Abstract:
Organizational ICT services are becoming more critical and complex and this
growing dependency on these services leads to growing requirement for quality ICT
services support. Currently, the ICT staff allocation system at KRA does not serve the
organization‟s demands adequately. To address this issue, Intelligent Agents may
offer solutions to some major ICT services support at KRA or any organisation by
playing the role of staff allocation optimisation assistants. The aim of the study was to
investigate the process of ICT staff allocation at KRA and develop a prototype
intelligent agent for optimizing staff allocation in ICT services. The objectives of the
study were to: examine the ICT portfolio at KRA, establish the current ICT staff
allocation system at KRA, find out the challenges of the current staff allocation
system at KRA and develop a prototype intelligent agent for optimizing staff
allocation. A combination of the Agent Theory and Belief Desire Intention Model
were used to guide the study. The study adopted a qualitative case study approach for
data collection and actualized through experimental prototyping. The sample
population comprised 135 staff out of a population of 4,500 KRA staff. Purposive
sampling was used to identify 23 participants from KRA headquarters. This
constituted of 1 head of department, I division head, 6 section heads, 10 technical and
support staff all drawn from the ICT department. The second cadre constituted of 1
senior manager and 2 end-users from the Support Services department and 2 senior
managers drawn from the Domestic Taxes and Human Resources departments.
Interviews, open-ended questionnaires and document review were the main
instruments for data and requirements gathering. The study employed Prototyping
methodology using a bottom-up approach implemented on Django web-based
platform for the KRA Intelligent Agent development. The findings revealed that the
ICT Department is experiencing problems attributed to uncoordinated, unmanaged
and under-resourced ICT services. The study concluded that the changing demands
from customers, the need to contain costs and to improve services in business
processes requires the application of ICTs supported by optimum staff capacity. The
study recommends: effective automation and creative use of ICTs, investing in human
resource development and re-structuring the ICT functions that provide both intra and
inter-departmental support services. The study further proposes a service delivery
process map to guide all the ICT functions in the department. This formed the basis
for the development of a prototype Intelligent Agent for optimizing staff allocation for
ICT services support. It is further recommended that KRA should adopt the Intelligent
Agent prototype with or without modifications in the integration with its existing
systems