How Detroit Overhauled Citywide IT and Modernized City Services

Across the country, local governments are increasingly centralizing IT and data functions to break down bureaucratic silos and modernize services. For many cities, this enterprise approach is incremental; however, the city of Detroit underwent a transformation that was catalyzed by the extraordinary circumstances of municipal bankruptcy and subsequent state oversight in 2013. 

Detroit is a unique case in centralizing and streamlining these functions. First, as a result of a legal mandate, and then, as a model of excellence that provides insights for public sector leaders navigating complex IT change. Much of this is the result of a decade-plus of work from the Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) and, thanks to Tamara Fant, Detroit’s enterprise applications manager, and Mike Homant, the city’s chief technology officer and deputy CIO, this article outlines lessons they’ve learned over the last ten years. This includes a culture of recognition, focus on transparency and collaboration, and using crises as opportunities for improvement.

Turning Hardship into Advancement

The city’s bankruptcy was a catalyst that required Detroit to address fragmentation and inefficiencies in technology use across government. Rather than a patchwork solution, or simply reaching the required bar, city leaders built a robust, centralized infrastructure that has paid off dividends in the years since.

“I was given a blank sheet of paper, and we had roughly three weeks to draw out what we thought the org structure should be to support the city for the next 20 years,” said Homant, describing some of his first responsibilities when he joined the city in 2015. Homant valued the ability to start fresh and engage new hires in a future-forward system. In 2016, he hired Fant as the web team supervisor. 

Growing the team, and quickly, was both an opportunity and challenge according to Homant. “We made some mistakes,” he said, “but overall things are much better” and the results have been worth it. “When I started, we had one person doing GIS, printing hard copy maps in the basement on demand,” said Homant, “We did a quick analysis and we were printing and selling them to people at less than the cost of ink and paper alone.” Now, the city is winning awards for their centralized, enterprise GIS work.

Led by the DoIT team, other city leaders quickly understood the power of centralized, open technology and innovation. For example, Mayor Mike Duggan supported the city’s open data initiatives, pushing Detroit toward transparency and improving service delivery beyond the legal mandate. “Yes, things have to be open —  legally we have to publish and provide this information, but it's collaborative,” said Fant “and we were able to show departments through time and with trust that if you share your information, you will benefit from it.” For Fant and Homant, this trust and collegiality is another byproduct of the enterprise system.  

Breaking Down Silos 

While many organizations suffer from deep institutional siloing, the structure of DoIT and the attitude of collaboration helps prevent insulation. And collaboration isn’t just asked of other departments — it's also modeled by DoIT.

As the Enterprise Applications Manager, Fant manages three different teams that often work in coordination, especially as these teams administer software applications that are used by multiple departments. “There's a lot that happens between these teams, like Web and GIS,” she said, “One will start off and they'll collaborate and bring in the other teams, so they’re not siloed.” The DoIT teams are also encouraged to jointly analyze needs and solutions before jumping into implementing tech, enabling a coordinated approach. There’s a strong emphasis on conducting thorough needs assessments, rather than piecemeal jumping into products. 

By doing this, the entire department is saving time and money in addition to creating a more streamlined experience for the other city parties. “That's one of the great things with the enterprise view,” Fant said, “if one day you’re helping one department and another day you're helping another, you can see the collaboration opportunity and be that catalyst to help.” 

For example, the Detroit Street View is a sensor and mobile mapping program from DoIT’s Enterprise Geographic Information Systems (EGIS) Team. According to Homant, while this project saved more than $500,000 worth of purchased imagery in the first year, it has continued to produce unexpected benefits across other departments. For example, images captured from Detroit Street View were pivotal in the city’s lawsuit over Census undercounts. Homant has even been stopped in City Hall by employees from the Parking Department, thanking him for Street View, since it’s been used to prove signage in ticket disputes. 

Uplifting the Team

Finally, cultivating a positive and rewarding team culture is fundamental to productive collaboration and continued success. Some of this is shown in the language used by DoIT; reflecting their service approach, everyone is a ‘customer.’ “We don't call people users; they're customers,” explained Homant, “We have internal customers, which are other departments, and external customers, which are the citizens and developers and businesses.”

DoIT extends this mindset to the innovation and technology experts in other departments. When Homant first joined the city, many departments had their own individual technical or GIS experts. Yet, when that one person went on vacation or got sick, the department was at a loss. So he offered to transfer and cross-train these disparate experts, to maximize coverage, uphold standards, and work at scale. This allowed DoIT to “create a culture where we can share and build off each other,” according to Homant, while maintaining the specific departmental expertise and support.

Additionally, DoIT is now intentional about highlighting and celebrating their successes. Two years ago Homant, knowing how important recognition is for morale and employee retention, gave Fant a goal of entering their work into at least two award competitions. While he was clear that the goal was simply to enter, not needing to win, it’s no surprise that DoIT has been winning multiple national awards since then. “The city is winning awards for innovation because the innovation part of the organization name is true,” said Fant, “the team is encouraged to think of new and innovative ways to accomplish goals.”

While other municipalities are unlikely to face the financial crisis that affected Detroit, every city faces its own hardships or disruptions. The transferable strategies shared here prove that city officials can leverage moments of crisis to implement transformative changes, increase employee satisfaction, and ultimately produce significant innovation.