Arapahoe County IT Service Catalog
Executive Summary
This project addressed significant process delays and stakeholder resistance within Arapahoe County's IT department related to a fragmented application management system.
Through a mixed-methods research approach, I consolidated data from 16 disparate sources into a single, unified catalog and conducted user interviews to understand core pain points. The resulting deliverables included a unified IT catalog, a streamlined IT service acquisition protocol, and a research-backed communications plan that directly influenced stakeholder buy-in for the county's IT strategy.
Project Overview
Problem & Goals
Arapahoe County’s IT department faced process delays and significant stakeholder resistance to modernization due to a scattered and inefficient application management system. My goal was to consolidate their database and use UX research to understand user needs, secure stakeholder buy-in, and design a trustworthy, unified process.
My Process
I used a mixed-methods process to balance data consolidation with human-centered insights.
Data Consolidation: Sourced artifacts from multiple departments and used RStudio and Tidyverse to clean, deduplicate, and merge them into a unified list of 953 applications.
User Research: Conducted 45-minute, semi-structured interviews with 9 IT employees across all 4 divisions to uncover goals, pain points, and sources of resistance to the new system.
Comparative Analysis: Analyzed three potential software solutions, recommending Airtable for its usability and familiar, spreadsheet-like interface.
Recommendations & Deliverables
Based on the research, I delivered actionable solutions:
A Consolidated Airtable Database: A final, cleaned database of all 953 applications.
A New, Unified IT Catalog: Recommendations for standardizing descriptions and using a tagging system in Airtable to streamline searches.
A Clearer Process: A proposal for a single, official business process map to reduce reliance on tacit knowledge.
A Stakeholder Presentation & Memo: A presentation and memo that used research findings to address stakeholder uncertainties directly.
My findings were incorporated into Arapahoe County’s IT Strategic Plan.
The Impact: Driving Real Change
My research and deliverables created a clear path forward for the county's IT strategy, resulting in measurable improvements to efficiency and collaboration.
94% Reduction in Data Artifacts: Consolidated 16 disparate data sources into a single, centralized database. This created a single source of truth for all 953 county applications and simplified SaaS license management.
47% Increase in Stakeholder Buy-In: Grew stakeholder approval for the new system from 38% to 85% by grounding the project in user research and directly addressing their core pain points in the final solution.
Enhanced Decision-Making: Delivered a unified IT catalog and a clear process map, which reduced reliance on tacit knowledge and empowered leadership to make more strategic decisions about software purchases across the county.