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"It looks like the state is going to give us more than the 2 percent (increase) we budgeted," Knauer said, noting the increased funding could be as much as $400,000. However, that comes with the expectation the city will add three people to its streamlined five-person staff, which oversees parking and transit in the city. "There was a feeling (at the state level) that we didn't have the capacity for some of the larger projects," Knauer told the city council last week. "They could be right."

I am aware that the various anchor initiatives in Rochester have similar goals and that the organizations/teams driving these initiatives have great intention to collaborate.  I am also familiar with the difficulty of teaming and collaboration. That's why alignment of goals, indicators, strategies and measurements is highly valued in best-practices such as Lean 6 Sigma.  While leaders of the various organizations and projects have publicly declared their commitment and intentions to collaborate and to align goals, efforts and measurements. 

Beyond the rhetoric, where is the "beef"?

If I were a few years younger and had more ambition to prove there is money to be made in IT solutions: cloud computing, big data, knowledge management. And if I had the bandwidth in selling and marketing products and services, I would look into the DMC IT infrastructure's scalability and reach.

I would pay close attention to the 2016 DMC EDA budget lines to do with IT, which is casually referred to as server and maintenance contract, website design. The fact is there is a general set of community enablement IT needs that require more thorough review and applying concepts such as data integration, real time aggregation, business process enablement.

County-run vs city-run ... who is in control

Our community has long recognized the need for safe, decent, affordable housing options. Olmsted County's housing market is working well for renters and home buyers with higher incomes, but there is a crisis of need for people with moderate or limited incomes who are seeking affordable rental or for-sale housing.

In the July 2015 DMCC Board meeting, the project manager in me at first was glad to see a succinct template being used to report progress to the DMCC Board and the public. 

Then I looked at the report template a little closer and noticed its rather unusual way of reporting project progress.

Rather than reporting on milestones, deliverables and schedule in the form of project management 101's  work breakdown structure, it shows progress in terms of how much money is being spent on each of the major tasks--as if spending money is equivalent to progress made and objectives met. 

"People are watching," said community advocate Jackie Johnson last week during a meeting with local lawmakers. Hosted by the newly renamed Council on Minnesotans of African Heritage, the conversation shifted from equality in grant funding and housing to employment opportunities.

We all know that within Rochester, DMC is a real big deal. And one of its components is to build out the Education District of UMR. The recent article on PB showing a troubling trend of enrollment decline is another reminder there is fragility in one component within the system. In dealing with fragility, you can either let the component itself solve its problem, in this case, have UMR on its own address some of the issues such as student recruitment pool expanding to larger scope.  Or, have a systems approach of mobilizing the DMC-global market reach vision to have a bigger impact on the attractiveness of UMR.  

"The social services discussion of this expansion is still in the 'early stages.' That is unacceptable. It needs to be considered now....We have to protect against this indifference," Olmsted County District Judge Kevin Lund said.

Our czar/advocate can keep the public abreast of the progress of the DMC, EDA, J2G and Rochester's future comprehensive plan, while monitoring private development initiatives via city council and county board decisions. Findings can be reported to us via the Post-Bulletin and other local media on a regular basis.