Fort Worth will be honored with a Smart 50 Award for re-engineering a process that led to reduced times for approving ordinances, resolutions, zoning cases and larger purchases.
The Mayor and Council communication (M&C) Collaboration Wizard was developed internally in partnership between the City Secretary’s Office and IT Solutions, and reduces time spent locating, tracking and managing M&Cs through the use of automated workflows and improved collaboration.
Smart 50 Awards annually recognize global smart cities projects, honoring the most innovative and influential work. This year, categories included community engagement, digital transformation, smart mobility, urban infrastructure and urban operations.
“Re-engineering the M&C process has made the city more responsive to its residents by reducing the time it takes to approve ordinances, resolutions, zoning cases and large purchases,” City Secretary Mary Kayser said. “The reduction in time spent to process M&Cs also freed up staff to accomplish more value-added tasks for our residents.”
Fort Worth has embarked on a long-term digital transformation project that’s affecting the development of people, process and culture. This aligns with its goal to become the best-managed city in the U.S.
The M&C digital transformation project enabled 500-plus city employees to achieve improved productivity, cost savings and quality improvements while providing a flexible platform to handle new business priorities. Employees now benefit from an expedited and streamlined process with improved accuracy. The average M&C will realize about four hours of saved time from initial entry into the system to being built into a meeting agenda.
The city has averaged 1,036 M&Cs per year for the past five years. This translates into a savings of 4,145 hours per year, or an approximate savings of $103,625 per year.
The changes effectively eliminated two-thirds of the approval touchpoints and decreased approval times from 18.6 days to nine days. The system is accessible from any browser on any platform, allowing approvals to be processed faster.
The Smart 50 Awards will be presented in April in Denver.
This honor follows on the heels of another prestigious Fort Worth recognition from the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), a global consortium that creates and contributes to process-related standards. The Award for Excellence in Business Transformation was awarded to the City of Fort Worth last August at a ceremony in Boston. In conjunction with this award, the WfMC also recognized Shaun Campbell, M&C Collaboration Wizard creator, who works in IT Solutions. The Outstanding Business Transformation Team Leader Award recognizes Campbell’s innovation and leadership in driving the digital transformation of municipal enterprise, and for championing Mayor Betsy Price’s mission for Fort Worth to be a technology leader.
