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Meeting On The Management Of Statistical Information Systems (MSIS),

Oslo, May 18-20, 2009Shri Narayanan, Economic Systems,

TGSJola Stefanska, STA

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

• Knowledge Transfer- application, business, environment, processes

• Class room Sessions / self study

• Maintenance history analysis

• Documentation / Creation of Knowledge repository

Secondary/ Shadow

• TCS shadows incumbent contractor/ IMF

• Parallel problem solving

• Hands-on sessions for minor, non critical issues

• Play back sessions• Review ongoing

enhancements / familiarize

Primary

• TCS takes over primary point of contact

• Guidance/ review by IMF/ incumbent contractor

• Incumbent contractor /IMF shadows TCS

• Roll out Operating Model, processes

Check point

Phased approach, Planned Check points, Comprehensive Risk ManagementPhased approach, Planned Check points, Comprehensive Risk Management

Check pointCheck point Check point

Cutover

• Joint readiness evaluation for transition cutover

• TCS starts independent service

Set up Transition

Knowledge Transition Methodology

Engagement Framework Development Processes Maintenance Processes Program Management Quality Processes Offshore Delivery Center / Security

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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