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ne an appropriate strategy and to develop policies and plans to introduce the strategy. As well as representative Councillors, senior Council executives were members of the committee.

The Project
The committee deliberated for some eight weeks before deciding to recommend to Council the adoption of an Information Technology strategy. The committee recommended that all new systems would be installed on a server that used an Open Source Operating System; also that all systems should use database technology that provided for Web Interfaces. The committee also decided to recommend that an investigation be carried out into the implementation of a new revenue system. This new system would need to provide for all functions of the old system as well as new functions including the introduction of water meters.

Council met some two weeks later. Whiz was particularly happy when Mr. Bright rang through with the news that Council had accepted the recommendations of the strategy committee. It was decided to advertise outside Council for a person to manage the project. Mr. Bright arranged for an advertisement to be placed in the local newspapers one fortnight after the Council’s decision. It took six weeks to review the applications and conduct the interviews. Shirley Church was appointed to the position. Shirley had considerable experience with project management and database systems, but was not familiar with water meters.

Shirley took up her appointment two weeks later. She formed a project group consisting of users and information technology staff. One of her initial problems was that most of these persons had little experience with database technology. She knew it would be necessary for her to make sure that she concentrated on her role as project manager. She also realised that she should not get too bogged down in analysis and other detailed aspects of the project. Drawing on her contacts that she had in the information technology industry,
Shirley arranged for a week long training course to give staff an overview of database technology. This was arranged to start two weeks after she took up the position.

Whiz was requested to investigate portable data entry technology that could be used by meter readers to record the water meter readings as they were read. He contacted some colleagues whom he had met at local government conferences who were able to give some up-to-date information on suppliers of this technology.
They also supplied a copy of the specification that they had used for the introduction of their water meters.

At the same time, Shirley consulted the Council engineering department concerning the acquisition and installation of the water meters. It was found that there were suitable suppliers within the State.

Whiz checked with his engineering colleagues on the serial number format that they were intending to use and the size number required for the meter reading. A location code system was also agreed upon, so that meter readers would know where the meters were located at a particular ratepayer's property. Other features such as “Warning dog” were also provided for inclusion.

Based on the team’s previous work, Whiz estimated that the preparation of the specification for the supply, delivery, installation a