CASE STUDY
Project Turnaround
Leads to Country’s
First Modernized
Unemployment
Insurance System
SETTING THE STAGE
The Indiana Department of
Workforce Development
is charged with delivering
services to citizens and
employers alike, including
unemployment benefits for
job seekers, tax collection
and maintenance for
Indiana Employers, and
an Appeals process that
provides recourse for both
parties.
CASE STUDY
Across the country, agencies tasked with delivering services pertaining
to unemployment insurance, such as Indiana’s Department of Workforce
Development (DWD), are relying on large, outdated legacy mainframe systems.
Operating on aging technology, these systems either have or will soon run out
of support.
The antiquated systems, which are hard to maintain and require a significant
investment of time and resources from technology staff, have become a
hindrance. In a world that requires on-demand information, the systems often
show their age as their ability to serve citizens and employers begins to wane.
Indiana wanted to ensure its citizens and employers were receiving the
resources they needed in a timely manner. Modernizing one of its core
applications was the first big step for DWD to meet this need.
So began the State of Indiana’s efforts to modernize its unemployment
insurance system.
Project Turnaround Leads to Country’s First Modernized Unemployment Insurance System
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THE PROBLEM
The KSMC team established four guiding goals:
With technology that was holding back the potential of
the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, the
State of Indiana was ready to modernize its operations.
Accurately report project status to provide
transparency and a better understanding of
“where we are;”
The right legislation to provide the necessary funding was
passed, and Indiana deemed it time to replace the legacy
mainframe system, which had been implemented in the
1980s.
Improve interactions between state and vendor
project resources to repair project culture
The State of Indiana, one of the first to attempt to refresh
its unemployment insurance (UI) system, developed the
following goals:
•
Develop recommendations for improving project
processes and approaches in key areas of the
software development lifecycle
Provide key metrics to understand if the existing
project plan was achievable and realistic
Modernize UI systems and replace the outdated
technology;
KSMC TO THE RESCUE
•
•
Provide new online self-service offerings to employers
and citizens;
Create a comprehensive UI system that centralizes
each business function into a singular application.
Federal Bills Enacted
The Reed Act and House Enrollment Act
was passed by the Federal Government in
order to allocate funds to state workforce
departments around the country to modernize core
unemployment insurance applications, later referred
to as Unemployment Insurance Modernization (UIM).
THE ROADBLOCK
With clear priorities established, DWD engaged a vendor
to begin the UIM project in 2003. Shortly thereafter,
complications arose that led to contract termination. After
a three-year delay in the UIM project, DWD engaged a
second vendor in 2006. The project was initially off to a
good start with some “quick win” release deployments,
but five years passed and DWD had yet to transition off
the mainframe legacy system in 2011. Struggling with
transparency into project status and trajectory, DWD
hired KSM Consulting (KSMC) to perform Independent
Verification and Validation (IV&V) services over the
development.
CASE STUDY
Facing major gaps in transparency of the current status of
the project, DWD executives sought to understand where
the project stood, where it was going, and when they
would bring the project to successful completion.
In order to ensure success, the KSMC team understood
that several steps needed to be taken. First, the team
developed dashboards and established metrics that
accurately depicted the status of project efforts as well as
provided insight into the effort left to cross the finish line.
By centering the team around these dashboards, all parties
were aligned on project status in relation to successful
implementation. To achieve success, KSMC had to gain
buy in from several parties including state executives,
project team members, and business resources, as well as
contractor project management and technical resources.
Despite KSMC providing transparency to the project team
as a whole and several recommendations to the contractor
project resources, the state-contractor relationship
continued to deteriorate. As the pace of the project
continued to flag, DWD decided it was once again time to
end things with its current contractor team. In late 2012,
DWD asked KSMC to take over management of the project
and be accountable for its successful delivery.
Transparent Reporting
KSMC delivered dashboards that
provided transparency into project
status for every resource involved.
Project Turnaround Leads to Country’s First Modernized Unemployment Insurance System
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STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH
January 19th 2014:
Indiana Department
of Workforce Development
launches modernized
unemployment insurance
system.
Steady State
Officially tasked with the successful launch of the UIM system, the KSMC
team immediately jumped into action and began interviewing DWD resources
to analyze project team members’ knowledge, skills, and abilities. Once
determined, reorganization of the team went into effect, placing highly capable
individuals in the most important technical roles.
With the right team in place, the project shifted gears to refine the processes
needed to successfully support a team of this size. Processes touching the
entire software development life cycle were updated to ensure efficient and
accurate quality of work. In addition, a detailed communication plan was
developed for continued alignment among key stakeholder groups.
Efforts then went into identifying the scope of work for a minimally viable
product (MVP) the team would strive towards. The MVP represented the basic
functionality required by the business to take the system live while maintaining
its core day-to-day business processes. To accomplish this, stakeholders were
aligned to the long-term vision for the product - understanding that the base
system would be built up and enhanced in the years to come.
At a time when tolerance for failure was low, a concise project plan with clearly
defined benchmarks was put into place, including 30-day milestones to track
progress. By establishing and meeting the milestones, the team began walking
the long road to rebuilding the executive leadership’s confidence in project
success. Later, this became vital in making the decision to take the system live.
Launch
The team maintained a steady track record of success in completing milestones
for the next several months. Nearly ten years from the project’s original
initiation, and only one year after KSMC took ownership of the project team, the
agency’s modernized Unemployment Insurance System, Uplink, was successfully
launched on January 19th, 2014.
CASE STUDY
Project Turnaround Leads to Country’s First Modernized Unemployment Insurance System
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IMPACT
Over the last several years, many states and state consortiums all across the
country have attempted to modernize their unemployment insurance systems
to integrate Tax, Benefits, and Appeals into a single cohesive system. Indiana’s
experience proved the complexity involved. Even with millions of dollars
invested to launch the integrated systems, to date, success nationwide has
been limited at best.
Working with KSMC,
the State of Indiana
was the first state
to successfully
modernize a system
that integrated
Tax, Benefits, and
Appeals at launch.
Working with KSMC, the State of Indiana was the first state to successfully
modernize a system that integrated Tax, Benefits, and Appeals at launch.
With the launch of UpLink, the unsupported technology that had presented
significant risk to the agency was eliminated. Instead, the new system was
developed to meet the current and future business needs of DWD. UpLink was
designed to be modified in response to changes in agency UI policy as well as
federal and state laws to support the system into the foreseeable future.
Claimants now enjoy 24/7 online access as well as increased
accuracy and timeliness in regards to benefits.
Employers have access to tax and liability information 24 hours
a day and benefit from near real-time transactions, eliminating
processes that took multiple days to complete.
Internal staff have an increased ability to detect fraud, successfully
complete collections, and stop improper payments.
Additionally, the launch allowed DWD to realize a wide range of benefits for
claimants, employers, and the internal DWD staff utilizing the system.
The project has moved into a steady state phase of defect and change
management to continually support DWD. In a nutshell, KSMC took one
year to turnaround a project that had stalled for 10 years and was ready to
be written off as a failure into a project that was successfully launched and
continues to be an asset for DWD, citizens, and employers.
FUTURE OUTLOOK
Due to the strong relationships established between KSMC and DWD, DWD
continues to retain KSMC’s project management expertise to oversee the
successful support, maintenance, and enhancement of UpLink. Focused on
three pillars including fraud prevention, reducing improper payments, and the
effective collection of liabilities, the team strives to continue delivering value
to DWD’s internal business users as well as Indiana’s claimants and employers.
CASE STUDY
Project Turnaround Leads to Country’s First Modernized Unemployment Insurance System
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ABOUT KSM CONSULTING
KSM Consulting, LLC (KSMC) is a technology, data, and management consulting firm founded almost 10 years ago.
The firm offers services from nine practice areas, including the Project Turnaround practice. The Project Turnaround
practice helps organizations implement the necessary changes through an unbiased perspective to get projects on track
for success. Aligning people, processes, and technology, the team helps organizations create a roadmap designed to
achieve their goals.
PROFILE
Josh Wakefield serves the public sector through the management of large-scale technology
projects and his leadership of the project oversight practice.
With an extensive technical and business knowledge base, Josh’s skillful oversight has driven
the successful completion of many technology projects, including those previously considered
abandoned or out-of-compliance.
To learn more, visit: www.ksmconsulting.com/consulting-services/project-management/
© Copyright 2017 KSM Consulting | Part of Katz, Sapper & Miller Network
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CASE STUDY
Project Turnaround Leads to Country’s First Modernized Unemployment Insurance System
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