Road Trip Program Summary

Ministry of Community and Social Services

Building a Foundation for Modern Human Services

Social Assistance Integrated Transition Plan

The Move toward Regular Business

June 2015

Ministry of Community and Social Services Building a Foundation for Modern Human Services

Introduction • Implementing SAMS was a major undertaking and has been challenging for

all social assistance delivery sites, including Ontario Works, ODSP and ACSD staff.

• There is a lot more work that needs to be done to improve SAMS and to support delivery staff.

• That’s why the ministry engaged the services of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), an independent, third-party reviewer to ask for advice on how to address the most pressing SAMS-related issues and how to transition delivery sites back to “business-as-usual.”

• The ministry has incorporated all of PwC’s recommendations in the SA Integrated Transition Plan. The Integrated Plan consists of several projects which support the transition of SAMS to regular operations.

2


PwC Recommendations

Planning and governance 1. Governance structure realignment 2. Integrated transition plan 3. SAMS business acceptance criteria 4. Transition program manager 5. Transition-specific metrics and measures 6. Enhance the stakeholder management and engagement strategy with municipal delivery agents and other stakeholders

Change management and stakeholder engagement 7. Enhance organizational impact assessment 8. Integrated change and communications plan 9. Refine SAMS training approach and materials 10. Knowledge transfer for Cúram resources

Technology 11. Release management 12. Regression testing and automated use cases 13. Environment synchronization 14. Capacity planning specific to infrastructure 15. Balance defect resolution with planned enhancements, and Cúram upgrade plan 16. End user support strategy

Process 17. Identify and document workarounds 18. Business process documentation 19. Data quality assessment

3

PwC has provided a set of recommendations for how the ministry could improve staff transition to regular operations based on four areas:


The ministry’s plan focuses on 5 key areas:

4

Taking the right steps at the

right time with appropriate

oversight and input from our

partners

Building capacity through effective

training, user support, and

communications

Reviewing and

improving our processes

Addressing defects, pursuing

enhancements and maintaining

infrastructure to meet future need

Transferring business and

technical support to “business as

usual” operations


1. Engagement and Planning

• Appointed Director of SAMS Transition Program Management to oversee development and implementation of the integrated transition plan

• Established a process to prioritize defect fixing and enhancements

• Developed an integrated transition plan

• Conducted an ODSP staff training survey – Survey results to be made available soon (in progress)

• Survey staff in order to gain a clearer understanding of current business processes and use the results to determine the most immediate needs (in progress)

• Define what “regular business” means, and measure the progress toward reaching “regular business” by comparing current operational indicators with those of a comparable

pre-SAMS period (in progress)

5


2. People

• Provided ODSP staff with a SAMS Reference Guide that provides staff with information on high-level actions required to complete functions within SAMS

• Introduced a weekly SAMS communications update which streamlines communication to front-line staff

• Provide additional supports to staff, including:

– Adding additional people to support the Help Line (target: Summer)

– Updating the SAMO Extranet to make it easier to use (in progress); phase 1 completed

– Updating User Guides and Job Aids to make them clearer (in progress)

• Support continuous learning opportunities by providing additional WebEx sessions in combination with on-site support to staff that

will help staff better understand specific SAMS functions (in progress)

6


2. People (con’t)

• Implement a longer term SAMS training strategy (target: Fall 2015) – This strategy will be incorporated into a longer term learning and

development strategy for ODSP

• Communicate with social assistance delivery staff to inform them on status of plan to transition delivery sites to regular operations (ongoing)

7


3. Process • Conduct a field usability study in targeted functional areas to better

understand how social assistance delivery staff interact with SAMS and related documentation to perform their jobs. (in progress) – Findings from this study are expected to provide a clear line of sight to the

root cause of issues for SAMS users and actions needed to address usability and create new targeted training and supports for staff.

• Review recommendations on how to improve the ODSP intake process (in progress)

• Clarify clerical ODSP roles, responsibilities and access rights (target: Fall 2015)

• Clearly identify workarounds that are needed from those that are no longer needed (target: Fall 2015)

8


4. Technology

• SAMS releases to move from a monthly to a quarterly schedule – Regular monthly releases: June, July, August – ODSP rate increase release: October – Regular quarterly releases: November, February 2016….

• Highest priority SAMS defects to be identified and fixed (ongoing; target for most to be fixed: Fall 2015)

• Implement system enhancements to support policy (e.g., low income dental, reloadable payment card), and to improve front-line experience (e.g., case summary, new approach to working with letters), are identified, prioritized and implemented in SAMS, as capacity allows (ongoing)

• More robust testing on fixes and releases; conducting automated regression testing (i.e., end-to-end testing on functionality)

(ongoing)

9


4. Technology (con’t)

• Introduction of Social Assistance (SA) Online – SA Online pilot (launched: May 28 in St. Catharines; involving 10 clients;

scheduled to be completed: end of July) – Phased implementation and rollout of SA Online (TBC based on results from

Pilot)

• Review technical capacity needed to meet future needs (e.g., networks, servers, storage) (target: Fall 2015)

10


5. Transition to Operations

• Transfer business support to SAMO (including training, user acceptance testing of new releases, and systems administration) (target: December 2015)

• Ensure that Cluster IT groups have the training and capacity to be able to support SAMS (target: March 2016)

• Establish the criteria which must be met before the Cluster and SAMO can take over SAMS, and measure the progress toward meeting this criteria (in progress)

11


What’s next? • SAMS updates and communications will continue to be available on the

SAMO Extranet site: https://www.samo.css.gov.on.ca/

• We will continue to engage with staff through the Front-line Staff and Technical Working Groups as we move forward with the transition

• We will also provide regular updates on our progress

• If you have any questions, please speak with your manager.

12

https://www.samo.css.gov.on.ca/


APPENDIX A - Current Status

Engagement and Planning • Working with the joint municipal/provincial Technical Working Group to identify and prioritize

key technical challenges • Working with the Front-Line Staff Working Group to acquire direct input on supports, tools

and business processes to improve the front-line staff experience • A staff survey on SAMS learning supports identified areas and priorities within SAMS where

further learning supports are required as well as the most effective way to deliver those supports

People • Since March 2015 delivered over 50 WebEx sessions on approximately 11 topics • A pilot approach to delivering WebEx sessions with facilitated on site support to 3 ODSP

offices is underway and informing further planning • Currently in the process of recruiting additional staff that will expand the capacity of the SAMS

ODSP Help Line

13


APPENDIX A - Current Status (con’t)

Process • Reviewing recommendations on how to improve the ODSP intake process • Reviewing all workarounds to confirm which ones are still needed

Technology • Piloting Social Assistance Online with a small number of clients in St. Catharines • Close to 80% of priority issues identified by the joint ministry/municipal Technical Working

Group have been resolved and more continue to be resolved with each progressive SAMS release

Transition to Operations • Incorporated all 19 recommendations from the PwC report into an Integrated Transition Plan • Program manager leading the execution of the transition plan and continues to address

concerns raised by ministry partners. Work is underway on the various elements of the plan.

14

Documents

Road Trip Program Summary