1. What are your major goals for the Department of Information Technology over the next four years?

1. Maintain the City's core technology services including the data network, telephone network, City website, and public safety voice network to ensure high levels of reliability and availability.

2. Plan, develop and relocate the City's main data center within schedule and budget while creating efficiencies in the management of the center and implementing a disaster recovery/continuity plan.

3. Continue to pursue the private sector development and investment of fiber to the home to all residents and businesses in the City by reaching out to the private sector and supporting their ability to obtain permits and service in a timely manner.

4. Improve the way constituents interact with government; for instance I've asked the Seattle Channel to develop a five year strategic plan for programming and I meet regularly with other jurisdictions to understand what other cities/counties are pursuing.

5. Continue to seek ways to use new and emerging technologies to further city goals, improve efficiency and leverage innovation.

2. What do you see as the primary challenges facing the Department of Information Technology in the next four years?

Over the next four years we will need to replace aging infrastructure including the relocation of the City's main data center and develop a funding mechanism for the replacement of the City's Public Safety Radio System in partnership with King County. Until replacement occurs, we need to keep both systems operational.

Keeping up with changes in technologies is another challenge facing our department and will require us to balance the implementation of new technology against spending money on systems which quickly become outdated. The City is generally not an early adopter of new technology due to costs. As we look forward and continue to provide new ways to communicate with the public, we may have to find ways to adopt new technologies more quickly.

As over 30% of our employees can retire during the next four years, it will be a challenge to develop a succession plan and attract new employees given that the private sector is also competing for staff recruits.

3. How can you ensure that Councilmembers and Council staff receive the information needed from your department to make policy and financial decisions?

We are happy to provide monthly or quarterly briefings and/or reports to Council members and Council staff. We update our website regularly and have successful working relationships with council central staff members Martha Lester and Tony Kilduff and the Public Safety Technology Committee Chair and will continue to reach out with information.

4. What opportunities do you see for improving collaboration between your department and other City departments?

There are many opportunities for improving collaboration between DoIT and other departments beyond the day to day support of technology. I believe that collaboration begins with communication and developing relationships. I've been successful in leading collaboration between departments for large technology initiatives such as citywide implementation of a new email and a new archive system, working with departments during the Bus B event and leading the Executive Steering committee on the Broadband Initiative, as well as my history of collaboration in the implementation of two Levy Programs at Parks. The data center relocation project provides an opportunity where we can revisit how we manage our applications, storage and network infrastructures and develop new service level agreements with our customers.

Conducting a survey to departments regarding DoIT services is another opportunity to we can identify how we can improve collaboration.

We have installed collaboration tools such as data.seattle.gov so employees can share data between departments. We also will be installing the Enterprise version of SharePoint later this year which will offer additional tools and opportunities for collaboration.

5. How will you continue to foster partnerships with other governments (e.g., local, state, federal) to develop good public policy? How will you work to ensure that Seattle's goals and priorities are reflected in regional projects?

I am committed to fostering partnerships with other governmental agencies and encourage our staff to participate in local, state and federal organizations in order to ensure that Seattle has a voice at the table. To that end, I am the City's representative on the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network and I participate in the KC Metro/SDOT regional transit planning efforts as it relates to mesh wireless network systems. DoIT regularly sends updates to the state legislature regarding Cable and Internet legislation. Most recently I have been invited to serve on the King County Strategic Technology Advisory Council as the first representative from the City of Seattle. As part of the GigU effort I participate in webinars and conferences regarding Seattle's broadband initiative.

DoIT staff continues to work on issues related to the digital divide and information equity; we are part of the state Council on Digital Inclusion with the WA State Broadband Office and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors. We pro-actively work with local, regional and national agencies to ensure that Seattle is included in cyber security issues at the national level and several members of DoIT's executive team participate in the Association of City and County Information Systems organization for Washington State.

6. What Information Technology improvements will you work on for the future in the area of customer service?

I have a strong commitment to good customer service and will be setting clear expectations to staff for providing good customer service. DoIT is both an internal service provider to departments and an external service provider to the public.

As an internal service department, we need to revisit and establish new service level agreements with our customers. We need to regularly re-evaluate our services and our rates and ensure that we are providing appropriate value for cost.

Externally we will continue to hone our use of social media to better reach customers and use the data from the residential survey and focus groups to help inform us of how we are meeting the needs of the low-income, communities of color, disabled, senior and immigrant communities. This year we launched the first mobile web app for seattle.gov and the traffic app, Travelers, is now available on I phones. DoIT runs and manages @cityofseattle twitter account where we answer questions and help members of the public directly. We continue to work with the Finance and Administration Services Department (FAS) on the roll out of the city wide Customer Management System which will include device specific formatting, making it easier for residents to get comprehensive information and services about the city on mobile devices.

7. How will you conduct outreach to neighborhoods?

We have a variety of ways of reaching out to neighborhoods, most notably our Community Technology Program, the award winning Seattle Channel, our web team and the Office of Cable Communications work tirelessly to work with the public in areas of outreach, interaction and monitoring the cable franchises. DoIT staffs the Citizen's Technology Telecommunications Advisory Board (CTTAB) and assists in developing an annual work plan for the Board. This year the CTTAB established a public outreach committee and the marketing skills of its members will help to inform us about neighborhood outreach. We continue to build relationships with neighborhoods, non-profit and immigrant refugee organizations through our Technology Matching Fund and cable broadband grants (including the provision of free internet connections we provide via Comcast and Wave agreements).

We recently converted our monthly education newsletter, Brainstorm, to a blog form making it easier for the public to subscribe and distribute.

The Seattle Channel is actively pursuing new programs to address the diversity of their audiences.

We are partnering with the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs on one of their "Tea Times" on March 29th to share information about our Technology Matching Fund program.

Our Cable Office and Community Technology Program are continuing to participate in community events to inform residents about cable customer rights, low-income broadband options, computer safety and our grant program.

The bi-annual residential technology survey will be broadcast to residents during the next quarter and will provide updated information on broadband access, and request users' preferences for receiving City information. The data from the survey will guide our outreach strategies and provide City departments, Council and neighborhood organizations with information about what the public needs and expects with City communications, connections and services through technology.

8. How will you address issues of the evolving workforce of the future, such as filling positions vacated by aging City workers, and welcoming more people of color, women, and people with disabilities to the City workforce where they may not have been traditionally represented in large numbers?

I am committed to welcoming people of color, women and people with disabilities to the City workforce. As a woman who worked her way up through a male dominated construction industry, I understand firsthand how rare it might be to have an opportunity to be given the chance to prove yourself. To that end, it is a core value of mine to find creative ways to be inclusive in our hiring processes. I am currently pursuing an internship program with Seattle Housing Authority for interns to work in our department. Additionally our department regularly contracts with interns from the Community College System.

9. What are the management challenges that you face?

* Keeping up with rapidly changing technology; as we don't have the resources to implement every new technology, and as some technologies may not be in the City's best interest, determining when to implement new technology to best serve the public and employees is important. DoIT leads and facilitates annual technology roadmap discussions with all the departments to determine which new technologies should be added and the timing of those technologies. I regularly meet with other jurisdictions and work with our vendors to understand what is available.

* Limited resources; when I started at DoIT in 2007 DoIT had 30 more staff than we have today and yet we are consistently asked to implement new technologies. My strategy is to look at our existing configurations and ensure that DoIT's organization is aligned with the technologies we use today, not the technologies used in the year 2000. I am not proposing large reorganizations at this time as I believe there are ways to re-evaluate and repurpose our focus and talent within our existing organization.

* Decentralized technology governance across the City; The technology landscape is different from when the City's decentralized approach to technology evolved and as in other areas, we need to revisit that structure in light of current and future technologies. Some technologies should be more standardized; others more diversified.

10. How will you balance departmental priorities in a time of budget constraints but ever-evolving technological advancement?

I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive and the key is to make the right investments within our budget. For instance, we found a different model for providing the Public Access Channel which resulted in not only savings of several hundred thousand dollars, but provided producers the access to new equipment, training and skill sets.

Moving to Office 365 will save us money going forward by eliminating the need to pay for costly equipment purchases and upgrades while offering many new features for City staff.

Going forward we will continue to leverage opportunities such as grants, vendor discounts and partnering with external agencies such as the fiber partnership. We will develop criteria for making budget decisions, and we will make those decisions and involve other departments in the discussions as appropriate.

11. What changes from the previous DoIT leadership are you considering making? In what new direction do you hope to take the department?

I would like to build on our track record of reliable availability by delivering higher levels of service. The technology landscape is different than when DoIT was created in 1999 and we need to revisit the services we currently provide to determine if we are delivering those services in the most efficient manner. I plan to streamline several of our internal processes with the goal of reducing some of our rates. To do so, I will set expectations with my executive team and will develop a strategic plan by mid-year.

12. What were your primary responsibilities as Deputy Director of DoIT, and what do you see as your major accomplishments in that role?

I was responsible for Major Projects including the fiber program, the Project Management Office, Human Resources, Finance and Budget, Broadband development, major initiatives and department strategies and, I was the Acting Department Head when the CTO was unavailable.

My major accomplishments include successful oversight and implementation of large IT projects and initiatives including the migration of a new email system, the implementation of Office 2007, and the implementation of a city wide archive system were all successfully completed on time and within budget. I developed and implemented the new business process for how DoIT purchases and stores IT equipment. By moving to a model where we order as equipment as needed, we were able to close the warehouse facility which reduced rental and staffing costs. I led the move to a new delivery model for the Public Access Channel which saved the City over $600k annually and provided producers with improved services through North Seattle Community College.

13. How do you approach making decisions about maintaining the City's infrastructure? How do you ensure that capital projects are completed on time and on budget?

My approach begins with meeting with stakeholders from other departments, the Central Budget Office and Council Central staff to review the issues. For example, during the Bus B event, we provided regular updates to the Finance and Budget committee chair and the Public Safety Committee chair. To make the most of city investments in technology, we need to evaluate what our core competencies are and determine the most efficient ways to best maintain the different components of our infrastructure on a citywide level. For example, the move to O365 will give us the flexibility to keep up with more current technologies without having to implement costly and timely updates every couple of years.

To ensure that capital projects are completed on time and within budget, systems need to be established to monitor costs and schedules and staff need to be held accountable. I've asked staff to track their time spent on projects and we hold weekly and monthly meetings with project managers to access the status of their projects. As the Director of Development for the Parks Department, I created reporting systems which allowed us to understand individual project budgets and schedules in real time. As a result, over 150 projects were completed on time and under budget.

14. How will you approach contracting decisions so as to give ample opportunity for women-owned, minority-owned, and disadvantaged businesses to participate?

My approach includes setting expectations, project preplanning, education and outreach. I intend to fully continue DoIT's long-standing commitment to the WMBE community. As laid out in the 2013 WMBE Plan developed under my direction:

* My expectation is that DoIT staff will reach out to the WMBE community by meeting individually with WMBE vendors on a quarterly basis. These vendors may or may not hold mandatory-use Blanket contracts with the City. The purpose of these meetings is to provide the vendors with information about doing business with the City, and to explore whether their product offerings would fill particular DoIT business needs.

* I have asked that when items are available through WMBE businesses, DoIT staff will reach out and provide those vendors with opportunities to meaningfully participate in City business.

* DoIT will continue to search for WMBE firms that are available in the industries used to support the City's data center and communications networks (data, telephone, radio and wireless). We will ask FAS for assistance in this effort.

* Using the RSJI Toolkit and FAS's Inclusion Plan guidelines, DoIT will examine projects that will allow a prime contractor to provide meaningful subcontracting or employment opportunities. DoIT structures projects to encourage such participation. DoIT requires an Inclusion Plan as a material submittal whenever subcontracting is considered to be a feasible and commercial useful component of the work.

* DoIT will conduct a variety of training for its employees including training on the history and practices of the City-wide WMBE program by FAS and training on our WMBE program by the DoIT contracting manager.