Arapahoe County ITSM hero
Case study

Arapahoe County ITSM

Consolidating 16 fragmented systems into a single, stakeholder-approved IT catalog.

Project Overview

Role

Product Management Fellow

Timeline

10 weeks

Methods

Mixed-methods research, comparative analysis

Tools

RStudio, Tidyverse, Airtable

Problem

Fragmented application management across 16 sources caused delays and resistance to modernization.

Goal

Unify data and design a trustworthy IT catalog adopted across departments.

Process

Step 1 — Data consolidation

Merged 953 applications from 16 sources using RStudio and Tidyverse.

Step 2 — User research

9 semi-structured interviews across 4 IT divisions.

Step 3 — Comparative analysis

Evaluated 3 tools and recommended Airtable for usability.

Step 4 — Stakeholder alignment

Presented findings and wrote a memo addressing adoption concerns.

Research insights

Evidence for Insight 1

Distrust as resistance

Stakeholders associated new systems with top-down change — addressing trust increased buy-in for leadership-led solutions.

Evidence for Insight 2

Cataloging chaos = duplication

Inconsistent naming and taxonomy produced duplicates, poor traceability, and hundreds of thousands of wasted taxpayer dollars.

Evidence for Insight 3

Transparency builds trust

Shared Airtable views improved perceived control, day-to-day adoption readiness, and paved the way for IT leadership to plan strategic rationalization.

Deliverables

Airtable catalog — example view
Airtable catalog — example view
Interview insights
Interview insights

Unified Airtable catalog

I centralized 953 applications with standardized tags and filters -- replacing 16 fragmented sources and improving searchability.

Internal memo → Strategic Plan

I reported my findings and recommendations in the form of an internal memo. Details of the memo were incorporated in Arapahoe County Government's IT Strategic Plan.

Taxonomy + naming

Standard naming and ownership fields to cut duplication and improve traceability.

Shared views

Role-based Airtable views to increase transparency and reduce resistance.

Impact

94 %

Reduction in data artifacts

38 % → 85 %

Stakeholder buy-in

16 → 1

Fragmented sources to unified catalog

Reflection

This project reinforced that lasting systems change starts with trust. Pairing data engineering with participatory research turned a technical migration into a shared win for leadership and day-to-day users.

Want the Airtable schema or memo template?

Happy to share sanitized examples and the consolidation workflow.

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