Estates Systems Optimisation Programme seeks to improve Estates business functions through Business Transformation of Systems, Processes and Roles.
- Systems will be reviewed and refreshed, moving from a large number of small-scale, single-use systems, to an integrated, designed model of multi-use systems, consolidating the numbers of applications and partners used.
- Current and Future processes will be analysed and documented to enable functional design and technical workflows
- Business-as-Usual models including Target Operating Models and role profiles will be defined
Full 'whole-life' Total cost of Ownership solutions will be defined based on IT best-practise, such as Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITILv3) to ensure end state solutions are reliable, supportable and maintainable as ‘Business-as-Usual’ services.
The Systems Optimisation programme will have a small number of large-scale multi-year projects. Projects will consider improvements to systems, processes and team capabilities where necessary and agreed.
The programme currently consists of the following live projects:
The following further projects been identified by Estates but have not been started.
EST136 Contact Database for Estates Help Desk
Project Updates
EST129Estates Business Readiness and Adoption of SEP P&M - The overall RAG assessment is AMBER Trending RED. EST129 are now aligned to the current P&M Phase 3 timeline and have a live Key Date Schedule (KDS) in place to support the Go-Live date of 15 August ’22. The current P&M Phase 3 milestones remain extremely tight and progress will now be impacted by upcoming holiday periods. There is a considerable amount of preparatory work required to ensure that Estates are business ready for the August Go-Live date & progressing with this has been hampered by the lack of engagement with Procurement Operations and the delayed issue of core P&M change materials.
EST138Deister (Proxsafe)Now reports a GREEN status after delivery and closure milestones have been extended due to resource issues and the inclusion of the decommissioning of the legacy server.
EST139 Estates System Audit Reports a GREEN status as the project has now been suspended between 5th May and the 2nd of August
EST132 Estates IQ Vision/Trend963 Upgrade -Reports a GREEN status as the ITT has now been finalised prior to review and sign off by Estates and will be issued next month
EST137Archibus Upgrade Analysis & Planning - Reports a GREEN status as the demo was delivered and access to a sandbox environment was provided. Overall Estates accepted the argument for and the benefits of upgrading very favourably. All areas were actively engaged.
EST135Perspective Upgrade -Reports a GREEN status- As the project brief has been signed off and the servers are currently being built. Whilst it is 5 days behind schedule it is not expected to impact later milestones as UAT expected to complete within 1 week.
EST136 Contact Database for Estates Help Desk -Not started - GREEN
Therefore, the overall status of the EOO programme is set to AMBER due to the highest priority project (EST129) reporting AMBER and other projects are GREEN
EST129 are now aligned to the current P&M Phase 3 timeline and have a live Key Date Schedule (KDS) in place to support the Go-Live date of 15 August ’22. The KDS captures all known Estates related workstreams associated with the Phase 3 launch, preparation and adoption into Estates. These include but are not limited to:
UAT
Data Migration: Rehearsal and Go-Live
Reporting
Estates Business Readiness & Adoption Strategy
Shutdown & Cut - Over
Training, Change Management and Communications for Estate staff
Finance Operations Team – E2E processes & new ways of working
Procurement Operations Team – E2E processes & new ways of working
Hypercare post Go-Live
The current P&M Phase 3 milestones remain extremely tight and progress will now be impacted by upcoming holiday periods. There is a considerable amount of preparatory work required to ensure that Estates are business ready for the August Go-Live date & progressing with this has been hampered by the lack of engagement with Procurement Operations and the delayed issue of core P&M change materials. This concern is driven by:
Time remaining pre go-live to resolve ongoing data migration and reporting concerns – will compromise Go-Live outcomes.
Compressed UAT timescales and limited Estates UAT participation has limited system knowledge and assurance that business requirements will be met.
Minimal participation in rehearsal and the implications of data migration outcomes following load for rehearsal, in particular reference to significant issues experienced with PO’s.
Continued lack of detailed cut-over scope and timeline is hampering Estates ability to adequately plan and prepare.
Limited timescale between rehearsal and go-live to ensure complete and accurate data load.
Limited timescale to adequately prepare Estates for the transition to Procurement and Finance operations new ways of working and To-Be position.
Estates specific escalations to P&M SLT continue on a weekly basis.
Work stream
Current RAG
Previous RAG
RAG Commentary
Data Migration (Lead Rod Hanchard-Goodwin)
AMBER
AMBER
Status remains AMBER trending RED due to timescales & complexities associated with concluding all data related tasks, mapping / loading / validation & reconciliation activities for Rehearsal & Go-Live. EST129 / Estates / ISG & P&M all continue to work collaboratively and tirelessly to rectify ongoing issues
It is anticipated that the re-loading of data in order will rectify the majority of the issues encountered at UAT and along with a number of bug fixes already deployed should hopefully mean that the data for Rehearsal is significantly improved from that of UAT.
However, there remains concerns with the quality of the reports which will impact on Estates ability to undertake meaningful validation & reconciliation which will impact both Rehearsal and Go-Live.
Estates will be providing the refreshed data set for Rehearsal, due to script updates previously unavailable data should be now included.
The issues encountered with data migration have been continually escalated throughout this project. Estates SLT & P&M SLT have now agreed on a milestone date of 22 June ‘22, to review the data status and to agree on mitigation actions / decisions required at that point in relation to Go-Live.
A number of options may be available to support Go-Live but anything other than a very high success rate will result in considerable effort from both Estates & P&M.
Work stream
Current RAG
Previous RAG
RAG Commentary
Historical Data Store (HDS) - (Lead Rod Hanchard -Goodwin)
GREEN
GREEN
Status remains at GREEN, based on the working assumption that access to historical data will be maintained at current access levels until a replacement solution is signed off as fit for business purposes.
P&M have issued the technical requirements and these have signed off by Estates. The next stage is to produce system design documentation.
Estates plan to focus on this workstream over the next month.
Work stream
Current RAG
Previous RAG
RAG Commentary
Finance Operations – (Lead Jo McDonald)
AMBER
AMBER
Status remains at AMBER. Estates Finance resources have now moved into the new P&M Finance Partnering model and are working closely with all finance colleagues across UoE to finalise plans for the adoption of new processes and ways of working.
The Head of Estates Finance, Karen Adamson is working very closely with P& / UoE on the resolution of very significant issues, particularly relating to the EIT solution.
Karen continues to support Estates / EST129 as the lead SME and main sponsor.
There remains concerns, including but not limited to:
A number of outstanding open questions, all captured within the EST129 QIDA tracker to be addressed by P&M. Some of which are Estates specific and some UoE wide.
Estates Finance are committed to supporting P&M in the resolution of these key issues and in addition are awaiting the release of new E2E processes and detailed training.
The dedicated EST129 resource, Josephine McDonald will step down from this workstream from 09 May ’22, but retain a reduced commitment of 1 day per week should support be needed by Estates Finance or EST129.
Karen Adamson will be on leave for most of July, therefore many key decisions and plans will need to be in place before the end of June ’22. And an agreement reached on delegating decision making in her absence.
Work stream
Current RAG
Previous RAG
RAG Commentary
Procurement Operations – (Lead Jane Cameron)
AMBER
AMBER
Status is AMBER trending RED. Initial introductions have now been made between the Procurement Operations Estates manager and key Estates stakeholders. This is a direct result of an escalation regarding the lack of engagement with this workstream. Concerns remain regarding the following:
No sight of planned “To Be” procedures / New Roles & Responsibilities / Comms / Training / Go-live preparation / Cut-over planning / Knowledge Share / SLA’s / etc. for core operations.
Estates concerns remain unaltered in relation to the challenges faced by P&M to sufficiently resource, embed and train adequately the Procurement Operations team to support Estates at Go-Live and beyond.
Estates are concerned that the current team may not have the capacity to support the volume of Estates procurement related administration.
Estates have provided the Procurement Operations team with all request information to date.
Estates concerns relating to the current procurement policy document have been escalated and continue to be in review at a senior level with CSG / P&M.
Following escalation Estates and Procurement Operations have now agreed a plan to commence detailed collaboration, knowledge share and planning for Go-Live this will start in earnest w/c 13 June ’22.
However, Procurement Operations have been tasked by P&M SLT to provide some key procedures including a detailed E2E process and new ways of working for sub £50k procurement (aligned to Estates As-Is scenarios), which is anticipated by 10 June ’22.
In addition, they are required to provide a list (with release dates) of all planned E2E materials.
It is anticipated that information related to requisitions options, approvals job level mapping will be forthcoming on 06 June ’22.
Work stream
Current RAG
Previous RAG
RAG Commentary
Reporting (operational & strategic) –
(Lead: Jane Brodie)
RED
RED
Status remains RED.
The gap analysis exercise has stalled due to the lack of available P&M functional leads to support the reviews.
There remains a significant amount of review required in relation to the procurement report set, which will now be impacted on by annual leave, data migration & UAT / Rehearsal / Go-Live activities.
The 5 Day-One Estates reports are currently being tested in UAT. However it is anticipated that Estates will require to establish and resource some significant workarounds to provide the reports required to replicate the current offerings available pre Go-Live.
There requires to be a clear understanding of the impact on Estates from the lack of and quality of reports that has emerged. It is anticipated that this will form the basis of a continual improvement plan but details of this remain unknown.
Work stream
Current RAG
Previous RAG
RAG Commentary
System Integration Testing (SIT) – (Lead Eric Wardle)
GREEN
AMBER
Workstream now complete and all legacy issues transferred to UAT.
Work stream
Current RAG
Previous RAG
RAG Commentary
User Acceptance Test (UAT) - (Lead Eric Wardle)
AMBER
RED
Status changed to AMBER from RED as we are now in week 3 out of 5 with 38% of Maintenance and 19% Capital & MR projects tests completed.
However progress has been hampered by issues with Procurement group sessions MTC and Lease Interface and consequently 5 Jiras have now been raised and issues highlighted are:
Quality of Test Scripts.
System reports (Capital & MR Projects).
System permissions (Maintenance Projects).
General concerns remain around the following:
Estates tester participation in UAT is not as extensive as was requested.
E2E user journeys are not yet published therefore UAT is restricted to system only testing and not the full solution.
Any delays to the conclusion of UAT will impact on the limited opportunity to tailor training materials pre staff training commencing on 18 July ’22.
On site UAT testing has now been deployed by P&M in an effort to regain momentum to achieve the planned UAT outcomes.
Work stream
Current RAG
Previous RAG
RAG Commentary
Training, Change Management and Communications. - (lead: Marjory Howarth)
AMBER
AMBER
Status maintained as Amber trending Red for the following reasons:
Lack of clarity around the E2E processes for procurement, roles and responsibilities and integration of the new Procurement operations Team. This is making it very difficult for Estates, to plan and manage a successful adoption of new procurement processes in advance of the release of training videos.
There is also some considerable concern around the changes that may be required to role levels within P&M, in order to allow the DAS functionality to operate successfully. Only once this is known, can modelling take place, to understand if the requisition routing is feasible for the volumes of orders that exist in Estates.
During the month of May, the Local Guides group was successfully formed, comprising of 17 Estates staff members, representing all departments. All Estates staff are allocated to a local guide. Three meetings have taken place to date and Peer to Peer cascade of information has commenced. Information on accessing P60’s, recording of Annual reviews and very high level Procurement changes have been communicated, amongst other items.
This workstream provides regular updates to the Estates SLT through the Estates Implementation group weekly meetings.
Work stream
Current RAG
Previous RAG
RAG Commentary
Cutover, Go Live & Business Continuity- (Lead: Jane Cameron)
AMBER
RED
Status changed to AMBER based on ongoing concerns that at T minus 8 weeks from finance systems shutdown, a detailed cut-over plan has yet to be finalised and circulated to the University. In response EST129 has established an Adoption & Business Readiness approach which is updated on a weekly basis, the following items have been reviewed and actioned on:
Actively closing down POs and invoices.
Communicating key finance dates.
Impact on current Estates systems (Archibus & myProject).
Impact on reporting during this period both strategic and operational.
Impact on payments to key suppliers in line with strict contractual obligations.
Use of Archibus for POs during shutdown.
However, Estates are currently unable to prepare a synchronised Cut-Over plan, therefore we have requested access to the P&M Cut-Over run book in order to align and support the process by :
• Planning resources for all critical Data Migration Validation & Reconciliation (V&R) requirements.
• Assisting with scoping, timing & co-ordination of all required Archibus changes.
• Assisting with scoping, timing & co-ordination of all required myProject changes.
• Establishing Estates SME support requirements.
• Ensuring key Estates stakeholders are booked for all weekend working requirements (Estates/ISG & 3rd Party suppliers)
• Supporting Data Migration timetable / access timings for V&R.
• Supporting Key milestone.
• Co-ordinate all Staff Training / Comms / etc.
Risk: without access to the detail the co-ordination, scope & responsibilities will not be shared and fully understood or resourced to support Go-Live.
Project Resources
A monthly review of IS resource effort has been completed. The changes in IS resource effort from planned best guess effort are:
Eric Wardle remains full time to EST129 and will manage UAT / Integration.
David Shannon remains committed to co-ordinating and facilitating planning for Estates business readiness & adoption.
Rod Hanchard-Goodwin remains as the EST129 Project Manager and data migration functional lead.
Marjory Howarth returns full time to EST129 as the Change, comms & training lead.
Jo McDonald stands done on EST129 to support other Estates workstreams, EST129 retain a drawdown of 1 day per week to support Finance related issue resolution.
Issue, changes, Assumptions & Decisions;
These are detailed at the following link and cover the challenges with Scope, Time and Effort and MASS failure to meet P&M plans for Integrations and Data Migration.
Interviews by D.Shannon & S.Benson with operational Stakeholders
Demo delivered
Access to a sandbox environment was provided.
Overall Estates accepted the argument for and the benefits of upgrading very favourably. All areas were actively engaged.
The demo also highlighted that we may need future help with best practice around configuration. There may be things we are already doing in a certain fashion. Might we have taken our adoption of the software and processes for granted for too long.
Issues / Outstanding
None
Next Steps
Mass to deliver the report, expected on the 1st June, within project tolerance.
Review the documentation and amend as required.
Accept the finalised documentation and complete the project.
The project is reporting GREEN. Noted that Server build is 5 days behind schedule. However this is not expected to impact later milestones as UAT expected to complete within 1 week.
Achievements
The Project Brief, at this link, was signed off by all stake holders and approved at Apps Review on 5th May 2022.
Servers receipted earlier than 2 week estimated window.
Servers build is work in progress . This includes the additional requirement to provide a Resilience Server for Apps Server Live.