MNIT staff partnered with the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) to replace an aging and insecure software used by citizen job seekers at more than WorkForce Centers throughout the state.

The new Cybrarian software enables Minnesota’s WorkForce Center System to provide high quality PCs with job-focused software to help connect our State’s job seekers with programs available to them and to their future employers. Cybrarian made significant improvements in simplicity, usability and security for users.

This project included the implementation of Cybrarian software; a commercial off-the-shelf desktop application to secure public resource room computers and track customer traffic for federal reporting and cost allocation purposes.

The project was unique in that the core team included staff from MNIT’s application development, product development, middleware and DEED business partners.

This team worked together effectively. The result? The project was completed on time with all objectives met and nearly $50,000 under budget.

How they did it

Using Agile Scrum methodology to manage the project, the team met each day for scrum meetings and maintained constant communication throughout the project. The team received immediate feedback and acceptance from the product owner on a daily basis, and consistent feedback from stakeholders through monthly sprint review sessions.

The team worked with the vendor to customize the Cybrarian tool to make sure it fit DEED’s needs, including single sign-on functionality with the Minnesota Works job bank.

The core team included staff from application development, product development, middleware and DEED. Meeting in the same room each day throughout implementation allowed for smooth task integration and a deep understanding of both the technical intricacies of Cybrarian and DEED’s business needs among the entire team, regardless of role. In addition to being part of the core team, the DEED product owner remained in constant communication with stakeholders, including Workforce Center representatives from around the state throughout the course of the project, again strengthening the technical team members’ understanding of business needs.