Managing Vendor Relationships

1. Managing Vendor Relationships • Monday, October 29, 2012 • Facilitator: Jim Campbell (SST) • Panelists: • John Brandt, Utah State Office of Education • Brian Rawson, Texas Education Agency • Christina McDougall, Washington State Education Research & Data Center

2. Washington

3. Washington State Overview Education System Decentralized education system Each sector has own reporting structure • Governor, Elected Officials, Boards Education Research and Data Center (ERDC) is the P20W organization • Established 2007 • Within the Office of Financial Management – Governor’s budget and policy organization • Organization exists in statute • Charged with collecting data from all of the sectors and providing P20W information P20W Work in Washington State To Date Has been producing cross-sector, identity matched and linked P20W data and research for 5 years without a data warehouse Forged relationships with education and workforce partners Unique Environment The ERDC • Is NOT an education or workforce agency; truly a P20W organization • Does not require a transactional data warehouse to support operations • Is experienced in creating matched and linked P20W data and information products • Has the ability to focus on a purely longitudinal, research based system

4. Grants in Washington State K12 SLDS (2008) P20W SLDS (2009 ARRA) Early Childhood Race To The Top (2011) WDQI (2012)

5. Washington State P-20W Program Vendors P20W Program Management P20W Data Warehouse Project • Project Manager • Moved to Technical Project Manager Role and added Administrative Project Manager role • Feasibility/Implementation Study Vendor (role completed) • Technical Project Manager • Administrative Project Manager • Vendor terminated for convenience • Replaced with state resource • Software and Implementation Vendor • Vendor terminated for convenience • Now building in-house with purchased Software Tools and Support • Software Installation and Technical Support (ETL, Data Quality, Identity Matching expertise) • Recently completed negotiations for software tools and Time and Materials based support

6. Vendor Management in Washington Pre-Contract Conducted a Feasibility/Implementation Study over the right approach to creating the P20W data warehouse Identified Risks Incorporated Risk Mitigation into the SOW and Negotiations Contracting Activities Identified a Plan B During the Contract Initial Positive Activities What signs indicated we were headed down the wrong path for WA State? What steps did we take at that point? Post – Contract What course did we take to end the contract and relationship?

7. Texas

8. Texas Overview Population • 25.7M people – second largest in the country • 1,500 cities – Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex population exceeds the population of 31 states • 254 counties – Brewster County could fit Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island within its borders Education • 4.8M public school children • 8,435 school campuses • 1,237 school districts and charter schools • 659,821 K-12 employees, including 333,007 teachers • 980,000 public higher education students • 98 institutions of higher education • 145,000 higher education employees

9. Grants in Texas

10. Vendor Management in Texas

11. Utah

12. Overview – Vendors in Utah • Utah has used three primary vendors for SLDS related work • These vendors have worked primarily for the Utah State Office of Education (K12). • Some of the work is being done for the K12 SLDS which is named UTREx for Utah eTranscripts and Record Exchange • Some of work is being done for the P-20W SLDS which is named UDA for Utah Data Alliance. • Of the three vendors only one has worked on both UTREx and UDA. • The common vendor has provided data warehousing databases and software. • In all cases internal IT development and program staffs have worked with the vendors.

13. Grants in Utah • A 2007 grant automated infrastructure for the collection, management and use of detailed student data from all Utah LEAs • This grant allowed for the replaced of an aging, batch oriented central data clearinghouse and ODS warehouse of student data. • This grant implemented the infrastructure to send electronic transcripts from any Utah high school to any National Transcript Center participating post-secondary institution. ============================================== • A 2010 SLDS/ARRA grant is being used for the development of a P-20W warehouse that integrates the data from four state agencies. • This grant creates necessary data structures and data flows as well as researcher and report writer access tools. • This grant establishes extensive data governance policies including those related to data security, access, quality and use.

14. Vendor Management in Utah Shared vision and development of contract(s) that are clear about deliverables and schedules including realistic milestones Definitions of the roles of both vendor and client personnel including shared project management responsibilities Ongoing management of deliverables – is the client getting what they asked for and need? Requirements for clear and accurate documentation Development of correctly targeted training Understanding all sustainability costs Delineation of any post-contract maintenance and support needs and agreements Verifying that the vendor is adhering to standards

15. Contacts & Additional Resources Contact information: Christina McDougall, Christina.McDougall@ofm.wa.gov Brian Rawson, Brian.Rawson@tea.state.tx.us John Brandt, John.Brandt@schools.utah.gov Jim Campbell, jim.campbell@sst.slds.org