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13-RFI-001-LJ Workforce Information Technology
Procurement Project A Florida Workforce SaaS (Software as a
Service)
Response To:
Department of Economic Opportunity Office of Procurement and
Contract Administration
107 East Madison Street, B-047 Tallahassee, Florida
32399-4128
Telephone Number: 850-245-7455
Attention: Sonja Strickland/Laura I. Jennings
Submitted By:
Stathi Kouninis, Vice President of Finance, Finance &
Administration
Pegasystems, Inc.
June 12, 2013
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Acknowledgement Form The following page is our signed
Acknowledgement Form as required by instructions in the RFI.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgement Form
.........................................................................................................
2
Table of Contents
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3
1. Executive Summary
..........................................................................................................
5
2 Challenges Facing Florida Department of Economic Opportunity
................................ 7
3 Proposed Solution
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9
4 Conclusion
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1. Executive Summary Team Pega is pleased to provide our
response to Request for Information 13-RFI-001-LJ Workforce
Information Technology Procurement Project A Florida Workforce SaaS
(Software as a Service) for the Department of Economic Opportunity
(DEO). We are confident that the Pega solution approach and our
accomplished team will provide DEO with a web-enabled, Software as
a Service (SaaS) solution to support Floridas workforce development
system by providing a state of the art labor exchange/job matching
system, robust repository of job seeker resumes across multiple
industries to enhance Floridas talent pool; and comprehensive case
management and reporting system. Our response addresses all of your
requested topics:
Team Pegas ability to provide a Florida Workforce Automation
Software as a Service (SaaS) system and its complete components
Team Pegas history with similar systems, organizational
structure, and contact information of each reference: Name, title,
phone number and email address
Team Pegas use of contemporary enabling technologies that can be
applied to the Workforce business processes to create a more
flexible and responsive environment
Figure 1 illustrates Pegas conceptual Workforce Development SaaS
solution. Our response addresses the key components that will
support this solution. Our solution Strengths
Addresses your requirements
Designed for Change
Cloud and mobile device compatible
Top ranked Case Management and Business Process Management (BPM)
Platform (Gartner and Forrester)
Dynamic Centralized Rules Engine
Flexible work flows
Proven, subject matter expertise
Contemporary technologies that will allow for scalability and
timely refreshes
Highly maintainable solution
Possible collaborations with Texas Workforce Development project
currently using Pega for solution development
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The Pega Team Pega Systems (Prime Vendor)
Founded in 1983 by current CEO and Chairman, Alan Trefler, Pega
has been a leader in the development and implementation of
rules-driven business process management technology at some of the
worlds most innovative organizations. Starting with exception
processing solutions in the Financial Services market in the 1980s,
evolving to customer service and support solutions and the
Healthcare vertical in the 1990s, and continuing to lead the
Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Rules Engine (BRE)
technology sectors with todays cutting-edge solutions for the
extended enterprise and Public Sector customers, Pega continues to
prove itself as a foremost thought leader in Case Management,
Business Process Management and rules technology.
Cooper Consulting Cooper was founded in 1994 as a Woman Owned
Business Enterprise and is a Texas based, privately held
corporation. Cooper has primarily focused on State government
clients since its inception. Coopers expertise is in software
development implementations. Cooper is currently delivering
solutions for the Texas Workforce Commission using Pega. SLG
Innovation, Inc. SLG Innovation, Inc. is an Illinois based Minority
Business Enterprise (MBE). SLG Provides Pega implementation support
with Pega certified staff. SLG also specializes in data management
and analysis processes. SLG has an office in Valrico, Florida.
Ready for Orals The Pega Team looks forward to the opportunity to
present our solution approach to DEO. We are confident you will
agree that our supportive technology is superior and our approach
to delivery is based on best practices and expediencies. Pega will
deliver DEO exactly what you require and position the Workforce
Development solution to keep pace with the future.
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Figure 1 PEGA SAAS Workforce Development Solution Concept
2 Challenges Facing Florida Department of Economic Opportunity
The Pega Team understands the challenges of delivering complex
solutions that integrate multiple processes and data sources. We
also understand what it takes to provide solutions to our
government clients. The Pega Team embraces DEOs commitment to help
develop Floridas workforce through economic development and
matching job seekers to opportunities. With limited state budgets,
we understand that your SaaS Workforce Development solution must be
economical, provide robust functionality and be highly
maintainable. We understand the challenges of finding the right
solution and the right team that will be good stewards of your
trust to deliver your solution on time and within budget. The Pega
Team appreciates what is required to meet the challenges of
delivering your functionality.
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Providing a SaaS solution for workforce development, employment
and training Automating manual, paper-based processes to increase
workflow efficiencies and
reduce operational costs Providing direct job seeker interfaces
Facilitating improved communication within DEO as well as between
Workforce Florida,
Inc., DEO, the Regional Workforce Boards, job seekers, employers
and partners Providing the Workforce System with timely access to
information necessary for
performance measurement and quality management Providing
comprehensive access to data through searching and reporting
capabilities Providing the capabilities to serve the needs of all
U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL),
Employment, Training and Administration (ETA) funded programs
within DEO and the Florida Workforce System
The Pega team has the technology and ability to address the
special challenges of providing comprehensive, rule driven Case
Management capabilities. Your Case Management tool must, at a
minimum, perform:
1. Eligibility Determination 2. Service Tracking 3. Case Notes
4. Follow-up
System Interfaces There are many functional and data interfaces
that must be deployed with your solution. Solution interfaces are
often the source of failure for system implementations. The Pega
Team has the experience and tools to work with project stakeholders
to analyze, map and implement the date exchanges required. System
Security and Access Control With the challenge of relentless
assaults on government systems from hackers, the Pega Team has the
security expertise to address these concerns. The Pega solution
platform also has security controls embedded in the layers of
access and functionality to mitigate vulnerabilities and protect
citizen data. Project Management It is critical that project
management beast practices be followed to ensure success. The Pega
Team follows PMBOK guidelines to mitigate the risks associated with
the delivery of complicated projects. The Pega Team applies a
robust Risk Management methodology to proactively identify
potential project roadblocks and apply remediation steps.
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3 Proposed Solution We will address the four focus topics as
identified by the RFI Instructions for Providing Relevant
Information.
1. A description of Respondents ability to provide a Florida
Workforce Automation Software as a Service (SaaS) system and its
complete components
Enabled with the Pega Teams solution, DEO is poised to transform
the model of how state agencies enable job seekers to return to
work. With this integrated capability, offered as SaaS, DEO staff
may focus on getting Florida job seekers into the workforce more
quickly. We accomplish this by enabling the job seeker with
self-service capabilities, while affording DEO staff the ability to
help drive work to done rather than doing extensive manual
research. The solution, provided as a unified platform, would
include the abilities to match job seekers with openings, identify
opportunities for job seekers to augment their skills with training
and professional development planning, while tracking activity for
reporting and transparency. Figure 1 PEGA SAAS Workforce
Development Solution Concept established the approach to satisfying
your RFI requirements. Pegas industry leading Business Process
Management System and Case Management capabilities coupled with
national resume hosting services, search capability and job
matching algorithms represent a compelling combination for DEO. The
open nature of our architecture enables these seamless product
synergies. Our comprehensive platform is the best way to help DEO
achieve an integrated, adaptable, and scalable web-enabled
information system to support the entire Workforce System. (See
more on the Pega Platform Components in RFI focus topic 3). The
following table addresses specific solution components defined in
the RFI. For each Specified Component we indicate if it can be
accomplished by Pega, The National Online /Workforce Service, or if
it may require a customized workflow design utilizing Pega
capabilities. This table would be updated based on the ultimate
National Online /Workforce Service selected.
Specified Components Pega National Online
Career/Workforce Capability
Design Decision
1 Optimal access to jobs and career information, eliminating
duplicative job listings for job seekers
X
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Specified Components Pega National Online
Career/Workforce Capability
Design Decision
2
Access to or partnership with another vendor with access to a
national resume hosting site that currently contains at least
250,000 Florida based resumes across multiple industries
X
3 Ability to search all posted resumes utilizing national brand
website search capabilities
X
4
Enhanced case management tools for Regional Workforce staff to
most fully assist employers and job seekers to include, but not be
limited to:
X
4a Eligibility Determination X
4b Service Tracking X
4c Case Notes X
4d Follow-up X
5 Precise reporting capabilities to meet the needs of federal,
state and local reporting requirements
X
6
Strong interconnectivity capabilities between environments
maintained by DEO Workforce Services and U.S. Department of Labor
(Workforce Program Oversight) such as: Connect, One Stop Service
Tracking (OSST) and Labor Market Information services
X
7 Eligibility determination functionality, data validation field
recording, and activity tracking
X
8 Readily available information for researchers related to labor
market and economic development data
X
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Specified Components Pega National Online
Career/Workforce Capability
Design Decision
9 Advanced self-service capabilities (Streamlined internet
access)
X
10
Reemployment related activities such as skills assessment and
reemployment opportunity matching
X
11
Administrative management functionality in support of data
security, reporting, audits and user safeguards against fraudulent
actions
X
12
Automation of cumbersome manual or paper processes to ensure
critical information needed to effectively manage the programs is
readily accessible to state and local administrators and
policymakers
X
13
A technical architecture and underlying functionality that is
adaptable, scalable and flexible to support continuous process
improvement and changes in applicable state and federal laws
X X
14
Other enhancements/features/innovations provided by the vendor
not identified above
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2. Respondents history with similar systems, organizational
structure, and contact information of each reference: Name, title,
phone number and email address
Team Pegas References and Related Experience Projects at the
Texas Workforce Commission WorkInTexas.com (WIT) Support February
2005 through current date Jennifer Canady, Project Manager Phone
Number: 512-936-3764 Email address: [email protected]
John Fowler Manager Pega Project Phone Number: 512-463-2244 Email
Address: Common Measures (February 2005 September 2005) Common
Measures was a WIT project to incorporate DOL required information
about job seekers into the WIT web application to be utilized for
agency performance to DOL. The interface with the Texas Workforce
System of Texas (TWIST) was modified to share the additional
information between these two TWC systems. WorkInTexas.com Phase 2
(February 2005 August 2007) WIT Phase 2 was established after the
initial rollout of WIT to include additional functionality from the
legacy job matching system (JSMS) into WIT. This project
incorporated additional reporting capabilities into WIT. This
project was also utilized to enhance the functionality of the WIT
given web technology capabilities that were not available via the
mainframe. ESUI Phase 1 (September 2005 August 2006) Employment
Services/Unemployment Benefits Integration (ESUI) project was
established originally to integrate UI Benefits and WIT for sharing
UI Claimant information. Based on the complexity and available
budget, the scope was modified. This phase of the project was
utilized to create a mechanism for job seekers registering in WIT
to extract data they had given/entered into the UI Benefits system
as a starting point for their WIT registration. The interface
established between WIT and UI included data entered in the UI
Benefits web application (Apply for Benefits (AFB))or from the UI
Benefits mainframe (Benefits) application. ESUI Phase 2 (September
2006 June 2008) ESUI Phase 2 was a WIT focused project and the
second phase of the integration project which redesigned the
mechanism for job seeker registration entry, enhance wizards used
to help improve resume generation and facility State of Texas
application entry and modified the way job seekers made their
contact information available to employers. ESUI Phase 3 (June 2008
- August 2009) ESUI Phase 3 was the third phase of the integration
project that established a mechanism to automatically generate job
seeker registration information into WIT for UI Claimants that
hadnt registered for a period of time after filing their claim
utilizing the data entered in the UI Benefits
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system. This project established a single signon process for UI
claimants between the web application Unemployment Benefits System
(UBS) and WIT. There was also continued focus on improving the
quality of job seeker applications in WIT additional correspondence
and online tools generated to help job seekers improve their
information in WIT. RRES Phase 1 ( July 2009 August 2010) Rapid
Reemployment System (RRES) project was a project to include into
the WIT application a web-based version of another mainframe
application that sends correspondence to UI Claimants that have the
highest probability or exhausting their benefits. The WIT
application was modified to include an RRES module available to
certain TWC staff to allow them to outreach people scheduling them
for mandatory orientations. RRES Phase 2 (September 2010 August
2011) RRES Phase 2 added additional functionality to the RRES
module giving the staff additional tools to help schedule
orientations for groups of like jobseekers based on a combination
of WIT and UI data. Enhancements also include additional reporting
of RRES module information.
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3. DEO is also interested in responses from vendors with
contemporary enabling technology that can be applied to the
Workforce business processes to create a more flexible and
responsive environment
Creating a dynamic business solution that maximizes
organizational agility and business benefits is possible only when
the software has a truly unified not merely integrated environment.
Only Pega brings all of these components together into a unified
whole one design environment, one run-time and one user experience
that helps you substantially improve and streamline your
operations. Pega BPM unifies:
Business processes and improvement methodology
Case management
Decision management
Business policies and rules
IT management
User interface and presentation (correspondence, Web, etc.)
Integration
Security
With Pega BPMs unified environment, you can: Significantly
reduce the time-to-market for business applications.
Gain greater flexibility for deployment on the cloud and
on-premise.
Improve communication between business and IT to streamline the
delivery of applications.
Substantially reduce training time and costs. Team Pega takes
great pride in our industry leading platform capabilities that will
serve as the core of the Workforce Development SaaS solution. These
core capabilities are:
SaaS (Pega Cloud)
Case Management
Reporting
Integration
Pega Cloud Intro Pega Cloud offers the ideal solution for
reaping the advantages of running your Pega-based workforce
development, employment and training applications in the cloud.
Pega Cloud can become a truly seamless, scalable addition to your
existing data center, delivering enterprise-grade security and
reliability, uncompromising performance and outstanding business
agility. Enterprise-level security and reliability Pega Cloud
offers best-in-class physical and network security with excellent
redundancy and reliability. Pega Cloud includes a 99.95 percent SLA
and it's control architecture meets regulatory requirements,
including HIPAA, PCI DSS, FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and European Union
Data Privacy*. All data is redundantly mirrored across several
servers in real time to prevent data loss. Nightly backups are
stored in at least three geographically distributed data
centers
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that use different Tier-1 carriers, power grids and onsite
backup generators to ensure business continuity. Pegasystems is SOC
2 certified. SOC 2 provides a rigorous reporting framework for
non-ICFR circumstances related to Security and Availability. Under
SOC 2, Control Objectives are pre-defined based on structure
provided by Trust Services Principles and Criteria. Under the
criteria, Pega has deployed an effective control system to
effectively mitigate operational and compliance risks that the
system may represent to its users. Dynamic scaling You can start
small and grow quickly because Pega Cloud is infinitely elastic.
The entire application and infrastructure can scale in real time to
meet current demand on a minute-by-minute basis. Ultimate
deployment flexibility Application portability is built in. Every
application built on Pega Cloud can be just as easily deployed
on-premise with absolutely no code changes. Rapid enterprise
integration Pega Cloud integrates quickly and easily with back-end
systems using state-of-the-art Web services. You can leverage
information maintained in your data center in Pega Cloud
applications as well as exchange messages with legacy systems.
Pega's "Private Cloud" model with a private VPN Tunnel lets you
treat Pega Cloud as an extension of you data center and integrate
seamlessly with your systems. * Note Certification of an
application to specific requirements is initiated by customer. Pega
Cloud control architecture can support that effort.
Case Management One of Pegas core strengths is its
industry-leading Case Management capabilities. Most case management
solutions provide workflow capabilitiesreceiving, routing and
reporting on work across the organization. Pega accomplishes these
tasks automatically and leverages its Business Rules Engine and
Business Process Management Engine to intelligently resolve work
without manual intervention. Pega is the only case management
solution that automates both the business decisions and the
processes that drive them. Pegas Case Management component
capabilities have been rated #1 by Forrester. See Figure 2.
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Figure 2 Case Management #1
Pega supports collaboration on cases, allowing multiple work
items to be associated to a single case, and multiple users to work
on items within a case simultaneously. Parent-child relationships
can be established to group related work together. Using an
intuitive Case Management Wizard, users can define:
the hierarchical relationship between each Case and Sub-case
whether to automatically create sub-cases, based on business
triggers from the parent
case or from another sub-case
whether to automatically resolve the parent case when all child
cases are resolved
how to share and/or propagate data between related cases
For example, all of a job seekers credentials, skills
assessments, job training, employment plans and job applications
can be treated as individual cases that all relate to a larger job
seeker parent case, while still maintaining their individual
autonomy. Relationships can easily be specified between the cases
to define how actions taken in one case may impact other related
cases. For example, when a job seeker completes a training program,
the seekers skills assessment case and credentials case can be
updated automatically, or users can be assigned tasks to review and
update those cases. Pegas Business Process Management (BPM)
component capabilities have been rated #1 by both Gartner and
Forrester. See Figure 3.
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Figure 3 Business Process Management #1
Reporting PRPC provides powerful reporting features for
developers--and for business analysts and managers, who can create
simple or complex reports in seconds to satisfy their needs. Pega
makes it easy to browse, search, organize, schedule, and run
existing reports. Pega support list-type and summarized reports,
charts, automated drill-down and drill-up, pivot tables, custom
formatting, and other features. Business users can share reports
with others, and export results as PDF files or Excel spreadsheets.
PRPC includes many standard, pre-defined management reports that
can be used as-is, or customized, to help monitor and analyze the
status, performance, and quality of business processes.
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Integration (Insanely Open Architecture ) Pegas supports the
widest possible array of integration and connectivity standards.
Pega provides an easy-to-use form-based interface and wizards that
remove the configuration and coding complexities from the designer.
These features allow Pega to act as the mortar that connects
multiple disparate systems, including National Online
Career/Workforce Capability services such as Monster. We call this
Pegas Insanely Open Architecture . Connectors allow Pega to call
into external systems, while Services allow external applications
to call into Pega. Each support most industry standard messaging,
service and component protocols. The following table lists the
available Connectors and Services:
Connector Service
EJB Call EJBs remote methods. Expose Pega functions as EJBs.
SOAP Act as a web services client. Expose Pega functions to web
service clients.
.NET Act as a .NET web services
client.
Expose Pega functions to .NET web service
clients.
Java Call Java methods and
constructors from .jar files on the
server.
Expose Pega functions as though they were
public methods of a Java class.
HTTP Send data via HTTP GET and
POST requests, and process the
response data
Service HTTP POST requests and returns
response data. Supports inbound REST
requests for JSON services.
JSON Use REST (GET, POST, PUT or
DELETE ) to send data via JSON
requests, and process the
response data
See HTTP.
JMS Process response messages
from a JMS queue.
Process request messages from a JMS queue.
MQ Process response messages
from a WebSphere MQ.
Process request messages from a WebSphere
MQ.
BPEL Act as the container for Pega
when it calls a BPEL application.
Act as the container for Pega when a BPEL
application calls it.
SQL Send complex SQL Statements
to an external database.
n/a
JCA Sends messages to a server that
implements the JCA Common
Client Interface.
n/a
JSR-94 n/a Receive and respond to requests from external
applications (when the Pega application is
embedded in another Java-based application).
Portlets n/a Display Pega application features and functions
in JSR 168-compliant portlets.
CMIS Integrate with external 3rd party
enterprise content management
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Connector Service
systems, such as EMC
Documentum, IBM FileNet,
Microsoft SharePoint and
Alfresco
UIMA Analyze, summarize, and convert
unstructured data (typically text) in
emails, social media posts, etc.
Email n/a Import and evaluate e-mail messages.
File n/a Evaluate the contents of files that are stored
outside of Pega
COM n/a Wrapper Pega functions into a custom ActiveX
control.
CORBA n/a Expose Pega functions to Object Request Broker
clients.
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4. Any other information that vendors want to supply in response
to this RFI
Collaborative Solution The Pega Team can orchestrate
collaborative discussions between Texas Workforce Development Team
and DEO to explore possible ways that developed applications can be
shared or reused. This possible collaboration could result in
savings for both States and a reduction in time to achieve a
comprehensive overall Workforce development SaaS solution.
Reusable Framework The Pega platform can support industry
specific workflow and rules driven baseline solutions. These
frameworks have been developed for areas such as Healthcare and
Banking. These frameworks greatly reduce the time required to
achieve a customized solution. The result of DEOs Workforce
Development SaaS project can be an initial Pega framework that
could be leveraged by other states. This capability could help DEO
qualify for grant funding or result in a possible revenue stream if
other states choose to adopt this solution.
National Pega Workforce Development User Group With multiple
states adopting and enhancing the same solution framework the
opportunity exists to create a user group for the purpose of
sharing applications and enhancements. Pega has an annual
conference where similar user groups meet to share experiences, new
applications and best practices.
Sample Technical Approach The following is a sample of a
technical approach to providing a Pega based solution. This
approach would be refined based on the future RFP you will be
releasing this Fall. This approach would be reviewed and refined
during the initiation of the project to deliver your Workforce
Development SaaS solution.
Technical Approach
The Pega Team is taking a technical approach to this offering
that is in line with the RFIs stated
business objectives.
1. Roadmap and Planning, Environment Set up and Training
a. Getting the team speaking the same language
Before we get moving toward the same goal with the Workforce
Development SaaS
team, and become a collaborating team, we believe it is
imperative that we all
understand one another, and have an understanding of how
everyone will be able to
contribute and provide value during our journey together.
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i. Pega Overview for everyone
To gain this level of understanding we plan on starting the
project with an overview
session with the entire team about Pega, how it works, what the
different components
are, and how the tool itself, helps the requirement gathering,
management and actual
development activities.
ii. Methodology Alignment Workshop
After we review the product with the team, we will then begin to
plan this roadmap and
project in much further detail. In order to do that effectively
within your organization, we
will conduct a Methodology Alignment Workshop. We realize that
you have spent many
years running projects within your organization and have built
up many great processes
and procedures that work very well within your organization. We
have worked many
projects with and know how to use the tool to assist in the most
efficient use of
resources during Pega projects to get the desired outcomes in
the most cost and time
effective ways our methodology. We believe that in order to make
this project as
successful as possible, we should take advantage of the best of
both methodologies.
The Methodology Alignment Workshop is the first step in this
process. After the
methodology alignment, we will both have a much better
understanding of the potential
strength of combining our methodologies.
iii. Resource Alignment Workshop
One of the other sessions which is crucial to the success of the
project is our Resource
Alignment Workshop, but for all intents and purposes it could
also be called the: What
am I going to be doing on this project, and more importantly,
how is my job going to
change in the future, and will my job still be here? Workshop
During this workshop we
speak to the roles of the project and roles of Pega users and
information technology staff
from a production view and an on-going nature. The plan is
focused on making peoples
jobs easier, more enjoyable, and improving communication with
minimum disruption to
day-to-day activities.
We will explore the many options available to your resources
within Pega projects. The
beauty of the Pega application is that regardless of what people
have done in the past, it
has the flexibility to allow people to work in as focused or as
broad a manner as they
have an interest. At the end of this session our goal is to give
the project team and any
external stakeholders the confidence that Pega is going to
improve their lives and make
work more enjoyable while calming fears about displacing
them.
b. Determining the documentation
The third step in our planning exercise to ensure success is
that very important portion
of the project: Documentation. We understand, just as with the
methodology, you have
great templates for projects within your agency. Pega provides a
broad range of project
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documentation and will allow you to customize the documentation
or incorporate any
document you have into Pega. The tool documents itself, and you
also have the choice
to work with us to modify the templates within Pega (which is
where we can incorporate
the your documentation) to ensure that all current PMO needs are
met without having to
do additional external version control and change tracking, as
Pega does that for you.
In addition to PMO documentation, we will also want to discuss
the creation of the
documentation that is very important to the Pega build process
and what the Pega
developers require when building out requirements. These are our
business
specification documents and their associated application
development specification
documents. These documents will directly impact the development,
test cases, and end
user training - so their accuracy is paramount.
These specification documents will become the content for a more
comprehensive
document created by Pega and called the Application Profile or
Application Document.
The document flows through the development process, however the
level of detail in the
contents and the name is changed based on what stage we are in
of the project. This
document, which is also generated by Pega, and whose template
can be edited, will be
the driving document for the application. In the beginning, the
Application Profile will
contain all the high level flows, objectives, along with project
assumptions and resources
and enablement plans. Toward the middle of the project, the
Application Document will
contain all draft flows, graphical user interfaces and
requirements and their respective
traceability. At the end of the project, it is the Application
Document that will contain
integration details, document how the application is built to
meet the functional
requirements, and ensure that all requirements and
specifications can be traced to the
rules that were developed within Pega to satisfy their
details.
Once the methodologies are aligned, documentation agreed to, and
all of the agency
team members understand and have actively requested specific
roles on the project, we
will be able to begin the actual detailed planning of the
project.
This part of the project is very similar to other projects in
some ways and different in
others. We know you are experts at your projects and PMO via
your well exercised
processes, just as we will have done in our methodology
alignment workshop, we will
want to leverage the best of both worlds. To ensure that we are
on the same page we
will perform this step together. (Are you starting to see a
trend here?)
We believe the following areas are imperative in a Pega project,
if not all projects, and
we hope to confirm this with you during our planning sessions.
The contents of these
plans and how we plan to execute to them are discussed a little
later in this document in
the execution of the plan section.
i. Environment /Infrastructure Plan - Hardware needs for all
environments
and their schedules for being set up with Pega.
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ii. Status Reporting Plan This plan will discuss the format and
timing of all
levels of the project team - from team member status reporting
to steering
committee reviews.
iii. Communication Plan - This will present how issues and risks
are
managed and communicated to the team and will document
associated
approval processes.
iv. Organization Management Plan This will discuss how to bring
all
effected stakeholders into the process early and often to ensure
everyone
is ready for each phase of the project as it is completed.
v. Enablement Plan This will discuss how your team will be
trained, then
learn to use the tool, with hands on experience and be prepared
to
support the application after Go Live.
vi. Road Mapping Plan This plan addresses the specific portions
of any
milestones around the technical roadmap.
vii. Create Project Plan (same process for each of the
milestones/processes)
A Pega project plan has a few different phases than traditional
waterfall
projects. The reason is not because the steps of waterfall
projects are
not taken, just that they are taken in a sequential yet parallel
nature due
to the functionality of Pega. This will make much more sense
after the
Pega Overview and Methodology Alignment Workshops.
1. Inception (Waterfall - Requirement Gathering)
The first phase of a Pega project is called Inception. During
this phase we will be
gathering requirements and building flows for the primary paths.
The project team
members, during the Inception phase, will consist of the your
subject matter experts,
Pega Business Architects, Pega System Architects, the Pega Lead
System and Lead
Business Architects. The roles on a Pega project are very
typical of other projects,
however the names have been changed to protect the innocent and
also to describe in
more detail what that traditional project role does within the
Pega application. The team
will learn more about how its roles map to the Pega roles within
our Resource Alignment
Workshop, however here are the descriptions and mapping to
traditional roles within
Pega.
Pega Role Traditional
Role Description
Business
Architects (BAs)
Senior Business
Architects
Lead Business
Architects
Business
Analysts
System
Analysts
Process
Analysts
Understands the functionality the application
provides, but may not know specifically how to
develop to that functionality.
Good communication skills, and the more
senior the role, the greater the ability to
manage, mentor and think strategically.
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Pega Role Traditional
Role Description
System Architects
(SAs)
Senior System
Architects
Lead System
Architects
Developer
DBA
System
Analysts
Application
Architects
Integration
Architect
System Architects can take on many roles
within a Pega project, and therefore map to
many current rules within a traditional IT
organization. A system architects activities,
based on level of maturity, on a Pega project
typically include, but are not limited to:
User Interface Configuration
Decision/Business Rule Configuration
Draft Flow Configuration
Data structure and set up
Integration work
Application Design and Deployment
Engagement
Leader
Project Manager Engagement Leaders are very similar to the
traditional project managers; however they
have a deep understanding of Pega, its
flexibility and the unique ways it can impact a
project in positive and negative ways.
For this project during this phase we will be extracting the UI
layer rules from your
Natural code using a specialized search tool - helping us to
expedite the process. We
will use this information along with the information provided
during the SOW process, in
conjunction with the screen information we analyze, to provide
the framework for our
discussions. Unlike other projects where this work is typically
done in Word and Visio,
we will do all of our work directly in the Pega application.
After the project team does this preparation, we will meet
together to review the
documentation and confirm that we have documented accurately all
of the primary path
steps, their level of complexity and any alternate flows that
may be triggered along the
way.
2. Application Accelerator (Waterfall - Construction begins)
After Inception is when the power of Pega begins to really be
seen because this is when
we get to run the Application Accelerator. Because we have done
all of the documenting
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of the flows within the application, we have already begun
Construction (this is why the
Pega methodology is a little different than your average
waterfall approach) By
accelerating the application profile, Pega will take those flows
and create draft flows
within the tool, along with UI stubs, and all necessary
automated portions identified in
the primary paths above.
3. Elaboration
Once the accelerator has been run, the Elaboration process will
begin, during this
process we complete the gathering of requirements for all
alternate flows using the same
Prep and Review process described in the Inception process. In
addition to the
incredible level of detail in specification documentation, the
team will create draft flows
and their associated draft graphical user interface. At the end
of Elaboration you will
have all requirements documented, the functional application
document, and all draft
flows and draft user interfaces identified and created. This
phase will use the same
resources as the inception phase, except the number of technical
resources will increase
to support the draft development within the application. If
there are any rules still to be
extracted from the Natural code, that will be completed during
this phase.
In addition to the discovery work that takes place during
Elaboration with our Direct
Capture of Objectives (DCO) sessions, Construction will normally
begin on the primary
path for each of the specifications, as those were approved and
agreed to at the end of
Inception.
In order to prepare for testing, we will work with you to ensure
that your testing
environments are ready to go during this phase.
4. Construction (Waterfall Construction Finishes, Test and End
User
Training processes begin)
After all the requirements have been gathered, documented and
approved, the business
users and SMEs directly move on to creating test cases and end
user training. In
traditional projects this usually takes place much closer to the
end of the project, and
that is the same case now, but because of the Smart BPM
methodology and the features
of Pega, we are close to the end.
While the Business Architects and SMEs are working on the
testing and training, the
System Architects are feverishly connecting all the remaining
integration points and
migrating all the draft flows and UIs into a functioning
application. In other systems this
may mean duplicate copies, (one of a draft and one of the actual
item) however in Pega
this is just done by updating the draft GUI and flow with the
remaining necessary
functional components. So the draft GUI and flows created in
Elaboration are just like
the ones in Inception - part of Construction.
Once Construction is complete, either pieces of functional code
or the entire application,
the rules are promoted to Test, and the Application Document is
created.
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In order to prepare for Production and Go Live, we will work
with you to make sure your
production environments are ready to go during this phase.
5. Transition (Waterfall Test and Training Finish)
During Transition the team will perform functional, integration,
and system testing. The
business architect team will also begin train the trainer for
the end users of the
application.
While the business users are focused on testing and training,
the technical team will be
providing triage and bug fixing support. In addition, the System
Architect team will begin
the production data transfer set up and preparation activities
for Production.
6. Go Live (Waterfall Go Live)
After the transition activities, just as all other activities,
the application will be ready for
Go Live. By this point, your Pega Administrators will have
completed their training and
be prepared to support the application. If desired, as
documented in the SOW, Cooper
is prepared to offer an additional 200 hours of support. This
request will be facilitated via
the Change Control Board (CCB).
As a result of the Pega plan execution we will provide the
following Deliverable Artifacts:
1. Detailed Project Plan
2. Implementation Plan
3. Back Out and Recovery Checklist
4. Implementation Checklist
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c. Executing the Plan
i. Kick off the Project!
We will plan on having our kick off meeting with all project
team members
and stakeholders. It is very important to have all levels of
leadership at this
meeting to ensure the entire team knows the importance of the
project and
the level of sponsor and management support.
ii. Environment Set Up
As mentioned above, we will need to set up the following
environments
during various points throughout the project. At each of these
points, which
will be identified in the detailed project plan, an expert
services resource
from Pegasystems will come on site and install all your
instances of Pega
and associated frameworks. In order to execute this process in
the most
effective and efficient manner for you, we will need to complete
the
attached Environment Sizing Spreadsheet, deliver that to
Pegasystems,
and they will provide you details to the specification of any
servers you may
need to set up to meet your Pega environment needs. We have
provided a
draft of the required equipment in Appendix E along with the
hardware
estimation spreadsheet. As soon as the environment needs are met
for the
Development Server Environment, we will bring this resource to
install your
Pega Dev instance so we can get started with Inception and the
Roadmap
exercises.
iii. Status
Once the project gets started, our Engagement Lead will provide
weekly
status reports to all stakeholders, and once a month will work
with your PM
to create and review an executive level status report. Our
Engagement
Leader will be available to present risks or issues to the
steering committee
for resolution or awareness.
iv. Communication
We at Cooper Consulting believe that lack of communication is
the primary
reason that projects are not successful. In order to ensure this
project stays
on track and focused, we plan on having all communications
posted to a
Sharepoint site for the project, along with having regular
meetings and
communication within the team to ensure that all risks, issues,
tasks and
delays are communicated in a timely manner.
As a result of the methodology alignment and discussions with
your PMO
team we will come to an agreement on a Change Management Plan.
This
change management document will include the levels of approval
and
documentation needed for each level of approval for changes or
additions
to our project time, cost, duration or deliverables. Our change
management
process will also identify the proper escalation chain for
everyone in our
project team and extended stakeholders. Please see the
additional project
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close out section for recommended steps within the change
management
process.
v. Organization Management
It has been our experience that most successful projects, in
addition to working the communication plan and providing
comprehensive status reports, also include an Organizational
Management Plan.
Although out of scope for this SOW, we highly recommend the
following types of activities to help the external stakeholders
with
the changes that the new application will bring to their
work
environment.
a. Organization Change Management Plan
b. Organization Communications Plan
i. Monthly News Blast
ii. Quarterly Focus Group/Forum
iii. Published Project Calendar
c. Name the new system Contest
vi. Enablement Plan
We recommend a combination of training courses, seminars, hands
on
activities/shadowing and one on one mentoring be included in
the
methodology for enablement of your resources.
The courses we believe are mandatory and are included as a part
of this
bid are (in addition to the alignment workshops mentioned above)
the Pega
Overview and Pega BA 101. We will provide one instance of each
of the
two courses. The Pega Overview course is for all stakeholders
and
executives associated with the project. The Pega BA 101 is for
anyone
who will be part of the project team and or will be supporting
the application
in the future.
The Pega Overview is a half-day introductory course and is a
must for
executives, stakeholders, sponsors and others who need a high
level
understanding of how to apply Pega to their lines of
business.
Pega BA 101 is a full day course where the project team will go
through
mock sessions to emulate actual work sessions during a project,
the inputs
and outputs, and how the application assists the business in
more ways
than providing a development tool. During this session, the team
will learn
in detail about all the tools used during the Inception and
Elaboration
phases.
To supplement the courses above we recommend the following
optional
courses from Pega University:
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Pega Business Architect Essentials
Pega Fast Track
Pega Boot Camp
Pega Administration Course
These courses are offered virtually or in person if any of your
resources
choose to partake in them. The Cooper team further recommends
one-on-
one training sessions with our teams experts. We have included
this in our
bid to ensure that the team gets the chance for hands-on
opportunities to
explore and understand Pega.
vii. Roadmap
The roadmap exercise is what a Pega project calls an
Operational
Walkthrough. We will perform one operational walkthrough for up
to 8 high
level processes youve identified. Each of these operational
walkthroughs
will provide the following level of information so proper
analysis can be
performed.
i. Identify objectives
ii. Identify all major flows and complexity
iii. Identify all integration points
iv. Identify all reports
v. Identify all correspondence
vi. Identify all actors
The results of an operational walkthrough will be a high-level
application profile
for each process along with an estimated sizing for the process
to be built in
Pega. All of this information along with a priority from your
PMO team will be
used to determine the sequence of the additional work at your
agency.
2. Initial Start of Interface Designs
For all of the flows the same process will be followed, mapping
to the processes mentioned
earlier (Inception, Elaboration, Construction and Transition).
Throughout Inception and
Elaboration the team will be following what is called Direct
Capture of Objectives or DCO.
This is the Pega version of gathering requirements. There are
three types of DCO, and for
this project, based on all the material and screen shots already
provided and further
information provided after award, we will be able to prepare
(prep) for the review session
with the SMEs. This is a much faster process than starting from
scratch with an audience
that has never used Pega before. The following list represents,
but is not limited to, a list of
information that will be analyzed in the prep portion of the
Prep and Review process.
1. Natural Code
2. Reviewing Screens
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3. Shadow CSRs
4. Review all current training documentation
5. Review all system documentation
6. Summarize and consolidate rules and requirements into
Pega
The amount of detail gathered by the team during these
specifications
will vary based on where the team is in the project.
Specifications and Requirements will be crafted to level of
detail
below.
At the end of Inception, all use specifications will be at the
Level 1
Detail, which will include the following:
a. All steps of primary path/scenario identified
b. All data elements identified
c. All alternate paths/scenarios identified
d. All integration points identified
e. Primary Reports Identified
f. Primary Correspondence Identified
g. Initial ADA analysis
At the end of Elaboration all specifications will be at the
Level 2 Detail,
which include the following:
a. All steps of all paths identified
b. All SLAs identified
c. All scripting identified
d. All potential technical/functional solutions identified
e. All reports identified
f. All correspondence identified
g. All report and correspondence requirements complete
h. All draft screens in application
i. All draft flows in application
j. Secondary ADA analysis
Once each specification document is complete to the level of
detail
necessary for the particular phase of the project, the team will
perform the
review portion of the Prep and Review process. This will be done
using
formal DCO sessions. Each DCO session can contain a singular
or
multiple specification documents. This depends on the complexity
of the
document being reviewed. Most DCO sessions should not last more
than
4 hours and only require the resources mentioned below. Adding
more
resources to each DCO meeting can exponentially affect the
project size,
scope, and duration.
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Below is the list of recommended attendees and their respective
role
within the DCO session.
1. DCO Session Roles
h. Facilitator (BA)
i. Scribe (BA/SA/Enablement exercise)
j. System Navigation (SA)
k. Pega technical Resource (SA- Same resource as item c)
l. Business SME
m. Decision Maker (preferred to be same as e)
n. Customer Technical Resource (lead)
Once the teams are formed for each of the specifications, the
review
sessions can be planned and executed. Following are the list of
activities
performed for each specification in the sequence that will be
followed
during our project.
a. Review specifications
b. Make updates during Session 1
c. Make final updates outside session for level 1 detail
d. Approve specifications at level 1 detail
e. Review specifications at level 2 detail
f. Make updates during review session for level 2 detail
g. Make final updates outside session for level 2 detail
h. Approve Specifications at level 2 detail
i. Generate Application Document
After all the specification documents are completed by the team,
the next
step for the Business Architects and SMEs is the creation of the
testing
materials. The first item that needs to be generated is the Test
plan. The
Test plan will address the following information with greater
detail about
location, testing hours, and communication within the testing
team:
a. Determine testing roles and responsibilities
b. Determine bug severity definitions
c. Determine triage cycle and SLAs
d. Determine exit criteria
e. Obtain approval of testing plan
While the Lead Business Architect and Engagement lead are
creating
and gaining approval for the testing plan the remaining project
business
resources will begin to create test cases.
Below are the steps needed to extract Pega test cases from
Pega
specifications and ensure all test cases are written and
approved:
a. Convert Specifications (Level 2) to test cases
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b. Take test cases and convert to negative test cases
c. Create screen view/lay out test cases (fields in right
location/font)
d. Create ADA test cases
e. Review test cases with users
f. Obtain approval of test cases
ii. Project Deliverables
1. Test Plan
2. Test Cases
While the test cases are being written, the application
functionality will begin to
become clear. As this becomes more clear, the team will
determine the functionality
and users for the Pilot. Once these are identified the system
architects will need to
save the rules surrounding the functionality to the pilot rule
set.
3. Initial Start of Implementation
When all documentation is complete at level 2, each
specification will be reviewed by the
system architect team. Within each of the reviews the system
architect team, most often the
lead system architect, will be taking the following steps.
i. Review potential technical/functional design options
1. Guardrail Compliance (LSA)
2. Situational Layer Cake Decision (See Section 2.1.1)
a. Re-usability analysis (LSA)
b. Rule type decision analysis (LSA)
c. Rule location decision analysis (LSA)
d. CPM Analysis (LSA)
e. Final ADA Analysis (ADA expert)
3. Portal/User/Administrative Decision
ii. Determine proper Pega design to meet specifications
(LSA)
Once the LSA has determined the approach, s/he will work with an
SA or SSA to get the
approach documented and built. Based on the approach of the LSA,
the technical resource will
document and build using a combination of the following rules
below within Pega:
i. Property/Data Rules all details around the data elements
within Pega
ii. Decision and Declarative Rules rules that process decisions,
(if then
statements)
iii. Activity Rules rules that modify or update data
elements.
iv. Integration Rules rules that communicate between Pega and
other
applications.
1. Types of integration follow all of the most common types
of
integration
v. GUI Rules - Rules that represent the Graphical User Interface
of the
Pega application. (please see CPM documentation attached)
vi. User/Administrative Rules
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2. Audit trail
3. User defined roles
4. SLA
5. Escalation process
The technical team, in a technical solution version of each
specification
document, will document all the decisions made by the LSA to
build this
application. These documents will provide direct support to the
help desk in the
future and will describe how the application is built and where
each rule is being
enforced.
After all the details are determined around each piece of
development within
Pega, the LSA will work with your resources and begin the
Disaster Recovery
Plan. This plan will describe the steps needed for the team or
your resources to
take, in lieu of a disaster, where it will be necessary to use
back up applications
or servers.
4. Testing
As mentioned earlier, the business and test teams will be
working with your end users to create
and work through all the necessary steps associated with testing
the Pega application. The
steps below are similar to a traditional project, the primary
difference with a Pega project is the
amount of detailed documentation that is provide via the tool to
assist in the creation and
execution of test cases.
During the testing cycles the application will be used to
determine which specifications have
been built, which requirements have been addressed, and using
which rules within the
application. These traceability reports along with the test
cases which match to the level 2 use
case detail, will be the first step in getting the team through
testing. The documents and the
created test plan will address in detail all of the required
components of each test cycle
including, but not limited, to the following information:
1. System Test
2. UAT (End users, BA)
3. ADA test (ADA expert)
4. Performance test (LSA)
5. Triage meetings (Triage team)
6. Enablement Exercise (SA/Your Team)
7. Fixing bugs (SA)
8. Rule release cycle (LSA/Your Pega Admin)
9. Approval of test passage
Upon the passing of all of the test cases, the application rule
sets will be ready to be promoted
to the pilot users. During the pilot the team will monitor the
process, gather additional
functionality requests, and create a backlog of future
functionality. These points of information
will be directly input into the lessons learned meetings at the
end of the project.
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5. Initial Start of Project Close Out
Towards the end of the testing, our team will perform Train the
Trainer sessions with the help
desk and technical support staff. These staff will have access
to all end user training and test
cases along with the application specifications. These sessions
and materials in conjunction
with the Pega administrator course will properly prepare the
team for supporting basic requests
from the end users.
6. Additional Implementation
As stated earlier, during migration to Production, there are
multiple steps that will take place in
conjunction with the checklists mentioned in the SOW (Back out
and Recovery Checklist,
Implementation Checklist). Rules are stored within Pega as
groups of interrelated features and
they will all be promoted to Production prior to any data
migration (the rules contain place
holders for data). Before data is migrated into the application,
the project team will determine
what data will need to be input into Pega and in what format.
This data will be prepared for
moving into the Pega application.
After this preparation has taken place, there will be a very
closely monitored and documented
process of transferring data and the subsequent Go Live of your
Pega application.
a. Artifact Deliverables
i. Back out and Recovery Checklist
ii. Implementation Checklist
iii. Implementation
7. Additional Project Close Out
After the application is in Production and your are successfully
supporting it, the project team
will conduct a lessons learned session and prepare a summary of
those lessons learned. This
document will be paired with a backlog of specifications to be
built and defects in the application
based on the test exit criteria. After all updates have been
made to the application based on the
production release, the last Application Document will be
created. This will be the final
deliverable of the project.
a. Deliverable Artifacts (all three from Final Application
Document)
i. Lessons Learned
ii. Closeout Report
iii. Support Maintenance Plan
8. Additional Support
a. Identify Change Request
b. Prepare Change Request Level 1
c. Review Change Request Level 1
d. Approval for Change request to level 1
e. Prepare Change Request Level 2
f. Review Change Level 2
g. Approval of Change level 2
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h. Execute Level 2 Change Request
i. Test Level 2 Change Request
j. Deliver Artifact of level 2 Change Request
k. Final Approval of Initial Change Request
l. Deliverable Artifacts
i. As Defined by approved Change Request
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4 Conclusion The Pega Team looks forward to meeting the DEO team
in an oral presentation where we can demonstrate the power of the
Pega components, our solution approach, and to answers your
questions. It is our hope that Pegas participation in this RFI
process will make your team aware of an innovative, state of the
art solution approach built on our industry leading platform that
will provide your required functionality. This solution will be
built for change - flexible and scalable and able to absorb future
change with ease. Let us show you why Gartner and Forrester have
named Pega as their #1 choice for Business Process Management and
Case Management platform solutions. Our platform will ensure that
your fully tailored solution is delivered quickly, correctly and
will be secure. The bottom line is the need to put people to work.
The Pega Team is ready to earn your respect and trust as your
partner in success to match job seekers to their next source of
income and dignity.
