Alberta Health and Wellness Ministry

Establishing good reporting mechanisms earns CGI credibility with Alberta Health and Wellness Ministry

For CGI Edmonton, securing a five-year applications maintenance contract in January, 2001 with the Alberta Health and Wellness Ministry was a success well merited. CGI's submission for the tendered contract offered a number of advantages: competitive pricing, a unique methodology (Peritus) specifically designed for applications maintenance, quality people, a good track record with the government and a local presence. But what may have really sold the ministry on CGI was an aspect of the management process that perhaps often goes overlooked—transparency and accountability to the client.

The Challenge
Under the CDN$25 million contract, CGI's mandate is to support the Department's legacy systems (mainframe), client server applications and web-based applications: a wide range of technology requiring a wide range of expertise. In all, some 70 business applications will be covered, including the Department's more critical systems applying to health care premiums, claims and the Alberta Aid to Daily Living program. Over the scope of the contract, CGI will assist the Department's 300-400 users with system problems and provide the necessary support to help the Department enter a new phase of change and improvement in its delivery of services. A three-month transition project, which wound up in March 2002, was the first step in the process to facilitate knowledge transfer.

The Strategy
To meet the demands of the contract and the technology involved, CGI put together a multidisciplinary expert team of some 40-45 people, which in itself was a challenge, and rented office space in a new building to provide high availability to the Department. In the five-stage knowledge-transfer process, CGI knew that it would have quite a learning curve to climb and used the opportunity to speak to as many client staff members as possible. Said Susan Watson, Director of IT at the ministry, "CGI was very organized and considered all the angles. They met regularly with all levels of business and all application sponsors were brought into discussions right at the beginning."

Given the Department's decision to change application maintenance service providers, interfacing with the previous provider, still responsible for managed operations, could have proved difficult. However, CGI developed call tracking and time recording systems that established credibility with the Department at the outset. "This kind of situation is always difficult, but overall the transition went extremely well. CGI brought strong management skills to the table," continued Watson.

The Technology

• Environment: Clipper; Oracle; Lotus Notes; Java; Websphere; Powerbuilder; SQL, UNIX; Access, IDIMS; ADABAS/NATURAL; DB2; FoxPro; HTML

The Results
In establishing early credibility with the Department, CGI has demonstrated that an ultimate goal of the contract is to reduce the amount of system maintenance needed over time, thereby freeing up funds to increase application functionality through enhancements. With CGI's activity recording methods, the Department knows where the CGI team is spending its time and where the dollars are being invested. CGI's proven added value in the early stages of the contract has motivated the Department to ask CGI to undertake several development projects, deliver information dissemination support services and coordinate infrastructure changes. "We are very happy with our relationship with CGI. They are very responsive to our needs and their collaborative approach, particularly in defining requirements, is very much appreciated," confirmed Watson.

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