Meeting On The Management Of Statistical
Information Systems (MSIS), Oslo, May 18-20, 2009
Shri Narayanan, Economic Systems, TGS
Jola Stefanska, STA
1
MSIS 2007 - Paper and presentation "IT Strategic Sourcing at the IMF:
the View from the Statistics Department“
•
•
•
IMF’s selection of TCS to be the global service delivery partner in
2006
IMF’s decision to source application and maintenance support to
TCS for 25 critical applications
IMF’s decision to use TCS for fixed-price, task order based
contracts for some development projects
2







2004 – Gartner’s Application Development & Support
Benchmark and Roadmap for Offshore and
Outsourcing
2004-2005 – Review of Fund’s IT Outlay
2005 – Fact finding and information gathering missions
2006 – RFPs and process to select a global service
provider
2007 Q1 – Portfolio Analysis, Pilot Projects
2008 Q1 – Transition of Application Maintenance Wave
1 Applications (25)
2008 Q2 – Begin Wave 2 Transition
3

Set up Governance Teams
Transition Progress Committee
 Vendor Relationship Manager
 Global Sourcing dedicated Project Manager
 On-Shore TCS management team


Establish Schedule and Timeline



Divide Applications into Wave 1 and Wave 2
Multiple Phases in ‘Waves’
Secure necessary budget for the sourcing
initiative
4





Establish Steering Committee, Project working groups
Monthly status meeting with IT and Business
Stakeholders
Timely and periodic communication to Management,
Project Teams, and all staff
Establish and measure various metrics to judge the
success of the transition – revise periodically
Missions to TCS Offshore centers for both TGS and
Business stakeholders – confidence building
5
Knowledge Transition Methodology
Transition
Set up
Plan/Set up
• Define Program
Goals, Success
Criteria
• Risk Mgmt Plan
• App Assessment,
grouping
• Transition
Planning
• Resource Model,
Competency
needs, Team
building
• Accesses
• Operating Model,
processes
definition
• Status reporting
needs
Knowledge
Acquisition
Secondary/
Shadow
• Knowledge
Transferapplication,
business,
environment,
processes
• TCS shadows
incumbent
contractor/ IMF
• TCS takes over
primary point of
contact
• Parallel problem
solving
• Guidance/ review
by IMF/ incumbent
contractor
• Class room
Sessions / self
study
• Maintenance
history analysis
• Documentation /
Creation of
Knowledge
repository
Check point
Primary
• Hands-on
sessions for minor,
non critical issues
Cutover
• Play back
sessions
• Incumbent
contractor /IMF
shadows TCS
• Review ongoing
enhancements /
familiarize
• Roll out Operating
Model, processes
Check point
Check point
• Joint
readiness
evaluation
for transition
cutover
• TCS starts
independent
service
Check point
Phased approach, Planned Check points, Comprehensive Risk Management
6






Engagement Framework
Development Processes
Maintenance Processes
Program Management
Quality Processes
Offshore Delivery Center / Security
7










Retention of incumbent resources during and for an insurance
period after transition
Availability of resources (Vacation, mission, etc.) to ensure proper
knowledge transfer
Cultural Issues
Security and access control issues for Offshore teams
Budget both during and after transition
Management support throughout
Constant feedback to TCS to ensure quality and process
improvement
Retention of transferred knowledge in TCS teams
Separation of duties between IMF TGS staff and TCS
Buy-in from TGS teams for complex applications
8
What worked well – Overall
• Detailed Transition plan
• Weekly Status Reviews
• Transition checkpoint Meetings
• Video Recording of Knowledge Transfer sessions
• Preparation of Maintenance Reference Manuals (MRM)
• Playback Sessions
• Support FAQs for each application as a part of MRM
• Business Overview sessions by Business team and Technical / Detailed
functional sessions by Technical Team.
9
Other Lessons Learnt
Planning:
• Schedule Check point meetings immediately after kickoff sessions to ensure stakeholder
availability
• Transition schedule extensions can be avoided by assessing the application complexity
upfront and agree on the transition schedule with key stakeholders.
• Transition sequence and module interdependencies to be identified during detailed
transition planning activity.
• Minimum of 4 weeks of timeframe to be provided for secondary support and primary
support (each one) for large applications.
• Contingency period also should be planned within the overall transition plan.
10
Documentation
• Documentation gaps are identified at the end of transition. Maintenance reference
manual reviews should be arranged during knowledge acquisition phase itself to identify
the gaps and close them before cut over.
• QA of documentation for all Maintenance Reference Manuals before submission is
necessary.
• IMF team to forward the details of ongoing enhancements in the application that may
have an impact post transition.
• Review of MRMs to be done as per the schedule by the current team who is handling
maintenance and support. TGS and Business can review the MRMs and provide the
feedback.
11
Experience
• Absence of live Issues during the Secondary Support or Primary Support
limiting team’s practical experience. Use past issues and demonstrate skills
and understanding.
Reporting / Communication
• Helpdesk contact list to be updated during primary support phase with TCS
contact details, so that the issues are routed to TCS team during the primary
support phase itself.
12
Other Areas:
• Knowledge gaps identified at the end of transition. Use playback sessions at different
points during transition to identify and address these gaps.
• Identify and resolve all access issues for the offshore team prior to steady state
transition.
• Backlog management: A clear strategy on the ownership and timelines of work requests
created before the transition cutoff date needs to be agreed with the stakeholders.
• Resources who had undergone transition at onsite should start moving to offshore
immediately after the transition in addition to the parallel offshore transition. This will
help to improve offshore team’s strength further and helps in the overall day to day
support and operations / communication with the stakeholders.
13








Wave 2 Applications
Task Orders of minor enhancements to TCS
Sourcing Capital/Major Development efforts
Niche skills - Econometric Modeling
Leveraging TCS’ process maturity (CMMi 5)
Support for IMF developed software
provisioned to other IFI’s / Countries
Remote Office support (RESREP, etc.)
Evaluate Infrastructure sourcing
15