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CSPS Project Newsletters

CSPS Project Newsletter
-For those with a vested interest in our progress-
California State Controller Betty T. Yee

In this edition:

Change is Possible at the State of California
A Shining Example, no. 3

Welcome to the third installment of A Shining Example, based on real events. In the Summer 2023 Edition of this newsletter, we continued telling the story of how the California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project came to be. We left off after meeting the architects of an Executive Action Plan to optimize operations at the State Controller's Office (SCO). This plan contained the core values of accountability, collaboration, customer service, professionalism, and trust. These values formed the foundation of their approach.

The architects committed to being the “Tone at the Top,” exhibiting behaviors to model the intended change. As newly minted change leaders, they achieved this by supporting and championing change in many ways, including ensuring leaders and their teams could meet their current deadlines. An excellent example of this support was executive management stepping in to process documents when a deadline was, well, on the line. By helping to clear backlogs, they provided the time employees needed to focus on the change journey.

This approach began to catch on and attracted other change leaders. By January 2020 there was enough momentum to implement what was referred to as Phase One. Simple in name but not in stature, Phase One followed the People, Process, and Technology (PPT) framework for change. This framework is based on the idea that all three elements – people, process, and technology – need to work in harmony for organizational change management to be successful. Beginning with their own employees, the change leaders initiated a communication campaign to share their vision and bring awareness to the importance of optimizing operations and improving customer service at SCO.

Next, they identified and leveraged early supporters as change agents to help rally the people around their vision. Always mindful of the impacts this change may have on employees, improvements were incrementally introduced and often supported by technological innovations. Not all transformation goes smoothly and these leaders faced challenges. Some employees worried about how the changes might affect their job or identity. Continuing to focus on people, the change leaders uncovered a major artifact, the key to success. Interested in what this key is and how to use it? Find out in our next installment of A Shining Example!

Jennifer Burkett, CSPS Project Director

Jennifer Burkett, CSPS Project Director

 

The Director’s Corner

Steppingstones to Success

We have a mantra within the CSPS project team. Our past experience and challenges on the 21st Century Project represent an opportunity for growth, and we are constantly learning.  

Previous efforts to modernize the California state personnel and payroll systems have been unsuccessful. However, the MyCalPays System, provided through the 21st Century Project, allowed the CSPS Project to learn valuable lessons which we are using with our current CSPS Project initiative. These lessons learned are steppingstones we are actively heeding to ensure success this time around.     

I have been consistently asked “What are you doing different?” “Why will this time be different?” We would like to provide you specifics on how we are progressing based on our lessons learned. We hope this will give you confidence that we are learning from past experiences and listening to experts in the industry. 

Some of the most salient lessons heeded include: 

  1. Ensuring the project has clearly documented business processes and conduct business process reengineering. 
  2. Clearly document requirements.  
  3. Utilize a requirements development tool and repository for strategic alignment and traceability with project documentation, testing and defect management. 
  4. Ensure the project has a robust Contract Management structure. 
  5. Implement Organizational Change Management efforts early.  
  6. Ensure the project has a strong Governance model. 
  7. Establish a strong partnership between the State Controller’s Office (SCO) and the Department of Human Resources (CalHR). 
  8. Execute Data Analysis and Data Cleansing early.  
  9. Ensure effective Risk and Issue Management. 

This article focuses on the first two lessons learned listed above. Additional lessons learned will be addressed in future quarterly newsletters.  

1. Business Process Reengineering 

The project team conducted a current state assessment of departmental, CalHR, and SCO’s existing business processes. The team documented approximately 42 high-level business processes that define the scope of the CSPS Project and represent the current legacy systems and processes. These completed documents provided the current business process flow, associated government codes, Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) language, inputs and outputs of the business processes, issues and opportunities, and user roles involved in the process. 

The project team used the documented issues and opportunities, over 400, identified by various department stakeholders as an input to the requirements development process. To illustrate this, Business Process 26 “Manage and Perform Tax Deductions” stakeholders identified an issue with the current process “The process for requesting duplicate W2s is time consuming and expensive.” (Issue ID#284). Requirement #4191 “The solution shall allow authorized users to print W-2 and W-2c images” addresses the current issue for end users. This requirement will allow employees and/or authorized HR staff to print W-2s at any time.  
While conducting the current state assessment the project team identified “transformational” opportunities that, if implemented, would streamline current processes, and mitigate the complexities the State of California experiences in the HR and Payroll environment. These transformational opportunities were analyzed, and recommendations were presented to all control agencies for their approval and buy-in. These opportunities required government code and/or MOU changes. Therefore, starting this process early will ensure the future success of realizing these transformational opportunities down the road. The transformational opportunities and the resulting changes will ensure the complexities encountered during MyCalPAYS will not be repeated. Some of these transformational changes include streamlining the accounts receivable process and eliminating the use of the 21/22 day pay period calendar, which includes the movement from monthly pay to biweekly pay. The CSPS Solution requirements are already written to ensure these transformational opportunities are included in the scope of the project.  

2. Requirements Development  

Having clearly defined requirements is a huge aspect of any project and serves as a lesson learned during the 21st Century Project. The project team has taken various steps to ensure that the solution requirements are SMART (specific; measurable; achievable; relevant and time-bound). Requirements are an essential element of any IT project and ensure that all stakeholders, including clients, users and developers have a shared understanding of what needs to be achieved.  

One of these steps was the implementation of a requirements management tool to manage all requirements and perform change control in the future. Our requirements management tool allows the project team to link requirements to source data (i.e. MOU sections, government codes). This helps to ensure that when source data for requirements change project business analysts can perform effective change analysis. To illustrate this, requirement #11301 states that “The Solution shall provide the functionality to manage authorizations for use of privately owned vehicles for state business.” This requirement is linked within the tool to Source ID #9954 which provides GC 19820 Administration of Salaries – Claims for Reimbursement. If this GC changes, then the business analysts can easily determine which requirements are impacted. This will help to ensure the project can keep up with changes to requirements and business rules timely and accurately. 

Prior to the development of solution requirements, the CSPS Business Analysts attended Requirements Development training to ensure a level technical background.  In the development of solution requirements, project team members reviewed every MOU agreement, Government Code and control agency policies and procedures (Benefits Administration Manual, Personnel Administration Manual, CalHR HR Manual, etc.) to develop requirements. In addition to developing requirements the project team business analysts documented business rules that support detailed requirements - these business rules are the details that matter. Some examples include leave accrual rates, probation time frames, and overtime calculations. 

Furthermore, the project team contracted with an Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Contractor to review all requirements to ensure they adhere to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards, the trusted “voice” for engineering, computing, and technology information around the globe. Finally, the project team members reviewed ALL the requirements and documented business rules with over 40 departments to obtain their approval. In addition to review by IV&V and stakeholders the CSPS solution requirements were reviewed and approved by the Department of Technology as part of the Project Approval Lifecycle Process.  

The project team is partnered with the SCO Personnel and Payroll Services Division (PPSD) and CalHR to ensure all business processes are maintained to ensure the project is keeping up with changes in the current environment. The project team is also actively doing requirements management. This includes consistently reviewing all new/changed MOU language and government codes to ensure our requirements/business rules are up to date. 

I am confident that our solution requirements and business rules are SMART and will ensure that the future systems integrator will understand and be able to configure and design a solution that will meet our stakeholders needs and desires.  
In ensuing articles, I will discuss the additional learnings which set this initiative apart from past attempts, thank you. 

Jennifer Burkett, CSPS Project Director 

 

Team Member Spotlight – Welcome New Team Members

Yesenia DiazYesenia Diaz, CSPS Project Risk and Issue Manager

The California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project is excited to welcome a new risk and issue manager, Yesenia Diaz. Yesenia joined the project on February 20th and brings with her a wealth of project management experience. Before joining the CSPS Project, Yesenia worked as an Application Specialist at Mendocino Community Health Centers. There, she was part of an enterprise-wide project to transition from using paper records to a new, comprehensive electronic health record (EHR) system. This effort sparked her interest in project management and the methods of steering projects toward success. She further honed her skills and knowledge at CalVet, where she served as the Communications and Schedule Manager within the Project Management Office (PMO).

Yesenia was drawn to this position because of the size and extensive scope of the CSPS Project. She is excited about the opportunity to expand on her project management experience within such a significant and impactful project. Yesenia is eager to delve deeper into risk and issue management on this project and continue to grow in the project management field. A proponent of collaboration, she looks forward to getting to know all her team members and working alongside them along the path to success.

“The project's goal to improve core services and products for state and local governments resonates deeply with me, as I am passionate about projects that strive to enhance functionality and make processes easier for users.”.

Soccer fans will be glad to know that Yesenia is very passionate about anything soccer related. She loves to play soccer a few nights a week with friends. When she is not on the field, Yesenia is spending time with her family and her children, ages three and five. Always full of energy, she plans fun activities for them to do on the weekends. Something that you may not know about Yesenia is that she grew up in the small, rural town of Ukiah, California and is the eldest of five siblings. Please join the CSPS Project team in welcoming Yesenia to the PMO!

 

CSPS Project Update

Project Management Team: 
 

Functional Team: 
 

Technical Team: 

Organizational Change Management (OCM) Team: 

 


Stay tuned for further updates as the project continues to make strides towards success. Thank you for your ongoing support and collaboration. 

We are dedicated to keeping you updated on progress and milestones. If any questions or inquiries arise, please feel free to reach out to us at CSPShelp@sco.ca.gov. We also invite you to explore our website at: California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project

 

 

New to the CSPS Project?

Let’s catch you up on the basics!

The California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project will modernize the human resource management, travel and business expense, and payroll system used by approximately 300,000 state government employees to provide accurate and timely personnel and payroll services with quality customer service. SCO has developed and modified the current systems over time as the business requirements became more complex. As a result, SCO must exert an enormous amount of effort to maintain and modify the current systems to meet the ever-changing needs of California.

The objectives of the project focus on providing user-friendly information that is validated timely to reduce rework. This includes enabling greater employee and manager self-service functionality for ease of use, such as online view capabilities for payroll, employment history, and tax information to name a few. Additionally, it will provide a user-friendly interface for all human resource and payroll transaction specialists who input and interact with the system daily.

There are six primary capabilities in scope of the project:

Each of the areas within scope affects roughly 45 different state processes that will span many business rules and requirements.

 

The Back Page

Last quarter, 75% of survey respondents indicated this newsletter was their main sorce of CSPS Project information. Add to your information rolladex! Preruse these excellent additional resources suggested by readers.