Opening of Proposals - Utility Billing System - North Star Utilities Solutions - Part 2

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NORTHISTARm The NorthStar CIS Project Management methodology defines the project management activities that will occur throughout the implementation project thereby increasing the likelihood of project success. Our NorthStar Project Managers all follow our standard methodology for managing projects as outlined below. COMM UNICATIO N/STATLIS MANAGEMENT NorthStar believes that communication is an integral part of project implementation activities. Below is the outline of a sample communication plan that would be used as the starting point for planning project communications with the City. The communication plan will be reviewed with the City's Project Manager at the start of the project and will be adapted as necessary to fit the needs of the project team. RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT NorthStar has over 38 years of corporate experience and tenured employees with literally hundreds of years of collective project experience. One of our most consistent, ever -evolving characteristics is passion for our customers, resulting in excellent customer relationship management practices. We believe that great relationships are imperative for our mutual success. While relationships are established during the sales cycle, NorthStar encourages open and honest communications during the project kick-off to ensure a high level of trust over the course of the project. NorthStar employs important best practices such as establishing Executive touch -points, regular project meetings, and a well -established transition to support process to ensure that strong relationships are established between our respective organizations. NorthStar interacts closely and regularly with our customers during our Product Committee Meetings, Regional User Groups, and National Customer Conferences as well as throughout the course of our day to day interactions with our customers while assisting them with the support and maintenance of our solutions. WORK MANAGEMENT I Project Work and Time will be managed through the use of the Project Schedule in MS -Project format. The NorthStar Project Manager will have the responsibility to create and maintain the project schedule. It is expected that the City of Project Manager will work in conjunction with the NorthStar Project Manager to ensure that key City activities that impact the project are also contained in the project plan. Time spent on the project by NorthStar resources will be monitored and tracked using NorthStar time reporting system on a weekly basis. On a monthly basis, NorthStar conducts an analysis of actual effort to € p g Y i date versus estimated effort at complete versus baseline effort to gain an in depth understanding of the status of a project against baseline. is NorthStar Proposal Response —South Bend Indiana E'