You are the Chief Administrator for the Department of Social Services of a State in a large industrialized country. This organization has 9,000 employees in 75 offices. In determining benefits available to qualified citizens, you face the problem of too much paperwork. The visible symptoms of the problem are high costs, high error rates, high processing time, and bureaucracy. The policy manual alone is more than a foot thick. Your departmentâs annual budget is $3 billion, but about $45 - $55 million is estimated to be wasted due to errors associated with filling out forms and entering data into computer systems. This is how the system works. State residents in need of financial help, health care, or food stamps must fill out a 24-page form that determines eligibility. Then, upon mailing the form or handing the form over in person to one of the offices, they meet with a social worker on a different day who would go through the information line-by-line to determine which of the hundreds of Federal and State programs the applicant is eligible for. Matching an applicant to the appropriate programs and services can take hours for even the most experienced social worker. Much of the applicantâs data must be verified. Certification of income, marital status, assets, and birth certificates of dependent children are required for the applicantâs file and must be scanned and stored at one of the offices each and every time an applicant files an application.
You are extremely anxious in having a set of new information systems for the Department. Narrate a set of new computerized systems you will design to revise or overhaul the above-described process and how the various components of your set of new systems will work together in a coherent process. Narrate your new systems based on your vision of how a vastly improved department of social services would become when your system is developed and in-use. Use your imagination, but use it within a reasonable and realistic context. You could even invent a name for your system. For example, if you like, Humanity Support System!
Write a one-page proposal letter to the State Governor requesting for next-step supports in building the set of new information systems you designed (narrated). This is the first and initiate proposal that you are presenting. So, there is no need to provide detailed finance or expense related estimations yet. But, you must include a critique of the existing system and explain the benefits of the new set of information systems. Your ultimate objective is to obtain strong support and, it is hoped, commitment from the State Governor.