Public Works and Government Services Canada

CGI Brings Looking Glass to Canada's Public Works and Government Services' Compensation Systems

Faced with aging Pension and Payroll Systems, Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) turned to CGI for direction in meeting the goal of providing better services to some 600,000 public service employees and pensioners. The result is a new technology plan, providing a looking glass into the future...

The Challenge
In September 2000, PWGSC called upon CGI to conduct a Compensation Technology Modernization Study (CTMS) to examine the options available to bring the department's Compensation Systems up to date and secure a direction for the future. PWGSC recognized that services to government employees and pensioners were not at optimal performance and that the interface with them could be more effective. Outdated technology meant that maintenance costs were increasing and, given the department's aging workforce, employees with knowledge of the systems would be retiring in five years. Also, given the federal government's mandate (Throne Speech) to have all departments on line by 2004, the modernization imperative to incorporate web-based applications and technology intensified. To arrive at with a recommendation for the future, CGI would conduct various stages of analysis and evaluation: an Options Analysis Report to evaluate and select the technology platform, and a Compensation Technology Migration Plan to chart the course for the move to the new technology platform.

The Strategy
Throughout the scope of the project, CGI worked closely with PWGSC, including representatives from both operations and business, to define options for modernization and provide a client-driven solution. CGI reviewed the existing technical environment for Pay and Pension systems and identified options for modernization by categories—principally where it concerned the presentation layer and database layer of the future system. Modernization criteria included alignment with vision and strategy, compliance with government adopted technology and standards, migration from hierarchical to relational technology and web enablement in an IBM mainframe environment. CGI organized joint application development workshops, ranked the options, presented timelines, costs, risks, and assessed the impact of modernization on the department. Final recommendations were made in concert with senior management, providing a looking glass for where the department wanted to be in five years.

Throughout it all, CGI provided the leadership, technical expertise and project management skills required and brought to bear its experience in architecture and database migration. "CGI put in a professional team. They have the knowledge in business and technology architecture particularly, to recommend how we should develop our systems. They understand legacy systems and pay architecture," said Brian Lillico, Director of Compensation Modernization at PWGSC..

The Technology

• Planning Study of PWGSC Compensation Systems. Current technical environment: IBM mainframe, Cobol, IDMS, ADS/O. Lotus Smart Suite, MS Project 98.
• The recommendation of the study was for PWGSC to migrate to the Web as a presentation tool and DB2 as the relational database to provide more flexibility, move away from obsolete technology and provide a solid foundation for future development.

The Results
In January 2001, CGI provided PWGSC with an Options Analysis Report presenting all findings and recommendations, including a Gap Analysis on organizational impact. The Options Analysis Report became the blueprint for a future Migration Plan, delivered in February and containing 74 projects to move the Compensation Systems to the new technology platform.

As a result of the investigation conducted in the CTMS, PWGSC realized that in addition to the need to change technology, its business processes needed to be overhauled to provide more client-focused service and a higher degree of automation. In March, CGI began Phase II of the study, examining the future vision of the Compensation Systems and undertaking a detailed investigation into the data and application architecture, as requested by PWGSC. The results of Phase II will include recommendations for the future Pension Systems, Insurance Administration and a new Architecture for the Pay Systems. This is scheduled to be completed in November. "CGI provided some valuable direction as to where we should go in the future and was innovative in defining future architecture. They worked well with us to ensure we were happy with the final report. The deliverable was excellent both in terms of content and meeting deadlines. We met our targets," confirmed Lillico.