Waterloo Regional Police Service
1. Is CIMS still the right answer (sharing information across the PRIDE police agencies)? Is this vision too grandiose for police agencies to embrace at this time? Should PRIDE agencies continue to expend effort and resources (demanding more complicated system requirements) to work toward this information sharing goal? Should WRPS follow the “I’ll have what she’s having” strategy and simply select the same solution as the other PRIDE agencies?
a. The answer depends on a few factors that are not completely clear but are insinuated. As always a key factor is funding.
i. Funding: It is not clear what funding is available or could be made available if the those police precincts that are a member of this group would make the IT upgrade a priority. Without that the detail financials we must rely on what the case study provides anecdotally. According to the case study most are woefully behind on technology and do not have the funds to upgrade. This then adds severely to the challenge to integrate the seven disparate precincts that are at various stages of legacy equipment. The funding issue is a key risk factor and with the federal government backing out on its support to provide funding that now increases the risk and challenge. ii. Technology/Performance: Noted above the various precincts have a variety of legacy systems that complicate the integration of their systems into a shared environment. The government has levied on new requirements since the contract was established and those new requirements are outside the scope of the existing contract. The current vendor has been unsuccessful in providing any meaningful capability or solution in almost 5-6 years of effort. Typically in software development it is expected to have functionality available within 18-24 months. This far exceeds this timeframe and is beyond the time this vendor should have been considered for being fired. One of the other aspects not discussed in the case study is the management
a. The answer depends on a few factors that are not completely clear but are insinuated. As always a key factor is funding.
i. Funding: It is not clear what funding is available or could be made available if the those police precincts that are a member of this group would make the IT upgrade a priority. Without that the detail financials we must rely on what the case study provides anecdotally. According to the case study most are woefully behind on technology and do not have the funds to upgrade. This then adds severely to the challenge to integrate the seven disparate precincts that are at various stages of legacy equipment. The funding issue is a key risk factor and with the federal government backing out on its support to provide funding that now increases the risk and challenge. ii. Technology/Performance: Noted above the various precincts have a variety of legacy systems that complicate the integration of their systems into a shared environment. The government has levied on new requirements since the contract was established and those new requirements are outside the scope of the existing contract. The current vendor has been unsuccessful in providing any meaningful capability or solution in almost 5-6 years of effort. Typically in software development it is expected to have functionality available within 18-24 months. This far exceeds this timeframe and is beyond the time this vendor should have been considered for being fired. One of the other aspects not discussed in the case study is the management