air quotes as I say that, solutions, but really, the beauty of the direction we're moving in the cloud, and I know we'll dig into this a little bit more, is that now we have the ability to really find the right components that support the business drivers or service delivery drivers for that organization. And so the nice thing is now you have a range of solutions. And in some cases, an off-the-shelf or prepackaged solution is going to be a great fit in order to support a particular set of outcomes that they're targeting.

Mike Teeters: On the other hand, there might be some novel or unique processes where it's actually going to make the most sense for them to come up with a tailored, homegrown solution. And there's tooling that allows that too. Again, if you think of GovTech Stack as really a framework that supports an overall roadmap that an organization can lay down, now we have a way to start thinking about how do we prioritize, how do we invest in order to support outcomes we're targeting. I mean, I think all of that fits really nicely together in framing the way that organizations can think about what they're trying to achieve longer term.

Elements of GovTech Stack

Jeff Harrell: I'll be back with my conversation with Mike Teeters in just a moment. Did you can find great content on a variety of topics at the Tyler Technologies resource center. Just go to tylertech.com and click on resources at the top of the page. You can then search on any topic and find case studies, blog articles, you name it. I think you'll find the information there very helpful. Now, back to my conversation to Mike Teeters. Used the analogy earlier of a blueprint, and I can think ... I don't know tons about houses, but I built a few over my lifetime. And I know there's the foundation, you've got your HVAC, you've got your electrical structured itself. What are some of the elements of a GovTech Stack?

Mike Teeters: Let's dig into that. And actually, I'd like to take a few minutes. Let's just step through what those GovTech Stack components are. I think I can talk to you a little bit about, not only what each part is, but also share with you what that looks like. And maybe we'll walk through a use case, if you will, that will illustrate what each part looks like. So first, let's talk about probably the first piece, which we would call administrative or management systems. And these really reflect the core solutions that support, really, the public sector processes that we're all accustomed to seeing. And it doesn't matter whether it's municipal processes, court processes, right schools, K through 12 educational processes. These are those core back office systems that really drive the overall organization and support all of those operating processes that they use. These are often designed with specific departmental needs in mind, the way they were designed traditionally. Modern solutions really take a different approach to that by starting to break apart those departmental silos and really starting to view the overall solution in a way that integrates processes and data from an overall business perspective. And so, a lot of times, that's a bit of a mindset shift, but when you think about it, it makes complete sense. And I'll give you an example.

Mike Teeters: Let's say that I'm going to open up a new business in my town. And in a modern solution, I might be able to complete all of the tasks such as applying for a business license, scheduling for a city inspection in the space that I'm renting, paying any fees that are required to do that through one exchange. So you can almost imagine, I could go to a portal. I've got a clear list of things that I need to do any submissions and payments. All of that can be done through one integrated experience. And that's different from, "Oh, I need to go to one department to do something, go to another department to go do another thing, and a third department." The underlying systems now are built in such a way that allows for that experience to happen. And that benefits all of the parties involved. It streamlines the steps required to get the application issued, schedule the inspection. So there's time and cost savings for, both me as a new business owner, or really as a constituent, as well as the underlying departments that are supporting that. I have confidence that I've completed all of the required actions for anybody that's ever gone through the process of having to do and addition to your house or open up a new business, it can be challenging because there are regulations and steps that you need to go through. So having all of that organized in a way, and then tied into those core management systems is really critical. And frankly, the upshot of all that is I'm going to be really happy, I'm going to have a high level of satisfaction moving forward as I go through this. And that's the other piece that's stressful, can be confusing, anxious as you go through the steps of even just opening up new business. Municipality wants that to happen. Being able to make that happen in such a way that really drives high constituent satisfaction is also a win, So that's the first piece or these core administrative management systems.

Mike Teeters: Second piece ties into what we were just talking about, citizen engagement, providing a way for there to be really effective interaction between public sector organizations and their customers. I'm using air quotes again. These are systems and processes that exposed residents, stakeholders, small business owners, and other consumers of public sector services to being able to have one-way or two-way communications with an organization, community notices and other types of virtual solutions that we see today. You think about as we move into a more modern set of solutions that starts to expand, and that can include things such as virtual meetings and web payments that are able to be done. Modern solutions really provide a footprint that mirrors this digital lifestyle that a lot of people have. And so the idea that you can go on your phone, and shop, and order things very much continues that same type of experience when you think about citizen engagement. So again, think about our example with our new business owner. Imagine it would be as simple as, "Hey, I've got a mobile app on my phone. I get reminders when I've scheduled my city inspection, and I can confirm that I'm going to be there on time, or I get notifications if the inspector's running late, or I can reschedule the inspection if it fits my schedule better." Those kinds of things, which again drive this really high level of satisfaction in when it comes to citizen engagement, also fit really nicely when you think about the underlying business processes.

Mike Teeters: We're able to more effectively schedule and utilize our inspectors. We're more effectively able to get through all of those activities required to actually get the business open. And you can think of, in a traditional model, a lot of times that would've involved getting on the phone, having to speak to a person. Now all that could be done asynchronously. Second piece of the stack, if you will, is the citizen engagement piece. Third piece would probably be things like data storage and integrations. And we highlight that it's really investments here that are going to allow cross organizational operating processes, and that helps support getting out of these departmental silos. So in modern solutions, we've got workflow tools that will work across our different solutions. We have application programming interfaces, which is, really, just a fancy way to say, we have the ability to connect through connection points, if you will, between different systems, and design in such a way to make it really easy to do those connections. Now, we can start to really approach things in a novel way. We can start to think of these holistic processes that cross different systems. It allows us to knit solutions together in a way that best fits how our business operates, or how we are going to deliver services, if you will.

Mike Teeters: Think about our new business owner. A modern approach to this might be, hey, I've got the inspector in my location. They're going through the inspection. They're using a mobile app to complete the inspection. It's not on paper. They're actually using an application. Once they finish the inspection, and if it passes, they're able to immediately indicate that. That's going to obviously go back to the back office management system. I might get an immediate temporary occupation certificate in my email, right after the inspection is complete. So now, instead of having to re rely on a system that would involve paper and multiple systems, because I've been able to knit those things together, mobile, back office, my email, all those different pieces, well, now I'm already ready to potentially occupy the space. That involved automation, workflow, data sharing between these integrated solutions. And the great thing is that nobody necessarily understands, "These are different GovTech Stack components." Rather, they just see, "Oh, you've got an overall solution that does this now." And so that really paints a pretty compelling picture.

Mike Teeters: The last piece I want to touch on is data and analytics. This piece here really provides what I would call meaningful information and insights into all of these business activities. So now we've got tools that allow us to aggregate, organize, and present data in a way that these decision makers can understand, interested parties can look at, and ultimately, can drive decision making around policy, operating process, outputs, and different aspects of really how we deliver services for constituents. It's a whole new ballgame. Really provides the potential to help provide underlying data-driven decision making when it comes to how we might invest in different technology solutions, but also how we're going to craft these service delivery processes. Again, think of our new business owner. With modern data and analytics solutions, the community planning department, or community development department for that municipality is able to answer questions. What part of town is growing? Where do I need to assign inspectors? How many positions do I need? And all of those have real practical impacts in terms of, how many positions do I need to have available? What do I need to budget in the new year in terms of supporting where that department is going? The flip side is that the business owner also gets visibility. So I can look at what 311 reports were made in the neighborhood where my new business is opening, what public work projects are playing in my area, aspects of different facets of government that could impact what I'm doing, and might drive me to advocate and participating in government in a way that I might not have in the past because I didn't have the information. So those four pieces, administrative management solutions, citizen engagement, this data and integration piece, and then this data and analytics that I get, all four of those are really core pieces to what we think of as the GovTech Stack framework.

Mike Teeters: I'm going to add two other pieces here that underpin all that. Those two pieces really relate to, how do I ensure that all of that infrastructure has high availability and resiliency? And that's where cloud services really come in. And I know what we'll dig into this a little bit more, but that part of the picture is, again, a game changer when we think of how infrastructure was traditionally handled by public sector organizations. So that's one piece. And then, probably the second piece that I would think of is underpinning this has to do with cyber security, really having tools and protocols that ensure, hey, in this new world, and you can see where we've got different systems, communicating different interactions between public sector agency and the constituent, we want to ensure that we've got safe, private, secure interactions occurring. And that's where cyber security becomes really the second underpinning piece, if you will. So hopefully, all of that pulls together and makes sense. I know it's a lot. Hopefully, the example illustrates how those pieces all fit together. I know a lot to digest, but there it is.

Jeff Harrell: Well, Mike is so knowledgeable on this topic, and this is just part one. Mike will be back in two weeks for part two, and we'll learn why each of the components of the GovTech Stack are so important. Until then, this is Jeff Harrell director of content marketing with Tyler Technologies. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you soon.