
City of Goleta Awards: ThirdWave's 132nd IT Strategic Planning Project
February 7, 2017
The City of Goleta is located on the Central Coast of California just north of Santa Barbara. It has the warmth and charm of a small beach town. Beaches, well-maintained parks and open spaces, low crime rate, and a mild coastal climate add to the City’s attraction.
The City employs contracted information technology services for an organization made up of 66 staff (full time employees, consultants and interns). An IT Strategic Plan & Roadmap RFP was advertised in late 2016. ThirdWave was selected from a field of highly capable firms in early 2017, primarily because of our expansive body of work and our patented Rapid Workflow® methodology.
The City was seeking an independent consultant to conduct a needs assessment of existing IT infrastructure, equipment, policies and procedures, and support services. The overriding goal was to prepare a strategic plan to serve as a road map for addressing short and long-term technology resource needs. The City had not previously developed an Information Technology Strategic Plan, nor did it have a framework for IT governance. On the technical side, the City had a long list of items to address including: IT organizational structure, resource management, network/telecommunications infrastructure, servers, storage, printers, network and data security, desktop environment, software licensing, Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery, policies and procedures, and email/message archiving – and of course, emerging technologies.