Independent verification that helped keep a $100MM PeopleSoft upgrade on track.

The ask

Execute Independent Validation and Verification services responsible for providing unbiased assessments and recommendations to the authority’s leadership and steering committee on the functional and technical workstreams of a $100MM PeopleSoft upgrade spanning Human Resources, Finance, Procurement and Pension.

Our approach

• Created an embedded team of functional and technical PeopleSoft experts, working in real-time collaboration with the authority and the implementation vendor to review every work product and deliverable as it was produced — and to identify, mitigate and escalate risk as it emerged.
• Implemented an IV&V leadership team operating as peers to the authority’s executive leadership, compiling and filtering findings from the functional and technical subject matter experts into real-time feedback for weekly and monthly steering calls.

The outcome

The authority deployed PeopleSoft 9.2 across Human Resources, Finance, Procurement and Pension. Our IV&V team helped keep the program on track, surfacing risks while leadership still had time to act on them. Our role throughout was independent verification and validation for the authority’s leadership, as a subcontractor on the program; the implementation itself was the vendor’s.

Why it matters

IV&V only works if the findings arrive early enough to change something. Sitting as peers to executive leadership rather than reporting up through the implementation vendor is what made that possible — and it is the same reason our clients bring us in rather than a silent partner.