Transform
Overview
This stage of the toolkit covers some of the key activities required to transform your organisation from where it is now to the design agreed in the previous stage. This includes the implementation of the shared service, the migration of people, data and processes to the new shared service, the re-structure of the retained organisation and the implementation of re–engineered processes.
Key activities in this stage are: testing the solution; recruitment; redeployment; identification of training needs and the development and delivery of training.
Other activities include the development and monitoring of implementation plans and cutover plans.
In this stage the volume of communications activity will increase and these will tend to focus more on the specifics of what people need to do, how you want them to do it and why. Senior stakeholder buy-in and support will be critical to success.
Key Considerations
- Have you got senior stakeholder support for the transformation, e.g. a senior champion in the customer areas and retained functions?
- Do all employees understand their new role and the rationale behind the changes? Has the cultural change needed to support the successful migration happened? (This includes employees, line managers, staff in the retained corporate functions and staff in the shared service centre).
- Have you undertaken a training needs analysis, developed and delivered a training plan?
- Have employees been adequately trained? Has this been confirmed through testing and/piloting?
- Have you got the right resource levels in place in the shared service centre for go live? You may require a higher resource level than in steady state whilst the new processes bed in. Consider transferring knowledge from the old organisation to the shared service centre. If location means that staff can't be transferred permanently, consider work shadowing, secondments etc.
- Have you agreed how the new processes and/or system will roll out? i.e. phased by department or function or ‘big bang’?
- Have you identified all phases of testing? The phase required will depend on the scope of your shared service solution but is likely to include functional, data migration and technical (e.g. performance, batch, interfaces, printing).
- Will you have a period of parallel running? Will you have a ‘dry run’ before cutover? Do you have clear entry and exit criteria for each test phase? Are you clear who will sign off each test phase?
- Have you documented your business continuity arrangements and have you tested that they work?
- Have your security specialists confirmed that the roles have acceptable segregation of duties?
- Have you ensured that people only have access to the parts of the system they need to undertake their role?
- Do you understand the requirements of the retained functions, employees and line managers during the shared services migration, e.g. testing?
- Will legacy systems close down earlier than planned? Will there be system down time? Do you understand what special processes will be in place during the cutover period?.
- Do you want to remove alternative routes e.g. remove paper forms where electronic processes have been introduced?
- Do you have appropriate audit and management checks that are clearly understood? Have you tested them?
- Is the live issues management process understood? What forums will there be, will they meet more frequently immediately after go live?
- Have you developed readiness assessment criteria?
