"C-innovate’s skills and experience have been an invaluable resource and contributed significantly to making this an award winning project" - Gill Webster, IT Project Manager, Bedfordshire Police.
Northants Police interviews
IT facts and figures
Platform:
BlackBerry (8310s)
Number deployed:
800
Applications:
Email, Calendar, Voters, PNLD, Camera/imaging, Mapping, PVH, Internet, PNC (in the pipeline crime / intel)
Software developers:
Beat Systems, in-house
What the client needed
In 2008 Northamptonshire Police secured Phase 1 NPIA funding through the East Midlands Collaboration of police forces to provide frontline officers with mobile technology. Northamptonshire Police recognised that delivering and ensuring sustainable benefits required considerable stakeholder engagement. C-innovate were engaged to provide a range of user engagement and benefits realisation services, a large proportion of which involved conducting face-to-face interviews with officers across the county.
What we did
In the initial stages of the project we provided consultancy to support the in-house project team on the identification of risks and issues, frontline information needs, potential work practice changes, best training methods and support needs of frontline staff. Alongside this we conducted interviews with officers from response, neighbourhood and road policing roles to benchmark attitudes towards the BlackBerry project and IT systems in general within the force. Further interviews were conducted with senior stakeholders to assess perceptions to the project across the organisation.
This research provided the foundation for ongoing user engagement and benefits realisation work and provided an indication of the potential risks and operational issues. Immediately following device roll-out we re-interviewed officers plus a wider group of officers to ascertain first impressions of the BlackBerry devices. Further interviews will be conducted as new applications are introduced and the devices get fully embedded into work practice.
What the benefits were
The interview process has provided officers with an opportunity to engage with the project and contribute valuable feedback. The project team have gained an objective view of frontline officer’s attitudes and expectations which have helped them to identify and to respond to specific issues in a timely fashion.
What they said
“C-innovate’s enthusiastic, professional and adaptable approach to officer consultation and benefits management has been vital to the successful introduction of BlackBerry technology in Northamptonshire Police.” – Kevin White, Project Manager, Northamptonshire Police
