OAKS executive sponsors, business owners, program management office (PMO) team members, business team representatives and members of the business and technical advisory group attended a kick-off meeting for the OAKS business transformation architect (BTA) project March 24. The state has contracted with Maximus to lead this project that is designed to build upon the project's business needs analysis to develop a strategic foundation for OAKS implementation.

The project is also designed to fast track the identification and resolution of enterprise-level issues that could impact the project's integration phase. Prior to the arrival of system integrator resources to be selected by the state through a competitive procurement process, Maximus will begin work on two of three major deliverables.

The first major deliverable is development of a strategic plan that includes affirmation of the project's vision based on the best business practices that can be leveraged through the state's PeopleSoft applications. This deliverable will also include strategies for streamlining future business processes with PeopleSoft functionality and a recommended process for measuring attainment of each of the project's anticipated benefits.

The second deliverable of the BTA project is an assessment of the extent to which the state as an enterprise and representative agencies are prepared to go through the changes OAKS represents. Maximus will recommend a methodology for gathering readiness data, develop assessment tools and procedures, and train OAKS PMO team members to conduct the assessment. Maximus resources will analyze the results and prepare recommendations for improving change readiness.

A third major deliverable of the project is development of an enterprise impact statement that applies the components of the strategic plan and the results of the readiness assessment to document OAKS statewide impacts. The impact statement will also include recommended action plans for addressing each impact.

During the kick-off meeting, Maximus team members related the project's scope and deliverables to similar work performed for other public sector entities and several of the lessons learned. The BTA project is expected to last five to six months and should include substantial time for the Maximus team to interact with system integrator resources.

A copy of the kick-off meeting presentation is available through the OAKS Web site (http://www.oaks.ohio.gov/oaks/documents/OAKS-BTA-Kickoff-Presentation-032405).