| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The implementation strategy is planned to be a module based software development and deployment cycle. The very first module to be developed has been the one that is to have an impact on maximum number of needy citizens. While the modules delivered are in use, upcoming modules are being developed simultaneously; hence immediate feedbacks and requests are gathered from the system end users and stakeholders. A chronology that details the most important activities in the implementation of the system is provided below:
• By 2010, Conditional Cash Transfer Service was implemented and deployed gradually in all locations to the service of end-users.
• At the beginning of 2011, project plan was revised according to feedbacks; where project schedule and scope priorities are changed.
• By 2011, Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundation’s services were implemented and deployed gradually in all locations to the service of end-users.
• At the beginning of 2012, project plan was revised according to feedbacks; where project scoped was extended so as to cover new social assistance services targeted for disabled, elderly and women as well as a new service (income test service) to determine the income level of the households.
• At the end of 2012, the services mentioned in the previous step are implemented and deployed for end-users.
• At the beginning of 2013, project plan was revised again; so as to cover a new social assistance service targeted for the families of citizens who are on duty at obligatory military service (named as Soldier Families Assistance Service). Another addition to the scope was another service, named Unusual Case Detection And Notification Service that aims to determine problematic cases (such as violence targeted to children, use of drugs and extensive use of alcohol, etc.) within the household in order to notify other state institutions to take necessary actions.
• At the end of 2013, Soldier Families Assistance Service and Solidarity Foundation’s Project service (a service that supports citizens to startup a business so that their need for social assistance is prevented) are opened for end-users in all locations.
• At the beginning of 2014, project plan was revised again; so as to cover a new social assistance service targeted for unemployed and needy people.
• At the end of 2014, new employment assistance service was implemented and opened for service use all locations, and an infrastructure to share social assistance data with authorized users at other state and governmental institutions was developed.
• At the end of 2015, the named Unusual Case Detection And Notification Service will be developed and deployed so that whole ISASS modules will be completed.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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Integrated Social Assistance Services System (ISASS) is designed and implemented by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey
Integrated Social Assistance Services System (ISASS) is integrated with the following institutions to perform interrogations explained in Section 2.
• Ministry of Education(E-school)
• Ministry of Health(Family Medicine Information System)
• Ministry of Finance
• Public Employment Services
• Ministry of Interior
• General Directorate of Civil Registration and Nationality
• Social Security Institution
• Banks (PTT, Ziraat Bankası)
• Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs
• General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadstre
• Directorate General of Foundations
• Social services and Child Protection Agency
• Institution of Scholarship and Dormitories
• Ministry of Defense
All System end-users are also stakeholders. They can send any suggestion, enhancement or improvement via online issue tracking tool, all end-users have an account in the system’s issue tracking tool and they can follow their issue status and results.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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• The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey is the leading agency developing science, technology and innovation policies, supporting and conducting research and development activities; and playing a leading role in the creation of a science and technology culture in Turkey since 1963. In The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey 5 teams with 24 members are responsible for the design and implementation of the Integrated Social Assistance Services System (ISASS).
o Technical Teams: 4 teams with 18 computer engineers responsible for design and implementation of the ISASS.
o Training Team: 3 software instructors who are responsible for training end-users.
o Project Management Team: 3 engineers responsible for project management activities; planning, monitoring and control.
• ISASS is basically described as an action in Information Society Strategy Action Plan; the action has strategic priority in Citizen-Focused Service Transformation. General Directorate of Social Assistance is responsible for the implementation of the action. In General Directorate of Social Assistance 19 members responsible for administrative details of the ISASS
• ISASS is financed by Ministry of Development in regards to the details explained in 2009 investment program.
• Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundation’s staff participated in all analysis activities. They contributed to identify the requirements of ISASS.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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• Time between application of assistance and provision of assistance is dramatically decreased.
• The information about all Government funded social assistance is collected in one central database. Duplicated social assistance is prevented. There was a saving which was more than the project budget achieved via prevention of duplicate and unfair assistance.
• The effectiveness of the social assistance decisions are increased by the help of the management of social assistance information holistically.
• A smart information system that helps providing a fair resource distribution is developed.
• By integrating all necessary information the “household approach” in social assistance is activated.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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Integrated Social Assistance Services System (ISASS) is developed as a software project. Iterative and incremental development model is used. ISASS is developed through repeated cycles and in smaller portions at a time, that allows team members to take advantage of what was learned during development of earlier versions of the system. Learning comes from both the development and use of the system. At each iteration new functional capabilities are added. The analysis of each iteration is based on user feedback and the program analysis facilities available. It involves analysis of the structure, modularity, usability, reliability, efficiency and achievement of goals. These analyses have consequences, for instance the project scope and schedule are revised as explained in Section 4.
Project management monitoring and controlling process includes the processes to ensure that the project is managed and executed according to the Project Plan. This process execution is also used to monitor and to evaluate the activities. Project Monitoring and Controlling includes tracking, reviewing and managing the progress and performance of the project along with management of changes when required. While the process is being executed, project meetings are hold with stakeholders in order to review progress, schedule, risks, problems, change requests, open action items, and measures regularly. If necessary, action items are opened and tracked.
Feedbacks from end-users are also helpful to monitor the progress and to evaluate the activities. The system is used in 1002 different locations in 81 provinces by a total of 10000 end-users. End-users can give feedback about the system via lots of different channels;
• End-user trainings: while adding new functionalities to the system, end-users are trained about the new functionalities. These trainings which can be performed as online learning sessions or applied practical sessions.
• Questionnaire: End-user satisfaction, which is also one of the goals stated in the project plan, is measured with questionnaires regularly.
• Online issue tracking tool (named JIRA): the system has online issue tracking service to reach all end-users and get all end-users contribution to the system.
• Help desk: help desk personnel support end-users about usage of the system and collect their feedback.
• Automatic exception mechanism: Any exception that occurs during daily usage of the system is automatically recorded so as to provide technical development team the chance to solve it as soon as possible.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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• Since the system had 10000 users disseminated in 1002 different geographical locations; the training of them was a big challenge. In order to overcome this problem the training sessions were planned to include at least one user from each of these 1002 locations. Moreover, all the training sessions are relevant documents are provided online for immediate access.
• In some cases, data transfer from legacy systems were needed; however during the process it was realized that the data was either incomplete or missing. This process took more time than planned in the project plan. In order to overcome this problem; project plan was revised with the contribution of stakeholders.
• Some of the institutions from which information is to be integrated were lacking necessary technical knowledge and experience to provide it. The technical team of the project provided necessary support to prevent the project schedule extension.
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