North Carolina Visit and Assessment Tom Clarke Vice President for Research and Technology National Center for State Courts Paul Embley Chief Information Officer National Center for State Courts January 15, 2015
Background and Scope Due to recent management personnel changes within the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (NCAOC), the NCAOC requested an assessment of their processes, projects and infrastructure. Tom Clarke, Vice President for Research and Technology, and Paul Embley, Chief Information Officer, from the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) visited Raleigh in December and interviewed a wide range of North Carolina court personnel, including NCAOC management, the Technology Services Division (TSD) staff, and users of current systems. This document summarizes the strengths and areas of concern NCSC found during this assessment, along with recommendations for continued success. General Findings North Carolina is making great progress toward getting all their systems headed in the same direction. With the 2013 addition of Jon Williams as Senior Deputy Director of NCAOC and the 2014 addition of Jeff Marecic as Chief Information Officer, North Carolina now has leaders in place with the vision and determination to ensure successful product delivery with correct feature sets that enhance the business processes. NCAOC has significant challenges to address, including disparate systems, an application focus that has perpetuated that disparity, large funding gaps, and uneven governance of projects and capabilities. However, NCSC was impressed by the top management that is now in place, and their vision for how to turn these issues around. Not only do they have the correct vision, but they are well on their way to implementing this vision. In the short time that they have been in place, significant progress has been made in most of these areas. Specific Findings and Recommendations While NCSC did find some areas of opportunity, there are very few that are significant in scope. The North Carolina AOC management has already made several changes that will improve the North Carolina Courts and increase the likelihood of delivering successful projects. The following are findings and/or specific recommendations, made in rough order of importance. The NCAOC has excellent top personnel. This management team shares a vision of what technology can do for the courts and North Carolina in general. A good governance structure has been proposed. A new and significantly improved IT governance model was drafted over the past year by a technology committee comprised of a cross section of judicial officials from across the state. NCSC supports the new governance structure and, with a few strategic NCSC North Carolina Assessment Report 2
adjustments, believes that the governance process will represent the court community well in all technology-related issues. o A trial court administrator should be added to the governance group. o The proposed IT governance structure (or a similar one) should be formally approved and communicated widely throughout the organization. o Meetings must be conducted in such a way as to facilitate real decision-making by focusing on business process improvement, technology investments and objective reporting of the projects progress against schedule, scope and budget targets. o Use an earned value approach to track project progress. o Create formal business cases and with expected costs and benefits for all proposed projects. An e-filing plan must be developed. This must be a very high priority. Currently there are many counties that are ready to move ahead with e-filing. There is also a very successful implementation of Domestic Violence e-filing in Alamance County. o Steps should be taken to ensure that the e-filing plan is one that either includes the Alamance solution as a starting point or that allows for easy migration. o Current statutes and court rules should be reviewed and modified as appropriate to support e-filing. For example, courts should be able to use the e-filed electronic copies as the official record. Improve communication about project statuses and priorities. Jon and Jeff are doing a good job of communicating the current status out to the counties, but this is a singular event and unsustainable due to the time and effort involved. o Consider developing a monthly NCAOC project newsletter and periodic conference presentation. o Establish a communication plan that provides significant details on projects and their status at frequent intervals to significantly improve project transparency for users. The communication plan should also address the need to communicate/educate court personnel in how the governance process works, how requests are processed, etc. One of the concerns communicated by users was they do not know the process for how requirements are vetted and priorities established for the various systems and projects. Accelerate some rollouts if possible. The Alamance Domestic Violence e- Filing project is very successful. This particular project should be carefully considered for rollout statewide. While the funding does not currently exist to do this, creative consideration may mitigate that. Once the e-filing plan is in place and vetted through the IT governance body, make other counties aware of the Alamance pilot and results, so that they may discuss with their local legislators the importance of e-filing. The DV pilot is a significant step for the courts and the AOC. Support for the end users is very good. While the current support model is NCSC North Carolina Assessment Report 3
delivering satisfaction to the end users, steps could make it either more efficient or more comprehensive. o Consider other ways to deliver support effectively, including user access to a knowledgebase and real-time dynamic forums of support like live chat. Make online forms more accessible and usable. All online electronic forms should be fillable and have the capability to be saved either locally or virtually. It is a short step from here to real e-filing. Once this is done, roll out and train electronically. The internal development processes are changing. Internal development processes are moving from an applications focus to a business process focus. It cannot be stated strongly enough how important this change is to the capabilities of TSD to meet the needs of the Court. This will allow the NC TSD to be more nimble with systems development while utilizing current state of the art technologies. Along with this focus, development discipline is being built into the processes that will help guarantee success. o The hybrid agile process being used now has significantly sped up new application rollouts. Iterating every six months is an achievable performance level. o New applications use appropriate modern technology and open industry standards when appropriate. Funding Options Almost all courts are going through an unprecedented technology transition from a relatively low level of use to a permanently higher level of use. Consequently, the courts need both significantly higher project funding over the next decade and a permanently higher level of on-going support and operations funding. State court systems must usually utilize multiple funding sources to achieve this level of required funding. States vary widely in their funding strategies, but a general pattern is clear. Funding often takes the form of a four legged stool. o The first leg is General Fund support, which typically is used for ongoing maintenance and operations, including technology infrastructure like networks and data centers. o The second leg is dedicated project funding for specific and major one-time projects like big new applications. o The third leg is a dedicated court technology revolving fund, usually funded with a relatively small filing fee added to a high volume case type. This fund helps with the permanent transition to a higher use of technology. This dedicated fund should never be used to cover nontechnology court funding shortfalls. o The fourth leg leverages the transition to an electronic court. It can either use e-filing fees on the front end or online access fees on the NCSC North Carolina Assessment Report 4
back end (like the federal PACER system). o On-going baseline funding just to keep current systems and capabilities running and in place should be separated in budgets from new or one-time funding for specific projects that will create new capabilities. o There should be a formal technology budget at the AOC that is managed by the CIO after approval by the deputy state court administrator and state court administrator. Overall Assessment The NCAOC and the NCAOC TSD are poised to become leaders in the court technology space again. North Carolina is fast becoming an example at a national level of what can be done with the right leadership. With just a few more pieces in place, the AOC can execute a significant change in the North Carolina court system. Those pieces include the governance committee, the e-filing plan, and an appropriate level of funding. While there are areas that can still be improved, they do not require wholesale changes in current personnel, work processes, or project strategy. With the right allocation of resources, and strong communication and governance plans, those issues can be resolved and North Carolina can look forward to even greater progress toward the effective use of technology in the Judiciary. NCSC North Carolina Assessment Report 5