The consolidation effort – or Standard ICT Operating Environment (SOEasy) programme – involves a basic suite of applications and services which are fundamental and commonly used by all agencies. Plus each agency can select modules or blocks of applications to customise a solution that meets its distinct need, Lim Hup Seng, Deputy Secretary (Performance), Ministry of Finance (MOF), said.
Lim admitted that SOEasy will take away the flexibility and freedom for individual agencies to specify a solution to the ‘T’, but guaranteed that the overall solution provides better capabilities. “It’s as if we now run a restaurant which offers set menus. The chef no longer cooks a different dish for each diner. But I’m sure the overall dining experience is enhanced,” explained Lim.
RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) added that IDA can make exceptions if an agency critically needs a special IT application.
“As every agency has its own unique requirements, the SOEasy teams have had to understand them clearly before implementation so that there is no impact on business operations in agencies,” Peter Ho, Head, Civil Service, said, adding that this tension was one of the key challenges facing the standardisation project.
In the transition phase, IDA will discuss in detail any trade-off an agency needs to make due to the migration. “Any crucial service or application will be highlighted at this early stage so that there will be no surprises after the roll out of SOEasy,” assured Pauline Tan, Senior Director, Government CIO, IDA.
The S$1.3 billion (US$0.9 billion) project which kicked off in April 2008 has seen shoots of success. Since July 2009, messaging, collaboration, desktop, network and common services have been deployed in the first batch of agencies, namely Ministry of Finance (MOF), Ministry of Information Communications and the Arts (MICA), Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and National Heritage Board (NHB).
The first users have endorsed the transition. “About 30 per cent of our staff have transited into SOEasy. Being one of the first agencies to move to SOEasy services, it is inevitable that we encounter teething problems along the way. However, the MOF IT team has collaborated well with the SOEasy team to resolve much of these through change management activities and communications to users,” commented Chin Sau Ho, Director, Corporate Communications and Services, MOF.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Kelly Ng
Quelle/Source: futuregov, 14.09.2009
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