Sean Simpson has a remarkable career of more than 20 years. Strategic visioning, building high-performance teams, and delivering innovative business and customer-focused solutions are the epitome of his work dedication. Notably, Simpson played a pivotal leadership role in the creation and implementation of Surrey’s ‘Smart Surrey Strategy.’ He spearheaded six of the strategy’s 43 initiatives, a contribution that was instrumental in Surrey's recognition as one of the “Top 7 Most Intelligent Communities in the World.”
In an Interview with CIOReview Canada magazine, Sean Simpson shares his insights on the challenges faced when developing a city and procuring the right solutions. Can you brief us about your career journey so far? Upon completing my postgraduate studies, I secured my first job as a Programmer Analyst with the City of Surrey’s IT team, where I served for two years. When budget cuts dissolved my team, I transitioned to a role in downtown Vancouver with the world’s preeminent geographic information system (GIS) company. In my capacity as a Municipal GIS Specialist, I worked for another two years, assisting various municipalities in either upgrading or implementing their GIS systems, gaining a comprehensive understanding of diverse work cultures and methodologies. Later, an opportunity for a GIS Manager in the engineering department presented itself back at the City of Surrey. Fortunate to secure this role, I effectively transformed the process through which citizens and businesses interacted with our services, resolving critical issues in the process. These accomplishments solidified my qualifications for the Chief Information Officer (CIO) position, which I have held for approximately a decade. What are your key initiatives as a CIO, and how does a typical day look to you? After taking up the role, the first order of work was to come forward with a plan to not only reignite or restart the GIS program but also create a real center of GIS service for the city. I built up a team to develop solutions to the issues citizens face. We initiated citizen-facing services where citizens can inform or complain about a streetlight or pothole. Automating and creating an efficient process where a request goes to the city and is communicated back. Citizens can now know when their complaint is received, the time duration required to resolve it, and the result after successfully resolving it. Under the role of CIO, a number of key areas were also broadened. We created a cyber security team. We created a digital services team that took on the responsibility of modernizing citizen and business-facing services. We transformed project managers’ work methods. Our focus is to take the project management team services, beyond just technology projects, and into any transformation from a current state to a future state, irrespective of whether technology is involved. What keeps you up at night regarding some of the significant predicaments or challenges you encountered in this role? One of the most pressing concerns that occupies my thoughts is talent retention. While we have a forward-thinking approach—successfully transitioning to cloud services, for instance—the challenge often lies in not just acquiring but also retaining specialized expertise. In the municipal sector, our compensation packages may not be as competitive as those offered by tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon, which have a significant market presence. However, we continue to find innovative ways to keep our employees engaged through the value-added work they perform for the citizens. "To gauge the success of our strategies, we employ the Balanced Scorecard framework at three organizational levels: citywide, departmental, and divisional. This framework not only helps us articulate our objectives but also prioritizes key initiatives essential for achieving these goals." Another challenge lies in undertaking massive technological transformation projects. Although conceptualizing and strategizing them might seem straightforward, their execution often needs to be improved. For instance, as we transition from Oracle-based systems to SQL Server and cloud platforms, it has become evident that not all staff members fully grasp the necessity of this shift. Ensuring alignment with this vision across all levels of the organization is a complex but vital undertaking we are currently addressing. What strategies have you implemented to improve the city’s digital capabilities and enhance service delivery to residents? In our architecture team, we have established a set of guiding architectural principles that serve as foundational tenets for our work. Central to these is the “Cloud-First Principle,” which informs our planning and strategic development. This principle aligns with our hub-and-spoke model, which has been pivotal in centralizing the city’s IT services. As a result, our project managers, business analysts, and programmers operate cohesively under a unified IT structure, expediting workflows. Our overarching objective remains to optimize work processes by consolidating staff from disparate areas into a single department, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing. We aim to act as an operational platform, readily available to assist other departments facing resource constraints. For example, if the engineering department is overwhelmed with demand, we aim to partner with them to offer modern tools and internal resources, rather than seeking external assistance. This collaborative approach extends into the larger corporate ecosystem, facilitating the integration of these solutions with other vital systems. To gauge the success of our strategies, we employ the Balanced Scorecard framework at three organizational levels: citywide, departmental, and divisional. This framework not only helps us articulate our objectives but also prioritizes key initiatives essential for achieving these goals. By associating these objectives with specific metrics, we can provide real-time status updates on our ongoing work, thus ensuring alignment and accountability across the organization. Is there any recent project or initiative you have been working on lately, and can you give some insights about some of the process elements or technology you have leveraged to make it successful? Our legacy applications were increasingly incompatible with the modernized ecosystem of city services. Issues ranged from poor mobile responsiveness to a need for more automation and even the unavailability of certain online services. These shortcomings compelled citizens and businesses to resort to in-person visits or phone calls to city hall. To address these issues, our digital services initiative aims to modernize or completely overhaul such services. One notable example is the online issuance of electrical permits for electricians. Within a year of launching this feature, we received more than 100 digital permit applications. We are continually enhancing the service interface to ensure the development community can obtain permits and schedule inspections more efficiently. Streamlining this process serves as a critical strategy for the city to reduce permit approval timelines. What would be your piece of advice to your fellow peers and colleagues in the industry? One strategy that has proven highly effective for us is implementing a portfolio model, which assigns architects, project managers, and business analysts to specific departments. We conduct quarterly meetings with the senior managers of each department to review this portfolio and discuss our recent achievements, ongoing projects, and future objectives. These discussions are invaluable for ensuring we remain aligned with each department’s business goals. Should any issues emerge during the course of our work, we subject them to rigorous analysis and subsequently prioritize them. When immediate attention is necessary, and internal resources are stretched thin, we don’t hesitate to engage external vendors to resolve the problem. This proactive approach to communication and business alignment has been instrumental in our team’s success, and we believe it’s a model that would be beneficial for other organizations as well.