CWDS Service Delivery Organization

The CWDS Service Delivery Organization is comprised of Service Directors and Service Teams. The Service Teams are grouped by function into categories. Each category is led by a Service Director.

Service Categories

The four service categories and their respective teams are described here.

Digital Services

Communications

Project Services

Operations

1. Digital Services

Responsible for the development of new software modules.

• Intake
• User Research
• Children’s Residential Licensing
• Case Management
• CWS Resource Management
• Court Processing
• Eligibility
• Financial Management
• Administration

2. Communications

Responsible for communications and customer relationship management functions.

• Communications/Customer Relationships Management

3. Project Services

Responsible for project management, administrative, fiscal, reporting, implementation, and program policy functions.

• Project Management Office
• Facilities/Environment
• Implementation
• Budget, Fiscal & Reporting
• Business Services & Administration
• Procurement/Contract Management

4. Operations

Responsible for the ongoing operations of CWS/CMS, the new system platform and integration, and the new system Dev/Ops.

• Platform (Integration)
• Data Management
• System Administration/Infrastructure
• Change Configuration Release
• Tech Delivery Services
• Legacy Design, Development & Testing
• Dev/Ops (Web)

Service Director

The Service Director provides overall guidance and direction to the Service Teams within their Service Category.

A Service Director’s primary focus

• Pulse and Status of Service Development
• Vision of Integrated Services
• New Concept Overviews

- Service Director Communication and Escalation

• Service Directors communicate on a regular basis with other members of the Executive Leadership Team and Service Teams.
• Service Directors meet formally as a group biweekly in the Service Director Forum
• Service Directors and Service Managers communicate on an ongoing daily basis.

Matters escalated to a Service Director are those related to

• Overall Vision
• Risks and Issues
• Resources
• Schedule
• Scope
• Cost
• Quality
• Team Dependencies that have not been able to be resolved at the Team Level

Issues that impact scope, schedule, and/or cost must be escalated to the Executive Leadership Team.

Service Teams

Functioning as independent teams under the leadership of their Service Manager, each Service Team is self-organized to be compliant with the values and methodology of the Agile Manifesto and the CWDS Digital Service Playbook.

Service Team Roles

• Service_Manager
• Scrum_Master
• Performance_Analyst
• Core_Service_Team_Members

Service Team Responsibilities

• Single owner or directly responsible individual
• Create the vision for the service
• Deliver a service that meets the standard
• Continually measure, assess and improve performance
• Communicate performance to internal and external stakeholders
• Work in an agile, iterative way delivering usable software regularly and frequently
• Analyze user needs and turn them into user stories
• Support operations and maintenance

Service Team Communications

Service Managers and their service teams meet on a daily basis as well as at set times throughout the iterative process. The scheduled communications may include:

• Daily Check Ins
• Sprint Planning
• Sprint Backlog Refinement
• Service Team meetings
• Sprint Review
• Sprint Retrospective

- Communication Amongst Different Service Teams

• Service Managers meet with other service team managers in weekly Service Manager meetings
• Scrum Masters report and track team dependencies in the weekly Scrum of Scrums
• Performance Analysts meet as a group weekly in the Performance Analyst Forum
• Frequent horizontal team communication is encouraged. Service Teams can set up regular ongoing communications with other Service Teams or have as needed discussions depending up the how closely their work is aligned, and based on need

Service Manager

The Service Manager provides overall guidance and direction to a specific Service Team. A Service Manager may also be referred to as a ‘Product Owner’.

The primary focus of a Service Manager

• Service Team Vision
• Cross Team Dependencies
• Service Development/ Progress

Service Manager Role

• Develop and deliver an effective, user-focused digital service that meets the California Digital Service Standard
• Establish and communicate the Service Vision, as part of the overall CWDS service, using information from users and other services.
• Support Service Teams to deliver a joined-up CWDS Project Service
• Be accountable for the quality and usage of the service
• Lead change management amongst everyone involved in delivering the service
• Manages the release
• Use agile methods to keep focus on delivery, hold the team and others accountable
• Quickly respond to changing requirements

Service Manager Responsibilities

• Set priorities, develop user stories and make/log decisions about features and technical implementation details based on user, policy, technical and business requirements
• Drive business change, but does not drive process
• Translate user research into user stories
• Defines the product vision and delivers Vision Statement
• Develops, refines and prioritizes backlog
• Identifies completed work in the Sprint Review
• With the Core team, conducts user based testing
• Inform Executive Leadership Team of progress in meeting in the service goals.
• Facilitates the weekly or bi-weekly service team meeting, reviewing burn down charts, re-prioritizing the backlog, reviewing the icebox, etc.
• Provides needed clarification regarding business or technical scope/direction.
• Logs decisions to the global Decision Log as needed
• Manages and communicates the Release Plan
• Accepts or rejects work results throughout the Sprint

Service Manager Skills

• Proven leader, able to make decisions and earn trust of team
• Ability to drive business or technical strategy and direction for the project
• Articulate, credible and inspiring
• Strong communication, negotiation and decision making skills
• Ability to identify and unblock unnecessary barriers
• Ability to facilitate the integration or interaction of Business and/or Technical teams

Service Manager Authority and Escalation

Service Managers, in conjunction with their Service Teams identify:

• Key Service Team Decisions
• Impediments
• Team Dependencies
• Risks and Issues

Service Team matters that do not impact schedule, scope and/or cost may be resolved at the team level or be brought through the Risk Management process, but do not require escalation to the Executive Leadership Team if they can be resolved at the Service Team or Service Director level.

Team risks and issues that impact scope, schedule and/or cost must be brought through the Risk Management process and require escalation to Service Directors and the Executive Leadership Team.

Scrum Master

Scrum Masters (on digital teams) are sometimes referred to as Project Managers (on non-digital teams). The roles are similar but sometimes differ based upon their team’s purpose and responsibilities.

Scrum Master Role

• Manage the process
• Identify and unblock impediments so that the team can deliver their service
• Enable the work that the team is doing, not impose how the team does its work
• Coaches Service Manager, development team and project stakeholders
• Facilitates interactions

Scrum Master Responsibilities

• Deliver projects and products using the appropriate agile project management methodology
• Work with Service Manager to define the Product Roadmap and translate user research into user stories
• Facilitate team communications and events, including daily scrum, sprint planning, sprint review and sprint retrospectives
• Drives process, but does not drive business change. Enforces the process.
• Monitors team scrum analytics and reports on progress
• Monitor team progress for the work that needs to be done against the capacity and capability of the team
• Coaches the team, protects the team and protects the scrum process
• Own the scrum backlog tool setup and maintenance
• Partner with Service Manager for backlog development, refinement, release planning and roadmap development
• Work with Project Scheduler to ensure work being tracked in the Agile Platform tool is represented and updated at the milestone level in MS Project.
• Take newly identified cross team dependencies to the weekly Scrum Master Forum
• Facilitates the Sprint Planning session and Conducts Release Planning
• Facilitates the Sprint Review session and conducts the Sprint Retrospective
• Removes impediments and acts as liaison with other departments.
• Identifies risks and issues as needed

Scrum Master Skills

• Able to constructively challenge management on change proposals affecting their business area, to balance multiple priorities and deal with ambiguity
• Ability to spot warning signs of things going wrong and provide decisive responses to significant delivery challenges
• Encourage a culture of innovation and provide a space for the team to think creatively, focused on the outcome
• Manage team dynamics across boundaries
• Take into account pros, cons, risks and issues to make decisions in a wide context
• Push decisions to right level in teams and prevent unnecessary bureaucracy
• Identify the main issues and clarify understanding and expectations

Service Team Communication and Scrum Master Escalation

Service Teams may identify any of the following

• Key User Story Questions/Decisions
• Impediments
• Team Dependencies
• Risks and Issues

The Scrum Master facilitates cross team discussion, and presents cross team dependencies at the weekly Scrum Forum where they are tracked with other teams.

Risks and issues identified to or by a Scrum Master that could impact scope, schedule, and/or cost require escalation to the Service Manager for discussion. If they cannot be resolved at the Service Team level, the risk or issue must be escalated through the Risks and Issues process and to the Executive Leadership Team.

Risks and issues that do not increase scope, schedule, and/or cost may be resolved at the team level or presented through the Risk Management process, but do not require escalation to the Executive Leadership Team.

Scrum Masters attend the weekly Scrum Master Forum. Both Scrum Masters and Service Managers attend the Risk and Issues Meeting each week.

Performance Analyst

Role

• Manage the customer feedback loop
• Measure, assess and improve performance of the service with market research and data analytics
• Conducts analysis before/during/post implementation to ensure that their digital service meets the performance requirements
• Be a revolutionary in the way in which government continuously measures, assesses and improves performance in transacting with the public
• Communicate performance to internal and external stakeholders
• Develop Performance Standards

Responsibilities

• Collect and present key performance data and analysis for their service to the stakeholders
• Support service manager by generating useful information and translating it into actions that will allow them to iteratively improve their service for users
• Conduct research and market analysis and monitor emerging trands and issues which might impact or benefit the team’s work
• Acts as liaison between the business vision and the technical execution
• Understand how the service, activities and strategies in the area work together to create value for the user. Asks the question: “Does this service meet the needs of the customer?”
• Make recommendations based on the quantitative and qualitative evidence gathered via web analytics, financial data and user feedback.
• Determine performance standards as part of user research and design processes, and ensure standards are incorporated into user stories.
• Share examples of best practices
• Perform data analytics for feature development and review after implementation

Skills

• Ability to see the big picture: alert to emerging issues and trends affecting the team’s work, understand how the whole service fits together for its users, align team to standards and priorities
• Ability to make decisions: identify relevant, credible internal information and collect new internal information and external data when needed; recognize patterns and trends to draw conclusions
• Willingness to explore options outlining cost, benefit, risk, and potential
• Invite and challenge others to build engagement and decision-making
• Strong communication skills
• Passion to manage quality: manage collection and response to user feedback, develop standards for the service

Core Service Team Members

Role

• Provide guidance and support to ensure business and technical goals are met
• Dedicated resource to the team
• Commits to the work they can accomplish in an iteration or time box
• Participates in consensus on estimating story points
• Subject Matter Experts: Ensures business goals, objectives and policies are met; ensures appropriate user testing is conducted; defines user stories; develops and reviews artifacts.

Responsibilities

• Attend the daily Scrum Meeting, the weekly service team meetings, the Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective sessions
• Communicate availability during Sprint Planning
• Conduct user acceptance testing with the Service Manager
• Develop, revise and review artifacts in an agile manner
• Provide expert guidance and support for business and technical decisions
• Participate in backlog refinement with the team
• Execute and update user stories, define tasks for stories, and escalate issues as needed to Scrum master and Product Owner
• Clarify overlapping team assignments with management and evaluate the amount of time that can be committed to each team
• Communicate availability to the Service manager during Sprint Planning
• Core Team is held responsible for a release, individuals are held accountable to their commitments

Skills

• Ability to work under the guidance of the Scrum Master
• Ability to quickly escalate obstacles and issues to the Scrum Master
• Commitment to conform to standards and best practices
• Good communication skills with frequent reporting to the Scrum Master

- CWDS All Team Communications

• All CWDS teams attend weekly project wide meeting.
• Communication blasts are sent out to all staff on a regular schedule (and as needed) to help communicate information to the entire team.

First Header	Second Header
Content Cell	Content Cell
Content Cell	Content Cell