Frequently Asked Questions

What is it?
Why do we need it?
Who is involved?
What are its goals?
What are the expected benefits?
What financial and administrative functions are included in the Roadmap?
How will the Roadmap be developed, and how fast will it happen?
How does the Roadmap relate to the Priorities of Government and Washington Works?
What is the Roadmap Prioritization Survey?

1. What is it?

The Roadmap is a collaborative effort of state agencies to create an incremental, comprehensive plan for the future of the state's financial and administrative processes and information systems. This Roadmap will outline the steps for moving toward a common set of integrated policies, processes, information tools and data, to enable more effective management and greater efficiency.

2. Why do we need it?

Many statewide and agency current financial and administrative systems are aging and not adequate to meet core business needs. Agencies have had to build secondary systems to support missing functionality.

Also, the state currently operates without the ability to view and manage at the enterprise level because key operational information is maintained in a variety of locations with different formats and inconsistent meanings.

The modernization of the state's civil service rules and new payroll/personnel system provides Washington State government with the cornerstone to extend these improvements to other "back office" management functions, such as purchasing, performance measurement, revenue, management reporting, and capital assets.

3. Who is involved?

The Roadmap's Executive Sponsors are the directors of the Office of Financial Management, Department of Information Services, Department of Personnel and Department of General Administration. The Roadmap's advisory group includes DSHS, ESD, DOC, WSP, DOT, Labor and Industries, Health Care Authority, Office of State Treasurer, Agriculture, and other agencies as well.

4. What are its goals?

Streamlining financial and administrative business processes to support more efficient delivery of services - including removal of outdated or unnecessary administrative policies and rules.
Leveraging the State's investments in systems and data to reduce costs and achieve economies of scale.
Improving core management systems to align with performance management directions, provide valuable management information, and assure accountability.

5. What are the expected benefits?

Provide direction and a comprehensive plan to guide financial and administrative systems investments
Provide a mechanism to enable agencies to move together in a common, leveraged direction
Better management tools for both line agency and central service managers
Efficiencies in financial and administrative functions within agencies, freeing up more resources for other agency priorities
Demonstrate leadership of central service agencies in achieving efficiency across core financial and administrative business processes

6. What financial and administrative functions are included in the Roadmap?

The Roadmap covers six end-to-end business processes:

In general, the Roadmap is exploring how to move to more common policies, procedures and systems relating to these processes. The Roadmap team has identified the major business problems many agencies face with the current realities within each of these processes, and the opportunities that exist if those problems are solved.

7. How will the Roadmap be developed, and how fast will it happen?

The Roadmap will be conducted in two phases, stretching over several years:

Phase I, the Evaluation and Planning Process (July 2004 - June 2006)

With input from agencies, identify & prioritize common business problems & opportunities
Develop solutions (policies, processes, systems)
Develop an implementation plan

Phase II, the Implementation of the Roadmap (Will begin no sooner than July 2006)

Details to be determined in Phase I

8. How does the Roadmap relate to the Priorities of Government and Washington Works?

POG Team 11, which is addressing the issue of the state's administrative efficiency, has directed: "The Office of Financial Management, in partnership with Financial and Administrative Systems Roadmap agencies, should develop a proposal to address both short-term and long-term implementation plans and funding needs for a new statewide financial system that, along with the new Human Resources Management System, improves statewide core financial and administrative processes. The proposal should include the ability for agencies, OFM, and the Legislature to receive both accounting and financial data necessary to meet their business requirements."

Washington Works and the Roadmap are two separate projects, but both are aimed at improving the state's "back-office" functions. The timing of the Roadmap project has been structured to minimize impact on Washington Works efforts - in fact, one of its guiding principles is to "do no harm" to Washington Works and the development of the Human Resource Management System computer project.

More information on the Priorities of Government can be found at http://www.ofm.wa.gov/budget/pog/default.htm; for Washington Works information, see www.washingtonworks.wa.gov.

9. What is the Roadmap Prioritization Survey?

The Roadmap Prioritization Survey is a high-level scoping exercise for ensuring that agencies' views are heard about financial/administrative business problems and opportunities.

This is an important step for the project and for agencies, so all agencies are invited and encouraged to participate. Each agency may submit only one response to the survey, and it is very important to read the survey instructions and materials before responding. The survey will be available via http://www.ofm.wa.gov/roadmap/survey.htm on the Internet between November 1 and November 12, 2004.

The purpose is to:

Gather input from all agencies
Establish a high-level measure of the urgency and severity of "back-office" financial and administrative business problems / opportunities
Identify highest value opportunities for first implementation of the Roadmap
Identify business problems / opportunities that may have been missed
Begin building an inventory of existing financial and administrative IT systems
Identify urgent agency financial and administrative business needs

The survey is a high level scoping exercise, not an exercise in quantifying tangible benefits. The survey is structured around a list of business problems and opportunities that have been identified thus far by the Agency Advisory Group as well as Roadmap project staff. The results will be used to help:

Provide advisory input to the Roadmap sponsors
Shed light on which business problems and opportunities should be addressed in what order
Map business problems and opportunities to possible solutions
Identify significant business problems and opportunities that may have been missed up to now
Structure logical planning for the rest of the Roadmap effort

The results are expected to suggest the direction that the Roadmap should take, and help focus efforts on the state's most important business needs.