Government | Project Recovery and IV&V

State recovers from delayed implementation and selects new system to meet its needs.

Client Overview

• Nearly 500 municipalities and 16 counties
• About 13,000 full-time workers
• First significant modernization of their legacy HR system and platform in over 30 years
• Project scope: Applicant Tracking, Human Resource Administration, Benefits Administration, Payroll, Time Management, Employee and Managers Self-service

The Challenge

The client was in the process of implementing a new HRMS system and was about a year into implementation when they encountered serious issues with the software during the testing phase. They were concerned that some key business requirements were missed at the beginning of the project and left out of the system’s design and configuration.

They engaged Panorama to perform a formal assessment of the project and identify gaps that existed between the state’s business requirements and the vendor’s software solution.

“The state was very pleased with the results of our assessment, and we were selected to provide independent verification and validation services for the new system implementation to increase the likelihood of project success.”

– Steve Ditty, Senior Project Manager, Panorama Consulting Group

Our Approach

During the project assessment, Panorama conducted workshops with client and vendor project personnel. We also reviewed the project’s completed deliverables and work products and performed a technical evaluation of the vendor’s software technical design specifications, testing plans and results.

We then reviewed the client’s defined business requirements and related business process documentation (e.g., process maps, swim lane diagrams and role descriptions).

Our findings concluded that the delivered software could not meet several of the state’s business requirements without significant customization and cost, and the proposed solution consisted of several subsystems that were not completely integrated.

The state was expecting to implement one integrated system housed in a single database. Instead, the state was installing an older version of the software that consisted of three different systems housed in three different databases.

Ultimately, the state reviewed our project assessment results and decided to go with another software vendor. Based on our experience in the industry with similar clients, we provided the state with market intel on leading software providers that would be able to support their HCM and payroll operations.

Ever since the project was restarted with the new vendor, Panorama has been performing the independent verification and validation consulting role. In this role, we are in charge of auditing the following project workstreams:

• Executive Sponsorship
• Project Management
• Functional Teams (e.g., finance)
• Organizational Change Management
• Testing
• Security
• Integrations
• Reporting
• Data Migration

Realized Benefits

• The state was able to successfully terminate its existing ERP vendor.
• The state is now implementing an HCM system that they are confident will fully meet their business needs, and it’s scheduled to go-live later this year.