 Hello, I'm Rachelle Monsilou, guest host for the Cyber Underground. Dave Stevens is out of town right now, so I'm here covering for him. And today we kind of have an impromptu change of plans. So originally my guest was supposed to be the CIO of the State of Hawaii Enterprise Technology Services, but he had to get pulled away to a meeting, which is very common. So instead we have Kaimana Bingham, she actually also works for Enterprise Technology Services, the Office of State of Hawaii, and she's a technical alinist, and she's here to talk about the road mapping, how it's paving the government, the government IT, strategically, correct. So let's welcome our guest here, Kaimana. Hi everyone, like she said I'm Kaimana Bingham, and I'm sorry I'm not CIO Todd Nakapui, but I'll do my best to fill in and give some pretty important updates and some pretty exciting news about what's going on in the IT organizations across the State of Hawaii. Well thank you for coming, I know it was such a last-minute notice, but yes Todd owes us big time. You're definitely Todd if you're watching, you should be in a meeting. Yes, but could you just talk a little bit about yourself, Kaimana? Okay, yep, so I have been with the state for about two years as a technical analyst. I graduated from Virginia Tech, moved out here, I was in the private sector. I actually worked on the Affordable Care Act with a private company, and when the state took over I did some knowledge transfer for the state, and that's where I met Todd Nakapui, and he kind of pulled me in and was like, okay you know we really need someone to sort this data for us, how about you know you come try the state, and so that's kind of how I got here, and it's been super interesting learning about you know just the government and IT, you know it's so new in the government, you know the government's been there, it's been established, but it offered me an opportunity to get similar if not better experience in the private sector from what he was doing, he took a whole new approach, it's super innovative right now, which is exciting, and he brought in myself and a couple other people on our team, and when we launched this project we had no idea kind of what to expect from it, one of our huge goals was making it transparent for the public, so that's kind of what I've been working on the past two years, year and a half. Can we kind of just go back and maybe the viewers might not be familiar, because I'm kind of familiar because I interned twice for ETS, so I know you were talking about the road mapping, could you kind of just elaborate on what that means and for the state and all that? Yeah sure, so a pretty broad overview of road mapping is the idea was Todd had when he came in as a CIO, he had this high level strategy, and our biggest I guess hurdle was communicating that to not only the workforce within the state, but to the public as well, so the very first step before we could create road maps for the entire state was to create one ourselves, so Todd Nakapoi did this very high level roadmap of the governor's priorities, how ETS's priorities align to the governor's priorities, and our big enterprise projects that align from there, and it was kind of a mix between an organizational chart and strategic goals, and where he saw us going. So prior to this there was not really a... No, there was nothing published, there might have been a document somewhere, yeah a pretty lengthy wordy, but visually at a high level there wasn't anything that existed that said hey, this is where we're going for viewers anywhere to look at, so like within internally we didn't really have something that was super evident of where we were going, and externally especially with the public, we have all these meetings and we go through what we think our strategic plan is, and we probably have a thick document somewhere of where our strategy is, but nothing at such a high level view where we could communicate it out, so we started there, and so from there it was a lot easier to show by example what we were expecting from the executive branches as well as internally with ETS itself, so from a strategy standpoint Governor Ege has a list of his priorities on his governor website that's available to the public, so we took those, and we took our ETS priorities that Todd provided, and we took our ETS initiatives that aligned with those, and we kind of built out a template for all other department IT branches to follow, so we kind of aligned this, so like projects and all that, yeah IT projects, and we kind of said okay here's what ETS is doing, here's you know what we would like to see how whatever IT projects you have or initiatives coming up, how does that either align with ETS or our governors, we really wanted a fluid message of you know from top down how we were supporting our governor as an entire state, you know because there's there's 18 executive branches, yeah and so I know I'm sure you know from your intern experience you probably know it's it's really hard to get super involved with those organizations, you know everyone has their own internal processes, everyone's so busy you know trying to follow in and get through their day to day but to track it overall was a huge goal of Todd's, he wanted to see okay like we're all kind of doing we should be doing the same things, let's let's all be in the same page, right yeah let's um let's make sure that that we're all doing this for the same reasons and that everyone across the board knows what everyone else is doing and how they align so it kind of consolidates us even though we're all separate you know and we have our own processes, kind of how to show how we align and so that was our our biggest goal in in roadmaping for our IT initiative so does that make sense to that answer your question of how we started and and kind of what our vision was in bringing all of the executive departments together at least from an IT and how did everybody else like take it like you know because it's a new thing for a lot of the departments, yeah um adapt well or so you know change always comes with some resistance right um you know it was a difficult year trying to get everyone not only we I mean we put out this new software where we bought licenses for everyone which is called sharp cloud um so that's kind of the tool that we used and this started what year um so the roadmap initiative started I think a year and a half or two years ago but we implemented sharp cloud last I want to say August 1st was our first rollout so everyone had to put their their data in um so we we we tried to make it um as user friendly as possible we knew that it was a new tool um and that would take some training so um we went to every department and for every user who had a license we provided an in-person training so that kind of helped the um the resistance a little bit um and once we could show that there was some value in what they were doing you know it it really helped but initially of course there's whenever there's change there's a little bit of struggle and resistance and it's like okay this is we have a million and one thing to do this is one extra thing that we're kind of already doing um you know like so so it was it was a huge it was a huge challenge at first um but everyone you know met compliance they had a deadline every single department met that deadline which was awesome that was like a huge achievement you know and they didn't have very long to adapt you know it was like a three-month period where we're like okay we're implementing this this is this needs to be in by this date and every single department met that um met that date in that deadline so that was a huge win a huge you know success for us um and we were we were really stoked on that um so so while there was resistance and you know it was like you had to kind of walk through and explain it rightfully so you know you're you're assigning this new this new workflow this new process to all these departments and you know you see like there's a lot of employees that worked there for years right yeah yeah and so when they're like you know we know how this stuff works like you know we've we've known this for 10 15 20 years um and I was like well I don't so like you know show me how it works and that and that was um it was really incredible to have every every department come together and submit their roadmap and and really project like five years out into the future because as far as I know there wasn't a tool that was so easily available where you could say okay you're planning this for the next five years and it and it doesn't necessarily mean you know if you plan something in 2020 2021 that's what's going to happen but it at least shows what you're thinking about in the direction you're going so that you know CIO and legislation can see if you're like on the right path of you know and if those things still align and and it just opens up a lot of communication which is you know kind of hard to get in within the state um so so that's one of our our huge successes right using this and if you see the program it's it's pretty organized they mean it's like a virtual thing you could see yeah it's it's especially if you're like a visual person instead of just reading makeup paper right you know I mean you can see it's colorful and it's on the map it goes to each department correct yeah and like um even goes to the the governor yeah yeah so um for anyone who who might be kind of lost it is on our public website do you want to kind of plug for that yeah so it's um ETS.Hawaii.gov and if you scroll all the way down it's uh it's the ETS dashboard and you pull it up there's a little training video that we did on the left that shows you how to navigate the tool what the filters mean it shows you kind of how we aligned it with the governor's goals so definitely check it out it's available yeah it's all public facing it lets you know if you're not aware we're really trying to get the word out um especially to the public the ledges seen a little bit of it but um it's a huge part of our transparency effort so if you want to see it you can just go to your browser right now and click on it watch the video it's I think about three minutes and it tells you how to navigate and um and and get through you know pretty much all 18 departments or 16 departments are up um so so yeah that's available I think we published it uh on the website January 1st okay um so it's been up for a little while so if anyone's super curious about about this new tool and seeing where our IT organizations are going you can find it there and email me for questions my name's attached to the bottom I know you said that you also have gone out and like I'm given like little talks about what um what you've done yeah so um in May or late April I um flew out to a conference in San Diego and Hawaii right now is the only state using this tool yeah okay so um we actually just won this Chaucer Digital Innovation Award so right now we um we won that because it we were one of the biggest clients and one of the biggest government agencies um using using this tool so I went and presented on that um it was a mixture of private sector other public sector um agencies so um I kind of just went through and gave a demonstration of our dashboard uh it was a big Q&A where you know they could ask questions about how we implemented the difficulties we had um and and and how it was doing for us so far and um so we went to San Diego won that award um and actually I think in September um there's going to be a CIO round table and Todd Nakapoi might mention that to other states who have expressed interest interest um I actually spoke to someone from Alaska's enterprise technology yeah they found it and um they found it online and they they reached out and they called us and it was it was really funny they they reached out to me personally because they couldn't find my email at first and they were like we really love this tool and we would love to chat with you and see how you implemented it because our organization is looking to do something similar and you know we really we're working on transparency too which is like huge right now so many states are are looking to be transparent you know and and you know gain trust of of the public so um this is a way you know to do that and it's just you know what we see is out there and in what's cool about it is it's updated in real time okay so anytime a department changes a status or a dollar amount within this dash or within their their IT roadmap it rolls up to this dashboard so it's it's the most current up to date information that you can get at this time um which is which is really cool to be able to say okay you know I don't have to wait a month you know to see what's going on with this project it's it's in real time when the updates are made they're pushed out and and everything is pretty accurate and holds us pretty accountable which is um something taught is is big on um in in this IT roadmaping process so yeah okay um did you want to say anything else about it like a little bit more sure one break yeah talk about more we come back yeah um few seconds yeah yeah no no worries um so another thing that is is really cool about it is um you don't need a license to be able to like go in and view it so um right now we have it not open up to just our users okay um but anyone who wants to know what's going on in IT we have a directory um so anyone with a hawaii.gov email can just go with and see what people are in their department are working on so it's not isolated it's just from two sources so you get a lot of feedback so that was what's assets yeah you can get a lot of feedback from you know members in your organization who might not actually be putting the data in but they can review it and process it so it makes it really open um and yeah so okay so we're gonna pay some bills and we'll be right back. Hi I'm Pete McGinnis-Mark and every Monday at one o'clock I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Research in Munna and at that program we bring to you a whole range of new scientific results from the university ranging from everything from exploring the solar system to looking at the earth from space going underwater talking about earthquakes and volcanoes and other things which have a direct relevance not only to hawaii but also to our economy so please try and join me one o'clock on a Monday afternoon to Think Tech Hawaii's Research in Munna and see you then. Hi I'm Bill Sharp host of Asian Review here on Think Tech Hawaii. Join me every Monday afternoon from five to five thirty hawaii standard time for an insightful discussion of Contemporary Asian Affairs. There's so much to discuss and the guests that we have are very very well informed just think we have the upcoming negotiation between President Trump and Kim Jong-un the possibility of Xi Jinping the leader of China remaining in power forever we'll see you then. Hi welcome back to the Cyber Underground I'm Michelle Mansilungan and I'm here as a guest host and today I have Kaimana Bingham from the state of Hawaii office of enterprise technology services. It's an outfall. So earlier we were talking about road mapping right now it's paving the government and so I don't know if you wanted to talk a little bit more about like how how do you think it's like changing like it's because I know elections is already you know tomorrow. Yeah so that's a great question so in addition to you know showing it to our public it has a multi-purpose right so the dashboard you know Todd has been a huge proponent of using it to show to the legislation so in in some of the panels that we have listed you know some of the data that we collect is budget information right rag status which is huge because you want to know whether you know your tax dollars are going through a project that is ahead or on track or most importantly behind and it allows us to kind of plan out for the future so say you know you you spend X amount of money on one project and and it and it's going on for I don't know three years and by tracking the status and how much you've spent to that date versus how much you know you were appropriated from the legislation it lets the legislation make decisions which is which is important because you know you need a high level information set of information and data that allows people like the ledge to make smart decisions so in one way you know it's it's making it transparent but it's also a decision-making tool you know and internally it shows you know how the workload of the department so they list everything that they're doing and if you see that you know they have 20 or 30 projects going on in a year then you know you can say all right this department is asking for more resources and they probably need it because look at their workload look at everything they're listing so it's a huge decision-making tool as well so the use of it you know we have so many audiences that we're trying to cater to with it at a at a high enough level where it's easy to understand so that anyone who you know if i wanted to tell my mom hey log on and and look at where we're going she could understand it but also someone who has decision-making power can say it and make smart decisions and and they're getting that input straight from the source you know from the workers who are doing doing that work every day you know and it just opens up communication to ask for more money or you know in the opposite sense of legislation sees that they've allotted this money to a department and they're not spending it or they're not on time it can make them you know rethink if if supplemental budget is is necessary so it really just opens up a lot of communication a lot of voices can be heard by using this tool which is why we think it's it's so great and and just by our metrics that we use they're they're very simple right now you know our rag status is a huge indicator we have a timeline view which you know kind of shows how long a project is expected to last um you know how well it's doing and then we also have justifications so we have a reason you know for why it's important and why they're doing it and there's also risk so like if if a department thinks that they have this project that's super important they want to communicate that to the ledge in the public then there's reasoning behind it it's not just hey we're going to do this and you don't have any any reason why are you it's not apparent um just a short little description goes a long ways in informing those decision makers and um in the public so so using the roadmap you know for so many different audiences is is challenging but it's um I think it's super important in trying to be transparent and adding value to to what we're doing and um I know a huge thing that you know that Todd relies on it for us is cost savings and he's all about cost savings so um aligning that with with in addition to all the great stuff of feedback and return on investment and just transparency in general um he can also we're doing this deep dive analysis with all of this data um plus some of our internal reporting to kind of see okay now the next step we have this data we've collected it the departments have provided us with really rich information um how can we make their lives better how can we see you know like a PC refresh and how can we you know work on that and bucket these things together which to you know to this date isn't um something that's easily done in the state if done at all we're trying to like um like you know office 365 we yeah you were around okay so that was um that was a huge effort is buying office 365 for everyone in the state and getting them on the same type of you know of software so that everything you know you you get better prices you get um support all around same with eSign um so it's now we're using that to to identify even more enterprise solutions so now we can look at the date and say okay like how can we help a cost savings and get everyone kind of on the same the the same technology that we're using because it makes it so much easier when you're you know doing refreshers or you know any any type of commodity really um so identifying those you know it's it's a long and manual process right now um but it's something that we're working towards so that hopefully at the end of the day everyone comes together and and can by providing this data get some valuable feedback and and we can show okay you know you provided this and now we can actually deliver something based on this information that we're collecting um so yeah that's just one of the many purposes we're using this tool for so it goes it goes above and beyond just a roadmap but what do you think it's going to continue let's say what what if i'm just gonna get mad at me let's see if he doesn't get reelected i talked about this with Todd yeah so what would happen then like say like what happened to all you guys you guys worked on and yeah so um i'll go back to when you said if there was a resistance yeah towards this right so the first thing that kind of Todd ensured that we did before um we even started this was he put it into statute so now it is in statute so no matter if it goes across administrations that um departments must submit an it roadmap over the next five years three to five years so that was one hurdle that we could get through and you know people like well what if you know the new administration just says you know they don't they don't want to do this and our response was like it's in statute it's here to stay you know it it'll provide value for for your departments and for you as well as as for us it's a good thing so that made it a little bit easier to convince you know some of the more hesitant people to do it because it's like we don't want to do all of this work and right here for nothing you know and and because a lot of a lot of our staff has has been there and been through that where you know they put so much work into a project and unfortunately um whether it's political reasons or not they kind of get swept aside when there's a new or new priorities come about and um and and we know that that's kind of how it works so in order to keep this there that he put it in statute and the great thing about this is you know even if a new governor is elected and his priorities change it is such a simple and quick task to change those priorities um but also if if it's now justification for why they're doing it just it has all of their work already documented so it's really hard to change initiatives or projects once you can put a dollar amount to it once you put actual data into a project you know hey you know you have to provide a really good reason why we should stop working on this project when we've invested x amount of money you know when we provided the value when we provided the resources and we've a lot of x amount of time right it makes it a little bit harder to to switch up on the workers and i think that um the staff especially i know at least feedback in my organization has been you know that's great we you know we don't want you know to just stop a project that we've been working so hard on um so it kind of gives teeth to to what we're doing um because these people a lot of these workers who have been here um you know they they've seen that and and it's a little bit discouraging right um to say hey i've been working on this for two years and and now now it's something new you know that that kind of i i mean i haven't experienced that yet and and um i but i imagine and on the feedback that i've gotten that that would be super frustrating um so so the way that we kind of try to align it now not to say that they have to use this tool but um it is you know if we get enough feedback and buying it is enough information and enough data that you know that that that provides some backbone to what they're doing and and a lot of money and and no one wants to to lose that much work or you know that much money on an initiative just you know for reasons that aren't you know 100 valid so um that's kind of how we we approach this and making sure that it wasn't just a task that they're doing for you know for two years and then get white and it gets wiped out was um really strategic and in in working to make he thinks it's really important and um he values i think um all the work that the staff does put in and it should be recognized um across administrations you know whether he's here or new governor or new cio um that that work should definitely be validated and this is um one of the ways that we're trying to do that for um for our organization and ets as well as department organization or are there any other um i know that um taut has a lot of um projects initiatives are there any other future ones that you know of that um i know he has his hands pretty full of payroll right now oh yeah yeah that's um that's a big one and i think a modernization yeah yeah so um so i know that that's his his big his big project that he's been focusing a lot of attention on um i think that we've we've done we've been pretty successful in in enrolling at least in ets and i think the other executive departments he's been working really hard in making sure our new payroll system is you know up to date and and um on track at least or getting on track so um that's probably the biggest focus he has right now okay i'm not i'm not super involved with it i look at their roadmap every now and then but i let him handle them there's big ones so um yeah that that's i would say one of his top priorities right now is making sure that that's a smooth transition because you don't want a bunch of yeah workers not getting paid that would be like any any cio or manager's worst nightmare um kaimana it was um great to have you here and um representing taut nakabwe for the um the state of hawaii office of enterprise technology services and if you guys um wanted to check out again their um their website they also have a newsletter yeah um that we have an internal one that's the how's it one yeah the how's it one yeah sign up you can subscribe to that i do or you can also go to their um their website which is ets.hawaii.gov okay all right so i'm rachelle monstey lungan until then stay safe and this is a cyber underground aloha