Today, most of the information distributed from the ministries to the municipalities are printed and sent by ordinary post or by courier. This process is time consuming and also quite expensive. Directives, regulations and other information needed in all municipalities have to be produced and distributed in 900 copies. It might also be a problem for some of the municipalities to keep good control of where the different documentation is at any time. Introducing a good working intranet for information distribution will radically improve the availability of important information and at the same time reduce the production and distribution cost.

The municipality election in 2004 is planned to follow the traditional routines for such elections. It is, however, possible to improve the flow of information and the security regarding this by establishing a simple easy-to-use intranet for connecting the Ministry and all municipalities to the same virtual net.

One area where this intranet can be used is in the reporting of election results. With the results electronically reported, the availability to aggregated information and up-to-date analysis of the election is obvious. The project will develop standards and frameworks for presenting the results in different ways.

This proposal is based on the information provided by the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities (MOIM) in written documents and in interviews and inspections on the routines and systems used today. Information on hardware and software availability in the municipalities is limited and the project will perform a more thorough investigation of the situation as the first phase of the project.

The proposal focuses on establishing the intranet with publishing and content management solutions providing the MOIM with sophisticated tools for editing and distributing information from a variety of sources. The availability to the information is governed by the portal’s user administration module, ensuring that only authorized users are given access to the information. The figure below describes the working environment for IME 2004.

The proposed intranet will form a basis for a nation-wide information portal for connecting municipalities and ministries.

........................ will assist in establishing a local service provider being capable of operating and maintaining the intranet after the project is finished. The project itself will be handled by a combination of Norwegian and Lebanese IT professionals

........................ has built several other similar intranet solutions and is very well equipped for delivering a good solution to the MOIM.

1 Visions, Goals and Benefits

The vision of the IME 2004 project is to provide the Ministry Of Interior and Municipalities with a good working digital communication platform. The platform will form a basis for future information flow between the different municipalities and the ministry. The use of such technology will radically reduce the manual work involved in the production and distribution of information, regulations and directives. The main focus for the project will be to provide support for the 2004 Municipality Election, but the solution can be further developed into a complete information flow management system for use by all government authorities in their communication with the local authorities in Lebanon.

As part of the project, the MOIM will be equipped with a solution scalable for handling all sorts of information, but the focus for the IME 2004 project will be to provide support for the most commonly used formats (MS Word and other MS Office solutions). In this way, the project will provide facilities for distributing central information and directives directly to all local authorities at the same time. The access to the information will be governed by the sophisticated security functionality of IME 2004, ensuring secure communication and information handling between the different authorities involved.

One important aspect of establishing such an intranet platform is the possibility to handle accurate up-to-date reporting of election results immediately after the voting has finished and the votes are counted. The system will also provide support for the automatic generation of presentation material based on the reported results both on a local level and on a national level.

An example of such presentation material can be an overview of the level of support for each political party based on the results reported:

Or by use of other graphics:

IME 2004 will greatly improve the information flow between central bodies of state administration, between central bodies and local administration, between state administration and self-government, and in second hand also between public administration and the citizen.

The implementation of the IME 2004 Project has implications internationally, nationally and towards municipalities and citizens. A bi-product of implementing the project will be increased functional- and technical know-how related to electronic information distribution and use of the intranet as a reporting facility. The following benefits are defined:

International

Well organized and secure election process

Appreciation of information flow and security regarding the handling of the election results

Possible basis for similar solutions in other countries

National

Appreciation of MOIMs ability to handle elections and information flow

One step towards a more computerized election process for the parliament election 2005

Municipalities

Secured flow of information and directives to all municipalities

Immediate availability to other municipalities election results

Citizens

Availability to information via TV and Radio on election results as soon the election is over and the government want to publish the results

Employment possibilities for a number of local engineers

2 Scope of Work [PB1]

The IME 2004 Project will deliver the software necessary for establishing electronic information flow between MOIM and the municipalities, including templates and standards for how to publish information from different sources.

Analysis

The first part of the project will be an analysis phase for determining the requirements to the system. This will be done in close cooperation with the MOIM.

Infrastructure and software platform

The second phase will establish the infrastructure for the intranet and test the quality of the communication lines and the local solutions provided to the municipalities by US Aid. The software used for the intranet will be scalable market leading solutions in the areas of Application Servers, Content Management Systems and Portal Frameworks. ............................... has long experience with the use of such systems and will select the most appropriate solution based on the conclusions from the analysis phase.

Implementation

In the implementation phase, the software will be adjusted to fulfill the standards and layouts chosen by the MOIM for such document production. Also the User Administration module will be built during the implementation phase, this module will contain functionality for defining users access through the portal and for defining each users or roles privileges for writing, editing or deleting information on the intranet. Only users defined will be given access to the information on the intranet. Based on the users id, the appearance of the intranet solution may vary; this kind of personalization can be maintained by each user to provide the most effective desktop for fulfilling each employee’s need for information.

Development

Support for the reporting of election results, analysis and presentations of such results and preparation of information packages based on the results are not standard functionality of a system like this, and must be developed specifically for this project.

Training

The IME 2004 project will train all instructors of MOIM enabling them to provide the necessary training for municipality employees. All MOIM users who will publish information to the intranet will be given education in the use of the content management / publishing system. All municipality users who will report election results will be given the necessary education in how to perform this task.

3 System Description

3.1 System Overview

Access to IME 2004 will be provided through a Portal. Security precautions will be implemented to prevent un-authorized reading and updating of information. The access to the system will be based on the use of unique user-ids and passwords, and will govern the use of the system for each employee.

The figure below describes the overall concepts of the IME 2004.

3.2 Portal

The Portal accommodates the user access control, the personalization and the runtime environment for the IME 2004. It is based on an application server to provide scalability and flexibility to the intranet.

In the portal , the user administration and the access control are important features. Here, the MOIM can define user access to the different levels of information and at the same time audit the use of the intranet.

The portal interacts with the content management system to provide the features needed for professional information broadcasting on the intranet.

3.3 Publishing and Content Management

The IME 2004 publishing tool enables MOIM to distribute information based on different sources and to present this information in a standardized layout and style. After publishing the information to the intranet, the information instantly becomes available for all authorized users.

The IME 2004 Content Manager is the central module of IME 2004 publishing. It provides an enterprise platform that enables large organizations like the MOIM to create, manage, distribute and deliver different sorts of content across multiple websites, portals, e-applications and paper based publications. The content management tool will provide a range of different functions and features to support future needs for information handling at the MOIM, but the IME 2004 project will focus on supporting the municipality intranet only.

The Content Manager functionality can be accessed via an easy-to-use graphical interface running on a standard Internet browser, among the functions of this tool, we find:

A role based security model for collaboration

Versioning and Rollback

Library services

Globalization and localization

Website and publication management

Blueprint management

Content archiving

The Content Distributor can distribute content to any delivery platform such as Web- and application-servers, portals, business applications and print, independent of their location. Content distribution is initiated via the graphical user interface, where users can publish selected content to selected delivery platforms. The Distributor allows you to choose static (pre-distribution), dynamic (at content request time) or any preferred combination for your content assembly strategy.

The IME 2004 project is responsible for the establishment of the Publishing functions with processes, structure, a set of templates for information and training of MOIM instructors. The MOIM will be responsible for the information content, publication, distribution and training of the MOIM editors.

3.4 Election support

The support for reporting election results and presenting the results in different views will be developed during the IME 2004 project. The main part of this development phase will be to determine the structure of the reporting facilities, how to handle local variations, how to present the results to the public, how to authorize the different users to report the results, how to secure the communication lines, etc. The following figure describes a possible user interface for the reporting of election result.

3.5 Administration of the intranet

The administration interface is a simplified, integrated framework that enables different MOIM experts to administrate and use the

User administration
Publishing system
Content management system

The IME 2004 will have a significant number of users. First of all, the system will have users at the municipal and regional level doing the actual reporting of election results. In addition, the system will have users writing and editing information for use by other municipalities or other ministries.

All these different users have to be registered by name and password to be allowed access to the intranet. The maintenance of these rights are done in the administration module. People with editor rights will be granted the privilege to alter or remove any information posted on the intranet, functionality for doing this is also part of the administration module.

3.6 Security

The IME 2004 security is based on the use of the Portal Access System and use of SSL/https for encrypting the communication between the ministry and the municipalities.

The IME 2004 access control system denies access for none authorized users and systems. IME 2004 authentication system will assign the authorized users to roles. The applications will give access to functions and information based on the role.

4 Operations and Maintenance

4.1 Operation Management

A local operations provider will handle the operation of the intranet. The operation and system management of IME 2004 will be regulated through a separate contract and service level agreement by the IME 2004 project.

4.2 Support and Help desk

Support to the end user of IME 2004 is a very important part of the implementation plan and the daily operation of IME 2004 when it is in production. Every user will, over time have the need for help and questions about functionality, business processes and rules as well as technical question. Most of this help is expected to be covered by the MOIM instructors, but these will also be backed up by the project and by the operations provider.

The project will establish a help center within the operational organization for supporting the use of IME 2004 one week before and one week after the election day. At the election day, the project and the operations provider will have full focus on securing the operations and security of the system.

5 Training and Technology Transfer

5.1 Training

The project has the responsibility to train two main groups / roles:

The MOIM instructors

The MOIM system managers

The objective of “train the trainer” is to educate a set of people that understand and know the solution in such detail that they can conduct lessons to the end-user of IME 2004 throughout the MOIM organization. In this way MOIM will have some very knowledgeable power users and support personnel, not only in the initial phase but also a solid platform of people for the future. The people that have participated in the “train the trainer” program should be key resources at the MOIM help desk.

In addition to the training material, an e-learning program will be developed and made easily accessible through the Intranet.

System managers will be trained separately. Some of the functions of IME 2004 will only be used by a small number of people i.e. user administration, security access control, data administration and business functions such as analyzing and reporting.

5.2 Technology competence and Know-how Transfer

It is important for MOIM to have competent people available for the maintenance future development of the system. This is achieved through the competence transfer program of the IME 2004 project. ......................... will through the completion of this project transfer technology competence and know-how to Lebanon.

............................. will establish a representation in Lebanon partly manned with Norwegian and partly manned with Lebanese people. The Lebanese manning will increase during the project. Also a local service organization will be established for handling tasks like translations, training, support, maintenance and operation of the new system. During the project, the competence in building such systems will be transferred from the Norwegian experts to local IT professionals. After the completion of the project, this local service provider will be capable of performing all necessary maintenance and operation of the intranet system.

6 Quality Assurance and Risk Management

6.1 Quality Assurance and Risk Management

Quality Assurance involves the entire software development process - monitoring and improving the process, making sure that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed, and ensure that problems are found and dealt with. It is oriented to 'prevention' more than overlooking.

As part of the project plan and activities a Quality handbook, processes and routines will be documented and implemented in the team and part of all activities. We will use the company’s standard Quality handbook as a baseline for what the project will document and implement.

Risk and opportunity go hand in hand. Many development projects strive to advance capabilities and achieve something that hasn't been done before. The opportunity for advancement cannot be achieved without taking risk.

"Risks in itself are not bad; risks are essential to progress, and failure is often a key part of learning. But we must learn to balance the possible negative consequences of risks against the potential benefits of its associated opportunity."

Risk Management is the process of identifying, analyzing and mitigating risk. A forward-looking approach will be taken by the project by conducting a series of project and business risk assessments. The project risk assessments goal will be to identify and analyze all risk elements to the main project and effectuate necessary activities:

Assess continuously what can go wrong (risks).

Determine what risks are important to deal with.

Implement strategies to deal with those risks.

7 Scheduling and Resource Leveling

7.1 Project Main Schedule

The overall IME 2004 Project schedule identifies all projects, milestones and main activities according to the established Work Break-down Structure. Resource requirements are defined per activity. The Project start-up date is set to 1. October 2003. The IME 2004 Implementation will be concluded by end of May 2004.

The following main projects/activities are defined in the schedule, see figure below:

7.2 Resource Leveling

The Resource Leveling is a critical activity in the preparation of the IME 2004 Project execution. Each activity in the Work Break-down structure has been identified with the required resources in terms of number of Lebanese- and Norwegian man months. The Resource Leveling will take into consideration that:

· the activities have to be executed in a logical sequence and with some overlap

· the activities have to be executed in time to fulfill the Main Schedule and Milestones/Check Points

· the results from leveling should be as smooth as possible

The following projection in figure below defines the required staffing of the IME 2004 Project, according to the current Main Schedule. Lebanese ICT-engineers will perform a major part of the work, under management of a joint team from Lebanon and Norway.

8 Project Cost Estimate

The IME 2004 Project execution is based upon the assumption that work will be a collaborative effort between ICT engineers from Lebanon and Norway, with a major transfer of technical know-how to Lebanon. In addition, a good working cooperation between the IME 2004 project team and the MOIM is a prerequisite for success in the project. The project need to be established very quickly, and has very limited time for performing all the necessary tasks for successfully supporting the municipality election in 2004.

8.1 Cost Estimate Summary

The overview below describes the different cost elements of the IME 2004 project.


Activity	Price Elements		USD	Comments
	Nor manmth	Leb manmth
Project Management	8	0	280 000	Management, Quality Assurance
Analysis Phase	8	6	340 000	Determining the requirements of the system
Establish Infrastructure	4	20	340 000	Establish & Test infrastructure at municipalities
Implementation	6	0	210 000	Software adjustment and impl. User Administration
Development	6	0	210 000	Development, Election results and presentation
Training & eLearning	4	2	160 000	Training of MOIM trainers, icl. eLearning
Operations & Maintenance	4	20	340 000	Local Operations Provider (LOP)
Support & Help Desk	1	5	85 000	1 week before and 1 week after election day
Hardware			425 000	Development- and LOP- hardware
Software			390 000	Content manag., Portal framework, Application server
Total	41	53	2 780 000

9 Major Stake Holders

9.1 IME 2004 Major Stake Holders

The figure below defines the Major Stake Holders in the IME 2004 project environment:

support

9.2 MOIM Contribution to the IME 2004 Project

A successful execution of the IME 2004 Project work is dependent on a close cooperation with MOIM, where MOIM staff performs activities according to a plan mutually agreed on after Contract Award. The following is a list of the major MOIM responsibilities, indicating where the IME 2004 Project staff will provide MOIM with input to the work:

· Participate in the Steering Committee

· Appoint a Project Sponsor to participate in work with Project Charter

· Appoint an internal Project Coordinator full time

· Responsible for the information content, publication, distribution of election directives and procedures using IME 2004

· Perform Training of Municipalities’ personnel in use and operation/maintenance of IME 2004

o IME 2004 Project will train the “MOIM Trainers” and provide documentation, course material, incl. eLearning packages

· MOIM will supply appropriate building infrastructure for the operation of IME 2004

9.3 .........................................

........................ is a leading software and consulting company in ......................... and mission-critical reporting and analysis (business intelligence and data warehousing). All solutions are designed to allow communication via internal or external Web portals and support for all communication channels. The consulting part of the company employs about .............. consultants in areas such as Internet/e-business, data warehousing and production systems.

..............................´s objective is to help our customers to develop effective business processes that support their value creation and growth.

......................... strives to develop effective and loyalty-boosting business channels for its customers. It involves a change of focus from the product and production to the customer and business channel. The solutions needed to support a strategy like this are extensive. System integration and work processes represent an important part of such solutions.

Through ...........................'s business model, the cost-effectiveness of standard systems is combined with the flexibility of customized development and the capability to take responsibility for the total delivery. This “hybrid model” makes us competitive and is adapted to......... conditions with demanding and sophisticated customers, which - because of their size - are more dependent on cost-effective solutions than their larger competitors abroad.

9.4 ............................. in the Middle East

For handling the day-to-day operations of the IME 2004 project, ........................ will establish a representation in Lebanon. This will be done in close cooperation with other existing companies in Beirut.

.............................. will assist in establishing a local operations provider for handling training, operation and maintenance of the intranet. This company will employ people locally in addition to renting people for handling the different phases of the project. The amount of Lebanese and Foreign workers will vary during the project, but one of the goals for the project is to provide a certain level of competence transfer, and thereby ensuring continuous availability to highly skilled experts on the delivered solution.

10 Organization

10.1 Organization Chart

The IME 2004 Project Organization is a self-supported unit with the ability to perform all Project Activities with the technical content required, according to the quality assurance principles stated, with implementation of the security measurements required and within the stated cost- and time limits.

A collaborative team of highly qualified engineers from Lebanon and Norway according to figure below will manage the IME 2004 Project:

10.2 Work Instructions

Each entity in the Organization Chart will have a clearly defined role and a Work Instruction to state the responsibilities and boundaries:

· A steering committee will be established with participants from MOIM and .......................... The committee will receive monthly progress reports from the IME 2004 Project and participate in monthly status meetings. The committee will also be responsible for taking any corrective actions required to correct the IME 2004 progress and cost.

· A Project Sponsor from MOIM will be appointed. The Sponsor will work together with the IME 2004 Project Manager to produce the Project Charter. The Sponsor will also participate in solving any disputes on a high level that may arise during the execution of the work.

· MOIM will appoint a full-time Project Coordinator. The Project Coordinator will coordinate the work between the MOIM personnel and IME 2004 Project Team.

· The IME 2004 Project Manager will have the full responsibility of all aspects of the IME 2004 Project execution.

· Quality Assurance will be the Project Manager’s responsibility. He will supervise on how the work should be executed according to the defined QA principles and perform all required audits.

· System and Network Security will be the Project Manager’s responsibility and he will supervise on how all security devices and procedures should be implemented according to specifications.

· Due to the limited size of the Project, Software, Infrastructure and Training & Support will be collaborative efforts in work groups without any appointed managers