Systems-Focused Shared Services
Removal of redundancies, sunsetting, and or consolidation of existing legacy systems may be of critical importance in your Agency. Evolving requirements, legislation, and guidelines can impact legacy systems, such as the impact of future FedRAMP requirements for legacy or agency-developed systems. Replacing legacy systems individually or in consolidation sets is likely a high priority for your Agency. Simplifying the application portfolio reduces costs directly (fewer systems to maintain) and in aggregate (fewer interfaces required to integrate the portfolio). This simplification and modernization also enables faster, cheaper implementation of changes (such as evolving requirements, legislation, and guidelines) in an environment that is easier to secure. Nevertheless, replacing existing systems will require executive buy in, analysis, planning, financial, advisory, and technical resources. Moreover, getting that buy in for shared services also requires building trust between the executive(s) and the shared service provider.
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Do I understand the 5 year Shared Service Systems game plan for each major line of business? Have we prioritized our systems for modernization? Do we have accountable project leads assigned to each line of business?
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Have the line of business leaders established short and long term goals and objectives for system-related process improvements?
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What are the areas of greatest need or benefit for a shared service solution?
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Do you have an active role in coaching, reviewing, and advising the project leads on optimization initiatives?
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What resources, including financial, human, and technological, are required to support the implementation of system-related shared service initiatives?
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Does my agency support collaborative and transparent visibility into the status of current and planned systems-focused optimization projects?
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Is my Agency actively engaged with cross-agency coordination of resources, best practices, and vetted shared service solutions available through GSA MAS Awards and each of the government-wide Quality Service Management Offices (QSMO) and PMO managed centralized services? Which lines of business are impacted? Which lines of business should be more involved?
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Coordinate with leaders across major lines of business to coach and develop their plans. Track your contacts and progress with the SAPOC Toolset here.
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Work with stakeholders to develop candidate options for replacing legacy systems with shared services.
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Assess readiness. See the M3 Playbook Business Readiness Assessment Template here.
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Develop and utilize Agency preferred project management methodologies to oversee system-related shared service initiatives for all FIBF lines of business. See Methodologies here.
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Ensure Shared Service initiatives align with measurable and realistic goals and objectives. Track your contacts and progress with the SAPOC Toolset here.
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Validate business case and budget plans from the M3 Playbook here.
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Review QSMO Marketplace listings for currently available approved FIBF solutions.
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Default to open access, transparent and collaborative oversight and reporting on the status of current legacy systems-related processes and their respective optimization plans. Control and provide access to collaborators in your dedicated Agency Playbook.
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Reward, promote and share successes on an inter-agency and public basis.
4 Comments
#7 - only FM QSMO goes through GSA MAS; and again, not all are QSMOs.
In reply to #1
Hi Kerry, thank you for the great suggestion. We have modified the wording to encompass all shared service solutions.
On Question #6, are there also system-based optimization projects that we should be citing? and should this question also be asked for the Task-Centered Shared Services?
In reply to #2
Good catch, Grant! We have made the correction.