The City of Seattle wanted to explore centralization of its contact centers as one opportunity for improving customer service and controlling costs.

MC² assessed 20 contact centers within the City of Seattle across multiple departments. The consultants compared cost metrics across the 20 contact centers and with industry benchmarks. MC² also reviewed business processes against best practices and established recommendations for centralization, business process improvement, and leveraging new technology to improve performance.

Based on MC² findings and recommendations, the City determined that specialized, targeted contact centers with common communication and reporting tools could most effectively and efficiently serve a population with high customer service expectation.

The Seattle City Light Information Technology Systems Division (ITSD) was informed of a set of deficiencies related to their IT processes and procedures from the auditing firm Baker Tilly. Seeing this as an opportunity to make their processes more efficient, reduce risk, and improve internal controls, ITSD contracted with MC² to analyze and prioritize the findings and to develop realistic implementation plans to respond.

MC² conducted a series of process design workshops covering such topics as application access authorization, vendor remote access, segregation of duties, and software procurement and installation. The team reviewed each of their existing processes and then, after benchmarking with other public utilities, created procedures that established improved controls and reduced risk.

MC² helped the City Light teams implement the new procedures, verifying that the appropriate steps had been taken to satisfy the auditors and earn them a clean bill of health.

The Seattle Police Department’s Office of Emergency Management needed to develop and adopt a city-wide strategy and action plan in preparation for an influenza pandemic.

MC² led a multi-disciplinary team of expert consultants to create a detailed roadmap for preparing for and responding to a deadly pandemic. The team facilitated agreement across city departments, including Police, Fire, Public Health, Personnel, Housing and Human Services, and Public Utilities, to ensure that basic public services could be delivered in the event of a catastrophic public health event. This required forging agreements on such sensitive issues as labor contracts, service prioritization, and resource sharing. Drawing on experts in emergency management, human resources, and public health, and quickly assimilating complex health and safety information, MC² was able to generate and publish a plan that addressed overall strategies, interagency coordination, public communications, logistics, and human resources issues.

Because the consultants were able to complete the work ahead of schedule and under budget, MC² had the capacity to assist local government agencies in preparing their own detailed internal action plans.

Two City of Seattle organizations were unable to track their tools effectively or to control the costs of replacement and repair for over $10 million in tool inventory.

In just four months, MC² analysts interviewed staff at 10 different locations, conducted a review of tool room practices across multiple functional areas, identified more than 40 industry best practices, documented and prioritized gaps and opportunities for improvement, and validated their work with the tool room staff, users, and management. The MC² team developed 14 specific, sequenced project profiles to systematically improve tool room effectiveness. Each recommendation was designed as a mini-project with a detailed presentation of costs, timeline, benefits, and dependencies.

Utility executives quickly adopted the MC² recommendations, driving their organizations toward lower costs, better performance, and increased accountability.

In response to a King County Executive Order, King County Facilities Management Division (FMD) needed to improve and standardize its project management processes for capital improvement projects.

MC² Consulting conducted a needs assessment of FMD project management processes; identified opportunities for improved efficiency in consultation with subject matter experts; and documented the updated policies and procedures. The new project management manual also included guidelines for use of the web-based Project Management System, Unifier, to manage all capital project communication and artifacts. MC² consultants trained all project managers and embedded staff on the new procedures.

Because MC² was able to complete the work on time and significantly under budget after two previous consulting firms had failed, the County retained MC² to complete a similar body of work for the County Parks Department.

The City of Seattle was migrating its core financial systems to the current release of the PeopleSoft Financial System, providing an opportunity to standardize financial processes and policies across departments, enable it to make informed financial decisions, and meet regulatory obligations.

MC² was hired to create a work plan template for all 26 City departments to plan and track their work on the project. Earlier versions of a work plan template had not been adopted because of complexity and poor fit. The master project plan that the project team had been using was also a poor fit, as it would require Microsoft project licenses for all users, a substantial expense to the City, and its focus did not cover tasks that were unique to a particular department.

Our team began by interviewing department transition analysts, project managers, and other team members. From these interviews, we built a concise list of core tasks for each department. Once the initial template was developed, we worked with departments to create processes for updating the work plan, disseminating the updates, and gathering status.

Next, we rolled out the work plan template to the departments, holding training sessions and helping pilot departments. After the initial departments were up and running, we incorporated their feedback to further improve the work plan as we rolled it out to the remaining departments.

Our final step was to conduct a knowledge transfer to the new Work Plan project manager. We created detailed instructions for each step of the process and conducted a series of meetings to go over instructions, work plans, and reports, ensuring a smooth transition.

The work plan template we developed was immediately adopted and is still being used by the City project team to communicate and track progress across all 26 City of Seattle departments. It has proven to be an invaluable tool to identify issues and resource gaps early on, allowing the project to stay on schedule and within budget.

The City of Seattle Finance & Administrative Services (FAS) provides central services to all City departments, including City vehicles, facilities, financial management, risk management, and procurement, among others. Each division within FAS is responsible for a set of unique services, and each had taken an individual approach to managing those services. That included developing service agreements with their customer departments separately and inconsistently.

To correct that situation, the director of FAS hired MC² to create a comprehensive service management program that would standardize the approach for service management across all divisions, including the implementation of consistent service agreements. The goal was to provide transparency on the levels of service provided and associated costs and to improve overall satisfaction with FAS’s customer departments.

MC² started with an inventory of the 16 services within FAS and prioritized them based on current customer satisfaction, complexity, and strategic business priority. We also reviewed the service management practices of each, identifying best practices and opportunities for improvement. Next, we developed a standard service agreement process and template. We facilitated a cross-divisional team to create a process and template; the overall approach was guided by a steering committee of department executives. Finally, we provided recommendations including a project plan for FAS to implement the program department -wide, establishing standard service agreements for all services.

The next phase of the project was to lead the FAS service teams in creating pilot agreements. We worked with three separate FAS teams including the Facilities, Payroll, and Procurement team to establish standard agreements with the City departments they serve. One of the most useful and informative activities was holding customer focus groups with representatives from across City departments. FAS then worked with the service teams to create service agreements including roles, expectations, performance metrics, payment structures, and issue resolution mechanisms. With this foundation, our client continues to progress with implementing the service agreements we developed together while creating additional agreements for the remaining services. In addition, they are recommending this model for other internal service organizations.

The Seattle Human Services Department (HSD) hired MC² Consulting to complete current state process documentation, future state process design, organizational change management (OCM), procedure documentation, and training development for implementation of the new city-wide enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and standardized processes. The new ERP system (Financials, Procurement, Contract Management, and Human Resources) brought on a transformation of how the department performs core financial processes, including grants management. HSD services are funded by many different grants, including city, state, and federal, and there were many complexities involved with transitioning to the new system. Stakeholders impacted included Finance, Contract Management, Human Resources, Commercial Cardholders, and all employees and their supervisors for the new timekeeping system.

MC² documented more than 40 As Is and To Be process flows that were impacted by the new system. Their collaborative team of consultants facilitated teams of subject matter experts to map out their current processes and then to redesign them to meet the new City standards and to work with the new system. MC² incorporated Lean analysis into the redesign to identify opportunities to improve the processes outside of the standardization.

MC² was also responsible for OCM on the project, which was foundational to the project’s success, and developed the OCM Plan, Communications Plan, and Training Plan for the project. MC²established a steering committee and OCM team to set the vision, champion the project, and identify and work through areas of resistance and manage risk. The OCM team was so effective that it was implemented for the long term to manage change and drive continuous improvement.

Based on the success of the process design and OCM activities, HSD asked MC² to expand the scope to develop desktop procedures and HSD-specific training. MC² developed custom procedures and training that filled in the gaps where the standard City training left off. The procedures and training developed by MC² supported a much smoother transition to the new system and new processes than if HSD had only relied on the standard training provided by the City.

Post-stabilization, HSD again asked MC² to stay on to support fine-tuning of the process, based on learning from use of the new system. MC² has become a partner to HSD in developing and improving processes.

The Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) hired MC² through the Washington State Lean G2G Contract to perform a Lean Study of the Salmon Recovery project development process. The process is highly complex, involving over 30 external entities across the state that must work together to identify, evaluate, develop, and submit projects for funding. In addition to the RCO staff involved, there is also a Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) that makes the final funding decisions and a Technical Review Panel that participates in the evaluation. The Lean Study had the challenge of sorting out the process and all the various roles participating, with diverse opinions, to reinvent the process to be more efficient and effective.

The project established a Steering Committee with representatives from RCO, the SRFB, and the external entities across the state. This Steering Committee, facilitated by MC², provided the foundation for the study, guiding the project from start to finish, establishing the vision, and championing the project. The collaborative nature of the project is what led to consensus and ownership of the future state process and recommendations to set up for successful implementation. A Steering Committee member commented, “The project was highly collaborative. All of the stakeholders were brought along. We weren’t subjects – we were part of the process, identifying the problems and solutions. MC² did a great job of getting us all on board and building trust. Everyone felt heard and that their issues were addressed.”

The study was multifaceted including data analysis, stakeholder interviews, process workshops with participants, and benchmarking. Stakeholder outreach was extensive. MC² facilitated process workshops across the state with staff from the external entities to document their processes and identify issues. Each entity’s processes and issues varied widely, but MC² was able to synthesize the information and identify the common themes. We gathered input from over 250 external constituents through interviews, focus groups, and surveys. We also benchmarked with several grant programs within Washington and another state’s salmon recovery program to compare processes and identify opportunities for improvement.

Based on the diverse input from the multiple sources, MC² identified the current state opportunities to be addressed in the future state. We then collaborated to create the future state processes and set of recommendations around policy, organization, and systems. The SRFB unanimously approved the recommendations, which are currently being implemented. The successful outcome was a result of the ownership created in the study.

The redesigned process and recommendations address core issues raised by the customers of the process – the project applicants – around having a more streamlined, less time-consuming process with fewer iterations of the application. The recommendations will not only make the process more efficient but also more effective. One example of the many process improvements is that policies are now being created to support granting funds to larger projects that weren’t receiving funding in the past. The end result when the new process and recommendations are implemented will be salmon recovery money hitting the ground sooner, with potentially greater impact. A set of performance metrics is also being implemented to drive continuous improvement.

According to RCO leadership, the project success can be attributed largely to MC²’s bottom-up approach, which enabled ideas to come from within, resulting in solutions that best fit their organization and are owned by their stakeholders.

MC² guided four colleges within Washington through OCM and process design as part of a state-wide project. The Community and Technical Colleges of Washington underwent a major undertaking to replace an assortment of decades-old legacy systems to integrate services into one centralized system for all the colleges. The implementation required streamlining and standardization of processes across the colleges and transformed most of the business processes within each institution. The change was profound and deep, taking many years of planning, analysis, and integration efforts. We tailored our approach to support each college with OCM based on their needs, budget, and staffing.

For Bellevue College, the largest college within the system, MC² provided OCM leadership at an enterprise level, creating an OCM plan that included activities to prepare students, faculty, and employees for the transition. While completing the plan, we worked with project leadership to form an OCM Team with representatives from all groups. We continued to facilitate this team throughout the project. In support of the OCM Plan, we performed periodic readiness assessments to identify gaps and provided recommendations for follow-up actions to ensure staff and stakeholders were prepared for the change. To close identified gaps, we continued to support the college by developing manager and supervisor support documentation, a student support plan and guide, and customized “how-to” instructions for staff and students to help them in performing common tasks in the new system.

MC² facilitated current state and future state process mapping for all areas within the college, mapping more than 200 current state business processes and 75 future state processes with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). For each process we identified the changes from current to future state, and then completed change impact analysis to identify impacts to internal and external stakeholders. We developed change action plans to address the impacts and support stakeholders through the transition for each future state process.

To prepare Bellevue College for the massive training effort required for this implementation, MC² led the development of a comprehensive training plan for students, faculty, and employees. We worked with project managers and training managers to help them understand what training needed to happen when, what different audiences needed from training, and preexisting training resources available to them. We then identified gaps in established documentation so training documentation efforts could be focused on the areas of highest priority. To support addressing the gaps we played a lead role in training documentation development with template development, accessibility reviews, and content creation.

Seattle Public Utilities required programmatic oversight of the upgrade and reimplementation effort of Maximo, its enterprise work and asset management system. Senior leadership was required to guide the project through multiple challenges and ensure that executive sponsorship remained informed and supportive of the effort.

MC² provided steady, experienced leadership in support of the project manager, project team, and steering committee throughout the project. We managed project communication, helped hold vendors to the commitments of their contracts, and assisted with building better understanding and coordination between IT and business participants.

The final cut-over to the new system was described by the business sponsor as “a non-event; the smoothest I have ever seen.”

Seattle City Light hired MC² to provide organizational change management for the deployment of its new Work and Asset Management System (WAMS). The City uses WAMS to plan, manage, and track work for all of its field crews; to record time entry and to associate labor, tools, and materials with work orders; and to maintain an enterprise asset register so the costs and work history of each asset can be maintained. The complexity of ensuring a seamless cut-over to the new system with minimal to no disruption of work was considerable.

MC² developed and implemented a change management plan, organized and facilitated a WAMS Change Management Team, participated in user group meetings, and prepared informational materials for supervisors and leads. Because the cut-over period to migrate data from legacy systems was more than a week long, MC² developed paper-based tools and procedures and simple desktop templates to enable crews and crew chiefs to function efficiently during this period.

In the course of the project, MC² noted that one of the major impediments to a smooth transition was lack of clear, simple, usable instructions for performing standard work tasks using the WAMS system. In some cases, the details of these processes had not been worked out. The consultants quickly prioritized the areas needing attention, facilitated small groups, and developed more than 50 desk procedures so City Light employees could confidently perform their duties.

The cut-over to the new system went smoothly and on schedule; City Light field and office staff are following the simple, step-by-step procedures MC² developed to perform their work consistently and efficiently.

The Seattle IT Department was created by the City Council in 2016 to consolidate more than 650 IT employees from more than a dozen departments into a single, City-wide team. MC² Consulting was engaged to plan and manage the Organizational Change Management (OCM) element of this consolidation process. Following steps of the MC² Change Cycle, consisting of Envision, Engage, Enable, Execute, and Evaluate, we quickly developed and implemented a program to address the needs and concerns of the participating departments, including Police, Fire, Transportation, Parks, and Utilities.

Our facilitators and analysts led workshops with stakeholders, structured discussions around relevant issues, and facilitated corrective actions. For example, the Human Resources Transition Team identified a gap in how City departments and the new Seattle IT Department could collaborate on the hiring of key IT staff. We identified a strategy to bridge this gap, elicited feedback to confirm and refine the strategy, and guided its implementation. Similarly, the Finance Transition Team, composed of budget and finance leaders from across the City, expressed as one of their highest concerns the process for capitalizing IT projects funded from multiple sources. We convened a subgroup, drafted a solution, and secured feedback from all stakeholders to address this issue.

Concurrently, we led a Culture and Values Team through a series of exercises to identify, define, and document the desired cultural norms of the new department. Although this team had a dozen very active members, we also generated surveys for IT staff and other stakeholders across the City and conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups to validate and clarify the emerging list of candidate values. The result of this highly interactive and structured process was to create a cultural foundation for the new department that responded to the needs and desires of its workforce.

MC²’s proactive OCM effort led to the successful consolidation of IT functions across the City, and as word has spread, additional team members who were not included in the initial consolidation have even asked to join Seattle IT.

The Seattle Human Services Department (HSD) hired MC² Consulting to complete current state process documentation, future state process design, organizational change management (OCM), procedure documentation, and training development for implementation of the new city-wide enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and standardized processes. The new ERP system (Financials, Procurement, Contract Management, and Human Resources) brought on a transformation of how the department performs core financial processes, including grants management. HSD services are funded by many different grants, including city, state, and federal, and there were many complexities involved with transitioning to the new system. Stakeholders impacted included Finance, Contract Management, Human Resources, Commercial Cardholders, and all employees and their supervisors for the new timekeeping system.

MC² documented more than 40 As Is and To Be process flows that were impacted by the new system. Their collaborative team of consultants facilitated teams of subject matter experts to map out their current processes and then to redesign them to meet the new City standards and to work with the new system. MC² incorporated Lean analysis into the redesign to identify opportunities to improve the processes outside of the standardization.

MC² was also responsible for OCM on the project, which was foundational to the project’s success, and developed the OCM Plan, Communications Plan, and Training Plan for the project. MC²established a steering committee and OCM team to set the vision, champion the project, and identify and work through areas of resistance and manage risk. The OCM team was so effective that it was implemented for the long term to manage change and drive continuous improvement.

Based on the success of the process design and OCM activities, HSD asked MC² to expand the scope to develop desktop procedures and HSD-specific training. MC² developed custom procedures and training that filled in the gaps where the standard City training left off. The procedures and training developed by MC² supported a much smoother transition to the new system and new processes than if HSD had only relied on the standard training provided by the City.

Post-stabilization, HSD again asked MC² to stay on to support fine-tuning of the process, based on learning from use of the new system. MC² has become a partner to HSD in developing and improving processes.

The Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) hired MC² through the Washington State Lean G2G Contract to perform a Lean Study of the Salmon Recovery project development process. The process is highly complex, involving over 30 external entities across the state that must work together to identify, evaluate, develop, and submit projects for funding. In addition to the RCO staff involved, there is also a Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) that makes the final funding decisions and a Technical Review Panel that participates in the evaluation. The Lean Study had the challenge of sorting out the process and all the various roles participating, with diverse opinions, to reinvent the process to be more efficient and effective.

The project established a Steering Committee with representatives from RCO, the SRFB, and the external entities across the state. This Steering Committee, facilitated by MC², provided the foundation for the study, guiding the project from start to finish, establishing the vision, and championing the project. The collaborative nature of the project is what led to consensus and ownership of the future state process and recommendations to set up for successful implementation. A Steering Committee member commented, “The project was highly collaborative. All of the stakeholders were brought along. We weren’t subjects – we were part of the process, identifying the problems and solutions. MC² did a great job of getting us all on board and building trust. Everyone felt heard and that their issues were addressed.”

The study was multifaceted including data analysis, stakeholder interviews, process workshops with participants, and benchmarking. Stakeholder outreach was extensive. MC² facilitated process workshops across the state with staff from the external entities to document their processes and identify issues. Each entity’s processes and issues varied widely, but MC² was able to synthesize the information and identify the common themes. We gathered input from over 250 external constituents through interviews, focus groups, and surveys. We also benchmarked with several grant programs within Washington and another state’s salmon recovery program to compare processes and identify opportunities for improvement.

Based on the diverse input from the multiple sources, MC² identified the current state opportunities to be addressed in the future state. We then collaborated to create the future state processes and set of recommendations around policy, organization, and systems. The SRFB unanimously approved the recommendations, which are currently being implemented. The successful outcome was a result of the ownership created in the study.

The redesigned process and recommendations address core issues raised by the customers of the process – the project applicants – around having a more streamlined, less time-consuming process with fewer iterations of the application. The recommendations will not only make the process more efficient but also more effective. One example of the many process improvements is that policies are now being created to support granting funds to larger projects that weren’t receiving funding in the past. The end result when the new process and recommendations are implemented will be salmon recovery money hitting the ground sooner, with potentially greater impact. A set of performance metrics is also being implemented to drive continuous improvement.

According to RCO leadership, the project success can be attributed largely to MC²’s bottom-up approach, which enabled ideas to come from within, resulting in solutions that best fit their organization and are owned by their stakeholders.

The Washington Department of Revenue (DOR) hired MC² Consulting to lead Organizational Change Management (OCM) activities to support implementation of a new unclaimed property system. This system directly impacts over 30 agency employees, more than 60,000 holders of unclaimed property, and countless prospective claimants of unclaimed property.

We began with a change management assessment for the project, including a baseline survey of user readiness, understanding of the change characteristics and organizational climate for change, and an evaluation of OCM risks. With the assessment results in mind, we developed an OCM plan in collaboration with DOR staff. The OCM plan was comprehensive, including clear roles and responsibilities of all OCM participants, plans for engaging and supporting stakeholders, an approach for assessing readiness, and a process for identifying and assessing the impact of changes.

Leading organizational change at DOR included providing feedback and coaching to support DOR in the maturation of their OCM approach. We reviewed and provided recommendations for refining draft communications and training plans, including suggestions to break communications down by key stakeholder group. Maturation of the OCM process also required us to form an OCM team to facilitate bi-directional communication and informal stakeholder readiness monitoring throughout the project. Because we know skilled sponsorship is vital for successful implementation, we developed a sponsorship roadmap with specific actions the sponsors would each take to lead the change and communicate its importance.

Once the plan was developed, MC² led all OCM activities with support from internal OCM resources. This included assessing user and external stakeholder readiness for go-live, facilitating the OCM team, and developing recommendations for implementation support. Our efforts included coaching sessions with sponsors and internal OCM resources to ensure knowledge-transfer. Along with formal readiness assessments, we took informal “pulse checks” to assess progress in readiness for the system implementation and OCM team comfort with OCM, using the data collected to inform recommendations for resources and other actions to support staff. Throughout the engagement, we worked closely with project leadership to identify OCM risks and find sponsors to resolve them, and to integrate OCM into project activities.

Just prior to go-live and for several weeks after, we facilitated manager/supervisor “huddles” discussing ideas for supporting staff. We wrapped up the project with lessons learned and recommendations for sustaining the changes and suggestions for continuing to integrate OCM and change capacity across DOR.

MC² guided four colleges within Washington through OCM and process design as part of a state-wide project. The Community and Technical Colleges of Washington underwent a major undertaking to replace an assortment of decades-old legacy systems to integrate services into one centralized system for all the colleges. The implementation required streamlining and standardization of processes across the colleges and transformed most of the business processes within each institution. The change was profound and deep, taking many years of planning, analysis, and integration efforts. We tailored our approach to support each college with OCM based on their needs, budget, and staffing.

For Bellevue College, the largest college within the system, MC² provided OCM leadership at an enterprise level, creating an OCM plan that included activities to prepare students, faculty, and employees for the transition. While completing the plan, we worked with project leadership to form an OCM Team with representatives from all groups. We continued to facilitate this team throughout the project. In support of the OCM Plan, we performed periodic readiness assessments to identify gaps and provided recommendations for follow-up actions to ensure staff and stakeholders were prepared for the change. To close identified gaps, we continued to support the college by developing manager and supervisor support documentation, a student support plan and guide, and customized “how-to” instructions for staff and students to help them in performing common tasks in the new system.

MC² facilitated current state and future state process mapping for all areas within the college, mapping more than 200 current state business processes and 75 future state processes with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). For each process we identified the changes from current to future state, and then completed change impact analysis to identify impacts to internal and external stakeholders. We developed change action plans to address the impacts and support stakeholders through the transition for each future state process.

To prepare Bellevue College for the massive training effort required for this implementation, MC² led the development of a comprehensive training plan for students, faculty, and employees. We worked with project managers and training managers to help them understand what training needed to happen when, what different audiences needed from training, and preexisting training resources available to them. We then identified gaps in established documentation so training documentation efforts could be focused on the areas of highest priority. To support addressing the gaps we played a lead role in training documentation development with template development, accessibility reviews, and content creation.

MC² was selected through a competitive process to develop a Culture Improvement Plan for a WDFW region. With competing priorities of supporting recreation and resource conservation, along with tensions caused by external parties, the organization was experiencing significant internal conflict. Morale and employee retention were becoming an issue due to a culture of long-standing conflicts between teams and individuals as well as a general lack of trust in management. We supported the organization over an 18-month period to develop a Culture Improvement Plan and provide project management and Organizational Change Management (OCM) for the initial phase of implementation.

To create the Culture Improvement Plan we started with an assessment of the current culture, identifying the top problems to address and then worked with a cross-program Culture Improvement Team to analyze root causes of the issues and develop a vision of the improved culture. The plan we created was multi-faceted and included internally and externally focused projects. MC² also assisted with conflict resolution and management coaching. There was extreme resistance to change from some of the staff and a lack of confidence in the process as it was driven by leadership. We successfully overcame the resistance through change management practices and in the end the vision and plan were widely accepted across management and staff. Work included an organizational survey to assess the culture, and facilitation of large all-staff meetings both remote and in-person.

After the plan was completed, MC² provided Project Management and Organizational Change Management (OCM) for the initial phase of the implementation plan. We facilitated the steering committee, facilitated organization-wide meetings, developed a communication plan, and provided coaching to managers. The culture improvement project is continuing on with implementation and morale is much improved.

The Department of Planning and Development (DPD) originally contracted with MC² to develop an options analysis and recommendations for replacement of its Hansen v.7 permitting system.

MC² consultants worked with DPD business and technical experts to build a set of functional and technical requirements and to create a high-level gap analysis documenting the shortcomings of the existing system. While upgrading to Hansen v.8 was one option, it became evident through informational interviews, independent research, and unscripted product demonstrations, that there were other options available to DPD worth exploring. DPD and MC² agreed to redirect resources from continuing a formal options analysis to the development of a Request for Proposals for software and implementation services. Working with DPD staff and City Purchasing, MC² finalized the RFP, including scoring weights, criteria, and procedures.

Because of legislation requiring DPD to initiate an entirely new rental property registration and inspection program, the deadlines for developing and issuing the RFP, selecting software, and initiating implementation were extremely tight. Nonetheless, MC² was able to meet all of DPD’s target dates. With money remaining in the budget, MC² was also able to develop an RFP and lead the selection of an independent quality assurance firm to provide ongoing project management oversight.

Seattle City Light contracted with MC² for assistance in documenting functional and technical requirements and developing and issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a new learning and talent management system.

In the course of the project, Seattle’s Personnel Department determined that all City departments would benefit from such a system, so MC² was charged with helping to select an enterprise learning and talent management system to support training, performance management, succession planning, and other personnel-related activities enterprise-wide. Coordinating an interdisciplinary, interdepartmental team, MC² finalized requirements, issued the RFP, managed the scoring of functionality, company credentials, management strategies, and price, and led the finalist vendors through a rigorous set of structured software demonstrations.

The City executed a contract with the winning vendor and initiated a phased implementation of the integrated system. The client lead wrote to MC² when the contract was inked, “We couldn’t have done this without you.”

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) contracted with MC² to help guide them through the process of selecting their new enterprise permitting system for traffic and street-use permits.

MC² consultants worked with a cross section of business and IT experts from SDOT to develop a comprehensive set of requirements representing their prioritized business needs. MC² showed them how limiting the selection to the two industry leaders in this field, both of which the City of Seattle owned license to, could streamline the selection and reduce overall expenses.

With MC² managing the process, SDOT was able to evaluate both options objectively in terms of functionality, technical strength, and cost, and to make a transparent decision based on current business needs and long-term strategies.

When the Seattle Police Department (SPD) needed to select a Data Analytics Platform and implementation team, they called on MC² to lead them through the selection. The project had to be successful to comply with a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, and was to be completed to meet the deadlines imposed by the federal judge overseeing the effort.

MC² assembled a project team and led the Police Department in developing functional and technical requirements to satisfy the Department of Justice and, more importantly, to establish a foundation for future data-driven management, including complaint response, use of force investigations, and crime analysis. With detailed guidelines for evaluating responses and sophisticated scripts for choosing among finalists, SPD was able to navigate the selection process with confidence and ease.

Seattle IT contracted with MC² to assist in selecting a new ITSM software product. Acquiring a current-generation software package was a means to bring the City’s infrastructure management practices in line with current global operations standards. It was also a key element in the effort to consolidate the City’s IT organizations by implementing a common management structure and best practices in areas including change management, service requests, and management of end-user incidents.

MC² consultants worked with a team of experts from across the City’s IT groups, including the Service Management Organization, City Purchasing, the IT Service Desks, Seattle Public Utilities, City Light, Seattle Police Department, and Seattle Fire. MC² helped the team develop a Request for Proposal (RFP), along with review procedures and scoring methods. We also led the development of a high-level deployment roadmap and a project plan for implementing the new software.

Drawing on MC²’s extensive RFP management experience, our consultants worked with the technical team and City Purchasing staff throughout the RPF and software selection process. Activities included proposal assessment, cost analysis, vendor demonstrations, and final selection of the software provider. Following the product selection, MC² updated the project plan to customize the rollout of the software to the specific product modules to be brought in by the vendor. The project was completed on schedule and within budget and has established the path forward for the City to meet its goals of streamlining and standardizing IT operations and support.