U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

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Migration Planning Guidance

5. Migration Roadmap

This Migration Roadmap is being provided to assist customer agencies in their migration efforts. A basic tenet of the HR LOB Program is that moving some agency HR operations to the shared service center will free up agency resources to allow HR to be more strategic and provide more value to the agency. The Roadmap provides a broad approach that addresses this transformational intent. It includes five phases:

1. Assess Phase - The agency envisions how it can best deliver HR services to support the mission of the agency and develops the business case for change.

2. Define Phase - The agency develops detailed requirements that will be a basis for provider selection.

3. Select Phase - The agency selects a partner / provider and negotiates the partnership, including service level expectations.

4. Migrate Phase - The agency and provider work together to move selected operations from the agency to the service center.

5. Operate and Improve Phase - Performance results are used to identify opportunities for improvement.

Supporting tools are provided in Section 7 and 8.

5.1 Assess Phase

In this phase, each agency will develop its strategy to determine which functions will migrate to the SSC. Moving highly transactional administrative services and systems to a shared services environment will allow agency HR resources to focus on more strategic activities. The overall objective of the Assess Phase is to envision this new more strategic HR organization and understand the effort required to realize the transformation within the agency, via the HR LOB shared services-based Concept of Operations.

This phase begins with a reconciliation of the HR mission against the mission of the agency. A future HR service delivery model and operating model are devised to reflect this vision, and decisions are made about which HR functions are to be moved to a shared services environment and which will be retained at the agency. Strategies are developed for IT and organizational change and an initial transformation roadmap is devised to lay out the overall effort and time frame to achieve HR transformation. HR transformation governance is established. A business case is developed to estimate overall costs and benefits and to make a projection about breakeven and return on investment.

Major Assess Phase activities are outlined below. The agency is responsible for all of the results.

• Reconcile HR vision to agency mission and vision.

• Gather detailed operational and administrative data.

• Identify applicable HR benchmarks, best practices.

• Devise and validate future HR service delivery model.

• Baseline current HR services delivery measures and metrics.

• Describe retained HR scope of services.

• Devise and validate HR transformation governance strategy; document governance charter.

• Devise and validate HRIT strategy.

• Develop HR transformation roadmap.

• Perform organizational readiness assessment.

• Devise and validate change management strategy, communication strategy.

• Develop business case.

5.2 Define Phase

The overall objective of the Define Phase is to design a future HR operation that mirrors the Assess Phase strategy and operating models and moves the agency toward shared services in a manner that makes sense for the agency while meeting the overall goals and objectives of the HR LOB. The results of this phase are used as a basis for the provider selection that is done in the next phase. Each agency will take its own approach to achieving its transformational objectives and moving to the shared services concept.

This phase begins with further definition of the HR service delivery and operating models. A Concept of Operations may be developed to define the future business processes, data, and performance measurement indicators. Detailed provider requirements are compiled and validated. A workforce plan is developed to understand the future competencies, skills and abilities required to excel in the new environment and compare them to current competencies, skills and abilities to identify gaps and plan for closing gaps. The organization readiness assessment and the business case completed in the previous phase are refined to accommodate this new information. A change management plan is created to specify the effort required to move the agency through the transition to shared services.

Major Define Phase activities are outlined below. The agency is responsible for all of the results.

• Develop detailed requirements for in-scope processes.

• Evaluate workforce to develop workforce plan.

• Revise organization readiness assessment.

• Develop change management plan.

• Devise and validate training strategy.

• Develop performance framework and service level management process.

• Revalidate the HR IT Strategy against detailed requirements.

• Refine business case to incorporate additional information.

5.3 Select Phase

The overall objective of the Select Phase is to identify a product or service provider that meets the needs of the customer agency and to define and establish the strategic partnership between the two parties.

This phase begins with an effort on the part of the customer agency to proactively define a value-based selection process that will result in a successful partnership decision. The agency identifies applicable requirements and business rules that form the basis for the selection decision. The agency must follow the guidelines stipulated in the Competition Framework (see Section 7 of this document) to engage in procurement activities associated with its SSC selection. The agency proactively drives their selection decision by gathering and evaluating information on the provider and evaluating the provider's performance and capabilities. A selection decision is made based upon predetermined criteria, the partnership is negotiated between the customer agency and its new business partner / provider and joint governance is established.

Major Select Phase activities, along with entity(s) responsible for results, are outlined below.

• Compile and validate detailed requirements (responsible: customer agency).

• Devise marketing strategy (responsible: provider).

• Create task order (responsible: customer agency).

• Conduct provider demonstrations (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Build decision model (responsible: customer agency).

• Use decision model to select provider (responsible: customer agency).

• Establish joint governance (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Negotiate partnership (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Fill key partnership roles:

  • Transition Manager (responsible: customer agency).

  • Relationship Executive (responsible: provider).

5.4 Migrate Phase

The overall objective of the Migrate Phase is to move toward the future HR service delivery model, transferring selected operations from the agency to the shared services provider with no disruption of service to customers - agency employees, managers and supervisors - while simultaneously managing the impact of the change upon the customer agency.

The phase begins with a migration strategy and plan that proposes an overall approach to migration and details the resources and time frames needed to move to the end state defined in the previous phase. Process designs are finalized and corresponding procedures and job descriptions are developed. A training strategy and training plan provide for equipping people to perform in this future state. A detailed project plan and data conversion specifications are developed, tested, and executed. During and after the migration, migration costs and lessons learned are gathered and analyzed.

Major Migrate Phase activities, along with entity(s) responsible for results, are outlined below.

• Perform a detailed fit-gap analysis (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Devise and validate migration strategy; develop and execute detailed migration plan (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Develop and execute detailed project plan (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Develop detailed data conversion specifications (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Normalize provider and customer agency processes; document new procedures; revise existing procedures (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Identify and execute system modifications and business process changes (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Revise job descriptions as necessary (responsible: customer agency).

• Implement new job roles and responsibilities (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Devise and execute training strategy; document individual training and development plans (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Convert data (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Perform migration cost analysis (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Identify and record lessons learned (responsible: customer agency and provider).

5.5 Operate and Improve Phase

The overall objective of the Operate and Improve Phase is to ensure providers are meeting service level expectations and to leverage performance experience to identify performance improvement projects.

During this phase, the customer agency and shared service center work together to capture, report, and analyze performance data. The results of this performance analysis are used to identify opportunities for further improvement. The HR Transformation Roadmap is updated to include these newly-identified initiatives.

Major Operate and Improve Phase activities, along with entity(s) responsible for results, are outlined below.

• Gather and report performance results (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Review financial performance against business case objectives (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Analyze performance results against expectations to identify improvement projects (responsible: customer agency and provider).

• Review and revise HR transformation roadmap (responsible: customer agency).