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Support for internal communication from the LiMux core team helps managers
whose skills are primarily technical to deal securely with ‘soft topics’.
In addition there is the experience that the LiMux-Client is working well on an
everyday basis.
The IT managers and the technical leaders take on the role of central opinion formers and
ensure that the migration is sustainable in their field.
3.6 IT staff: the ‘initial hurdle’ for the project
One of the first hurdles for the project was the involvement of IT staff in the migration
fields. In some business units, it proved possible to persuade this stakeholder group of the
merits of the project at an early stage. In other business units, on the other hand, there
was some ‘passive resistance’, which could only be overcome in the course of the project.
This resistance arose from loyalty to the familiar, locally optimised solution as against the
central, city-wide LiMux configuration.
These IT staff have the role of technical managers within the project and act as the direct
contacts of staff in the core team. Their tasks are as follows:
to define the requirements with respect to the LiMux-Client,
to act as test coordinators and receive the new versions of the LiMux-Client and
to carry out the migration on the ground from the organisational and technical point
of view.
The constant improvement of the LiMux-Client, the standardisation of server and
administration tools, necessitated by the reorganisation to it@M, has played a decisive role
in the growing acceptance of the open source strategy and solution. Increasingly, it is
proving possible to turn this stakeholder group completely into fellow campaigners by
means of:
technical support for the migration on the ground by the core team,
involving them in training and workshops and
equipping them with the requisite know-how to act as administrators and user
support officers.
3.7 Management: a difficult target group to gain access to
The LiMux project did not succeed in gaining direct access to the stakeholder group made
of managers of the business units and their IT managers. Involving them was the task of
the unit project leaders, but they were not equally successful everywhere. In many
respects, this is highly regrettable, because on the one hand it denied the unit project
leaders possible support in convincing other staff and on the other hand it meant that
managers did not always act as positive role models for staff as one might have hoped.
Ultimately this was expressed in the form of:
in some cases, excessive demands postulated by managers,
failure to take delivery of the system,
silent protests among staff and
avoidable escalations above business unit head level.
The reason for this gap in the stakeholder approach is the lack of involvement of managers
in roles and/or in regular communication. Efforts were made to overcome this problem by
means of occasional visits to the regular management meetings.
From the point of view of stakeholder management, this stakeholder group adopts a
position between ‘expressing no opinion’ and ‘obstruction.’ In addition, however, some
managers opened up their minds for Open Source technology and used it not only when
they were ordered to.
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3.8 Ultimately it is the staff who make or break the project
The introduction of LiMux as a workplace system results in changes to the working
environment for many staff. This confronts the City of Munich’s staff with changes which
entail uncertainties and grounds for concern. This concern is fed by two sources. On the
one hand, the changes temporarily involve efforts, while on the other hand changes tend to
generate uncertainties.
The temporary efforts arise from the fact that unfamiliar working procedures, or the same
procedures carried out using unfamiliar programmes, simply take more time than those
which have already become routine. Moreover, the know-how enabling staff to optimise
their own work has to be built up afresh in the new environment. In view of the high
workload to which staff are subject, one can understand their concern.
Changes, like anything else new, are viewed critically, which is hardly surprising: every
business or large organisation experiences similar phenomena when it comes to replacing
familiar things with something different whose advantages may first even have to prove
their value before they can be accepted. Here, firm belief and perseverance are needed.
Initially, many people reject the innovations, because change may make the professional
future seem uncertain. But what ultimately matters is confidence and acceptance on the
part of staff. Without their support, successful implementation would be inconceivable.
An important message to IT staff had to be that IT development and the migration to the
new office suite and to the LiMux system are not an end in themselves but yield
demonstrable benefits. Staff must be involved. It is therefore vital to generate acceptance
of the changes. That will not happen automatically: it requires active support in an ongoing
process.
In order to take this into account, the migration is being accompanied by management of
change (to give it its full title, ‘management of change and communication’: see also
Section 3.1, ‘The project team: the starting point for all stakeholder groups’). This involves
two team members from the project management level who are specifically working on
internal and external communication (see also Section 3.10, ‘PR work: a two-edged sword’)
and support in the process of change.
On an everyday basis, this can mean that, long before the migration, info tours are already
being made through the relevant fields, which entail users and IT staff alike receiving
information about the impending changes. Shortly before the migration, moreover, further
meetings are held in some fields, which receive support from the ‘management of change
and communication team’ or also, occasionally, from the project management on the spot,
jointly with the IT staff. In addition, when further meetings are held, those who have this
responsibility repeatedly drop in or participate in working parties/regular discussion days
where, as a rule, the IT staff from all migration fields are represented.
The LiMux team can be contacted quickly by e-mail, using an internal communication
address, and will also on occasion be present at one gathering or another. Mostly, however,
contact is maintained by means of exchanges with the relevant LiMux communication
officers in the fields.
The team „ Migrationsunterstützung vor Ort“ (Migration Support on the Ground), with its
acronym MUV, supported the migration fields from the technical point of view on the
ground: in order to prepare for the migration, MUV invested two days of preliminary work
in the offices of the business unit concerned. If there are questions or problems after the
migration, the team again goes to the scene and helps to find solutions. In addition, there
are regular review deadlines.
Enormous value is attached to the training of staff: during the migration, first of all the IT
service staff and IT user advisers are trained, after which they are constantly updated
about the latest situation. They then become multipliers and ambassadors for the end user,
as they are the initial contact and trusted individual. If the migration has the support of
those in charge of IT services with the support of the business units, their staff will mostly
go along with it. Each employee of the city of Munich was also entitled to half a day’s
training with the new operating system and up to a day for the Office package. For those
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who wish to gain more in-depth knowledge, there is the ‘LiMux-Lernwelt’ for individual
study.
The LiMux brand is always to the fore. With the penguin Tux, the mascot of the free
operating system Linux, LiMux has its recognisable identity at every meeting. The penguin
soft toy, customised with the Munich ‘Kindl’ coat of arms, helps people to identify with the
product and with the LiMux brand, and other small merchandise such as LiMux desk pads is
well received and creates a little bridge to the end-user, thus assisting identification with
the new system.
Of course it is advantageous if one can manage to turn the bulk of the staff into fellow
campaigners too. But it is already sufficient if one ultimately succeeds in persuading staff
not to adopt a hostile attitude towards the new work station but simply to accept it as an
aid in the ongoing provision of services to the public. The most important point for the staff
is that the LiMux client provides the appropriate business functionality and stability. This is
guaranteed by the LiMux Client. Therefore, the client is accepted.
3.9 The open source community: a reliable fellow campaigner and
developer
Whether it is through the voluntary cooperation in the further development of open office
communication suites or the organisation of developers’ days, the commitment displayed in
associations which support the open file format is a wholeheartedly espoused principle of
the open source approach.
Munich is a pioneer in the large-scale use of open-source software, but it is also active in
the further development of that software in the context of associations such as
OpenOffice.org or its independent continuation: LibreOffice. It gains much in return for
this:
The open-source community is large and closely linked. From time to time, meetings are
held, which are not at all virtual but physical. For example a ‘hackers’ party’ or a ‘bug-
squashing party’, where developers from all over the world meet and devise solutions to
specific problems with programmers from the LiMux project. The result is then
amalgamated with the software solutions.
There is also increased cooperation between IT staff representing various public institutions
to deal with compatibility issues across the board. Examples include the OOXML Workshop
of the Swiss Open Systems User Group (
http://www.ch-open.ch
), in which, in addition to
Freiburg, Jena, Munich and the Swiss Federal Court (among others), various community
organisations and a representative of Microsoft also took part. Work packages were
adopted to improve support for the standard developed by Microsoft for its OOXML file
formats. The workshop represented an important step forward in cooperation between
municipalities. The features to improve interoperability are implemented and available
starting with Libre Office release 3.6 and were further improved with Libre Office release
4.0.
The LiMux project is an active member, or at least contributor to the following groups,
among many others: the OSBA (Open Source Business Alliance e.V.), FrODeV (Freies Office
Deutschland), OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice, TDF (The Document Foundation), FSFE (Free
Software Foundation Europe).
Fruitful exchanges are organised by means of mailing lists, for example concerning the
template system WollMux developed by LiMux itself, and concerning Ubuntu (a free and
open source operating system) and other open-source projects. WollMux was developed as
an extension of OpenOffice.org and is now being used in more and more municipalities for
work with templates, forms and letterheads (
www.wollmux.org
).
The open source community is in a twofold sense a readily accessible source of strength for
a project such as LiMux: without the uncomplicated and rapid support of the community, a
project of this kind would not be feasible. The selfless, uncommercial attitude of the open
source community to sharing knowledge and know-how is the guarantor of the success of
the whole open source movement.
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3.10 PR work: a two-edged sword
Successful internal and external communication (see also Section 3.8, ‘Ultimately it is the
staff who make or break the project’) also requires PR work. This includes contacts with the
press, involving interviews, podcasts and articles, as well as participating and speaking at
trade fairs and congresses. Talking about the subject and reporting on it are part and
parcel of this. Staff have a right to expect it, and an interest in seeing how the project is
viewed and assessed by the public. They, after all, are also part of the project and should
be informed about the impression that the ‘flagship project’ is making on other interest
groups. Thanks to transparency regarding the progress of the project, other municipalities
may perhaps feel inspired to consider migration. That is also the intention of the project: to
organise exchanges and gain fellow campaigners. If the EU institutions were to be
convinced to opt more for open source technology in future, it would help if the public were
behind it too.
PR work naturally also gives rise to expectations and leads to new challenges: press work is
difficult to control, as an editor – an independent authority – may intervene. It may
sometimes be difficult to influence the nature of the publication, which means that it soon
becomes necessary to issue corrections, which take up time and energy that would
otherwise be available for other developments. A posting on the city’s IT blog or on the
professional blogs of various online IT platforms will elicit all manner of comments. It is
therefore vital to be vigilant in monitoring the news.
While public exposure opens one to attack, it is clear what advantages can accrue to the
project from providing information. LiMux therefore has an up-to-date presence not only on
its own staff website but also on the public Munich Portal (
www.muenchen.de/limux
and
www.it-muenchen-blog.de
). The annual goals and milestones of the project are also
indicated there. Contributions on Wikipedia are kept up to date and contacts with other
municipalities are gradually being established and strengthened.
A measurable result of this public profile can now be seen in the form of the substantial
numbers of requests which have been received from associations or towns seeking support
in deciding to migrate to free software. Again and again, the LiMux project team is
sounding out possibilities of further propagating the open source idea. For example, it plans
– jointly with those who run the city – to lobby more fervently for the adoption of an EU
directive on the exclusive use of open standards. In future, other urban partners will also
be invited to cooperate more. In other words, lobbying also forms part of PR work. In
addition, the city of Munich hosted its first public Open Source event in the city hall at the
20
th
and 21
st
of June 2013. Agenda and presentations are available for download on
www.muenchen.de/opensourcetage
. The event was held in German.
The social media are not yet playing a major role, because here too, it is necessary to act
effectively and to make the right impression: otherwise, far from producing added value,
these media will lay the authority open to further attacks. And, as everywhere else, in
Munich too resources are at a premium.
Openness calls for transparency, and transparency is always a basis for acceptance. As
acceptance is ultimately what matters, there is no alternative to open communication. The
general public constitutes a diffuse stakeholder group, which cannot be assigned a blanket
position in the force field analysis. Rather, it is necessary to consider the individual
subgroups separately and to communicate with them in a targeted manner.
4. LEARNING THE LESSONS OF THE PROJECT TO DATE;
PROSPECTS FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
Such a far-reaching IT transformation process, requiring acceptance, as the one that took
place in Munich, is only possible if vital stakeholder groups cooperate (Moser 2007).
Stakeholder management has ensured the success of the LiMux project in Munich. The
relationship with each stakeholder group needs to be built by means of different measures.
NB: The points below are intended not as recommendations but as indicating the outcome
of the learning process during the project:
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The core team is the prime mover of the project and the origin of its success. Staff
belonging to the core team regard themselves as promoters of the open source
community.
The City Council is a fellow campaigner and sponsor of the project and, as a
messenger with a mission to the public, requires up-to-date, open communication
about the progress of the project.
The Umbrella Staff Committee and its business unit Staff Committees are an
influential and competent stakeholder group, whose involvement is particularly
necessary at the beginning of the project.
The IT management team acts as a promoter of the project, always keeping an eye
on the business units’ practical constraints. Together with the City Council, it
constitutes the project governance structure.
The IT managers and technical leaders ensure the sustainability of the migration
process and must therefore be encouraged to become fellow campaigners or even
promoters of the project.
IT staff are the Achilles heel of the project: unless there are plenty of staff with
open-source know-how, a lasting changeover to open source technology is not
possible.
Management must be thoroughly involved in the role-based structural model, in
order to set an example to staff: otherwise, there is a danger of impasses and
passive resistance.
Staff are satisfied that the new work station is functioning as an aid to the ongoing
provision of services to the public.
The open source community is a highly accessible source of strength for such a
project. Exchanges of know-how and knowledge on a not-for-profit basis are a
guarantor of the success of the whole open source movement.
Openness calls for transparency, and transparency is always a basis for acceptance.
As acceptance is ultimately what matters, there is no alternative to open
communication, including with external stakeholder groups.
Upon closer inspection it becomes clear that, in conjunction, the City Council, the IT
management, unit project leaders and the project team are the driving and stabilising
forces in the whole transformation process. In the course of the project, three positions, in
particular, have changed fundamentally: the Staff Committee, after playing a more active
role in the early stages of the project, is now less important, while the unit project leaders
and IT staff have become significantly more positive about the Limux project. The attitudes
of the other stakeholders have largely remained unchanged. With regard to quality, too,
the stakeholders are not all alike. For example, management and IT staff are very
heterogeneous: there are almost equal numbers of strong advocates and critics. The
project team and also the IT management, on the other hand, each constitute a very
homogeneous group. Contrary to some rumours, the instigator of the project and political
authority – the City Council – has not changed its attitude: it has been a strong promoter
throughout. Over the years, it has proved possible, over all, to persuade some stakeholders
to abandon the position of wishing to express no opinion and to involve them in the project.
In 2013 this project is going to be finished as a project and the responsibility for the
development, release management and maintenance of the LiMux client is going to be part
of the regular business line. The IT of one of the largest municipalities in Germany is now
independent, free and modern. Munich’s IT development regarding the LiMux client is
completed as a project. The LiMux project has proved equal to its role as a ‘flagship’
project. Now it only remains for many other municipalities, authorities and organisations to
follow its lead.
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5. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Acohido, B. USA TODAY, 13.07.2003:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2003-07-13-microsoft-
linux-munich_x.htm
Freeman, R.E. (1984) Strategic Management. A Stakeholder Approach. Pitman,
1984
Lang, C. (2010) Die Stakeholderanalyse im Rahmen des projectmanagements.
Moser, P. (2007) Stakeholdermanagement zur optimalen Gestaltung strategischen
Wandels
Theuvsen, L., Schauer, R., Gmür, M. (2010) Stakeholder-Management in Nonprofit-
Organisationen.
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