Oracle HR Implementation Best Practices

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Oracle HR Implementation Best Practices

• English Room
• August 15, 2008
• NCOAUG Training Day
• Drury Lane Hilton Suites
• Oakbrook Terrace, IL

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Mario C. Ellis

• Director Compensation HR Systems University of
  Chicago Medical Center
• Functional Project Manager for the Oracle HRMS
  application at the University of Chicago Medical
  Center.
• 20 years experience, has re-engineered legacy
  business processes from mainframe technology to
  client/server relational systems

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Overview

• Challenge to implement Oracle HR application
• Limited budget and resources
• Lack of a dedicated Project Manager
• Mandate from senior management
• Implement a fully functioning application
• Manager self-service
• Compensation Workbench.
• No customizations
• Coming from a customized legacy system
• Intensive paper driven processes
• Limited consulting resources

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Agenda/Contents

• Background
• Decisions Made
• Overall Objectives
• Challenge
• Lessons Learned
• Summary
• Questions

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University of Chicago Medical Center

• At the forefront of medicine for more than 75
  years--delivering extraordinary care to patients
  from all parts of the world. 2nd largest medical
  center in Chicago.
• U.S.News World Report named UCMC to the
  prestigious Honor Roll of America's Best
  Hospitals--the top 18 hospitals in the nation.

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Oracle Applications Implemented

• Oracle eBusiness Suite 11.5.10
• Core HR
• Manager Self-Service
• Employee Self-Service
• Compensation Workbench
• Performance Management
• Supply Chain
• iExpense
• iProcurment
• Learning Management

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Background
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Background

• The initial project began as a full install of
  the Oracle Supply Chain, Finance and Human
  Resources modules in 2001.
• The initial project identified over 400 gaps for
  all applications, resulting in high cost
  estimates, expanded scope and delay in
  implementation.

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Background

• UCMC reassessed the project to reduce the scope
  and stay within budget. As a result
• Scope reduced to implement Supply Chain
• Scope reduced to implement limited HR and Finance
  to support Supply Chain
• Supply Chain phase went live in June 2003,
  on-time and budget.
• HR, Payroll and G.L. modules were to be scheduled
  for future implementation.

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Background

• The success of the initial project resulted in
  cost savings for materials management - however
  limited project budget remained approximately
  1 Million

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Background

• Concerns from initial project
• Management was not convinced that the remaining
  Oracle applications were necessary
• The HR department lacked the talent and expertise
  to provide key sponsorship and decision making
  for the project

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Background

• UCMC was still faced with the following
  challenges
• The hospitals has more than 6,000 employees,
  with staff as the largest expense
• Difficult to obtain accurate and timely employee
  information
• Lack of reporting tools hinders the ability for
  management reporting
• Disparate systems do not allow for workflow or
  integration of data
• Inability to efficiently support
  accreditation/compliance reviews
• Changes in employee information was time
  consuming and paper intensive

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Background

• Heavy reliance on Third Party Vendors to provide
  needed business functionality
• The hospital had a need for a true HRIS
  application
• Information maintained in multiple spread sheets,
  Access Databases, and shadow systems that were
  not integrated
• No one source of truth for reporting
• Legacy system was a payroll system and did not
  allow for the necessary storing and reporting of
  needed HR related data

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Decisions Made
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Decisions Made

• A new VP of Human Resources was hired, who also
  hired more experienced staff
• A fit gap analysis was conducted in June 2005
• Validated need to implement Oracle HR (payroll
  would be a separate project)
• Helped to structure the scope, project team,
  project methodology and deliverables based on
  internal resources and remaining project budget
• Project approved in fall of 2005 and work began
  June of 2006

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Overall Objectives
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Overall Objectives

• Implement Core HR functionality
• Integrate with Oracle Learning Management, Supply
  Chain and Legacy Financial applications
• Restructure work elements Job, Positions,
  Grades and Benefit Groups
• Improve automation of Union Contracts including
  Grade Step progression

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Overall Objectives

• Introduce a phased rollout of Self Service
  applications for managers
• Institute Merit Award Distribution through Oracle
  Compensation Workbench
• Institute a Directors Incentive Plan Distribution
  through Oracle Compensation Workbench

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Challenge
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Challenge

• Meet the Overall Objectives with
• Limited IT and HR staff resources, especially
  with extensive Oracle experience
• No dedicated Project Manager
• Need to upgrade platform of HR applications while
  other Oracle applications (excluding OLM)
  remained on current platform
• Budget remained at approximately 1 million

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Expected State after Implementation
BIS/Customer Access Discover (Roll-Out at Module
Level Available)
Budgeting
EDI
Fixed Assets
iExpense
P-Cards
Agency
iSupplier
HR Self Service
Capital Budget
Balanced Scorecard
Learning Management
Payroll
iRecruitment
Accounts Payable
Compensation Workbench
Cash Management
Kronos
Mobile SC
iProcurement
Inventory
Purchasing
Human Resources - Employee Hierarchy for
Approval Routing
General Ledger - Accounting Structure Foundation
In Production
To be Implemented
UCMC Licenses
Additional Products
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Lessons Learned
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Lessons Learned

• Must Have Senior Management Commitment
• Developed Steering Committee that provided
  overall project governance, budget oversight and
  were actively involved in project planning
• Senior Management committed to making quick
  decisions
• Senior Management was committed to allowing
  funding to be spent creatively to meet project
  objectives

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Lessons Learned

• Must Have Dedicated and Skilled Project Team
• Team members must be flexible enough to wear more
  than one hat effectively
• No dedicated PM resulted in shared responsibility
  between UCMC IT, HR and acquired consulting
  services
• Subject Matter Experts are Key
• Departments filled analyst roles as needed
• Results in strong ownership of final solution

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Lessons Learned

• Must Have Dedicated and Skilled Project Team
• Ensure team is fully integrated
• Improves final product
• Avoids silos
• Enhances communication
• Team members must be able to think outside the
  box BUT within the application to make choices
  without customizations

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Lessons Learned

• Must Have Dedicated and Skilled Project Team
• Team members must be provided sufficient training
  (preferably in-house) during key phases of the
  project
• Use consultants wisely
• UCMC engaged 3 consulting firms based on need and
  budget Oracle being the prime
• Consultants were used in initial phases then
  disengaged before final phases
• Important that knowledge is transferred to staff

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Lessons Learned
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Lessons Learned

• Must Have A Strong and Proven Project
  Methodology
• UCMC utilized a unique project structure allowing
  for three successive projects to run at once
• Platform Upgrade
• Integration into Oracle Learning Management
• HR Implementation

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Lessons Learned

• UCMC followed basic System Lifecycle Development
  methodology in addition to Oracle AIM for
  Business Flows (Healthcare) and AIM Phases,
  Definition and Elaboration

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Lessons Learned
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Lessons Learned

• Must Manage SCOPE
• Focus on core issues deferring wish list items
• Senior Management must make the hard decisions to
  change and be able to say NO
• Do Not concede to the 20 of the 80/20 rule
• Understand the scale of 1-10 philosophy
• A 5 is always better than a 2
• No need to always shoot for a 10

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Lessons Learned

• Must Manage SCOPE
• Get key decision makers involved in requirements
  gathering
• Validate requirements
• Trust but VERIFY
• Key message to stakeholders Vanilla is good

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Lessons Learned

• Allow application best practices to govern
  business process

Strapping new technology onto current processes
will negate the value of the technology !!!
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Lessons Learned

• Must Manage SCOPE
• No customizations - We like the word Extensions

Customizations
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Lessons Learned

• Must Manage SCOPE
• Oracle Developed a RICE list (Reports,
  Interfaces, Conversion and Extension)
• Used to identify and manage requirements
• Clearly defines what type of requirement
• If an item was defined as a gap it was removed
  and considered out of scope

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Lessons Learned

• Must Follow Project Plan
• UCMC used a phased approach
• Core foundation applications rolled out first
  followed by specialty applications such as
  Compensation Workbench and Self Service
• Recommended for in-house implementations that are
  low on resources and can be spread over an
  extended time
• Regular meetings with entire team is critical
• Communicate potential risks EARLY

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Lessons Learned

• Must Follow Project Plan
• Set overall project timeline at the beginning of
  the project
• Use project plan versioning as each phase
  progresses
• Track project deliverables in one week cycles
  with team reviews on a regular schedule

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Lessons Learned

• Test Often
• Since UCMC used Oracles Accelerator methodology
• Testing was a natural progression of the process
• Conference Room Pilots were used to validate
  results of testing

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Lessons Learned

• Test Often
• UCMC utilized HR constituents as part of the
  testing and CRP sessions (Very Important)
• Able to manage expectations company wide
• Minimizes the squeaky wheel
• Acquire buy-in before roll out
• This became the official HR core user group to
  be used for subsequent HR implementations and
  pilots

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Lessons Learned

• Test Often
• Do Not overlook parallel testing to validate
• Migration of configurations and code
• Time required for cutover
• Execution of conversions and interfaces
• User interaction in real-life situations
• System performance
• Comparison of results with production
• Uncovers issues with system, training or
  communications

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Lessons Learned

• Follow a formal Change Management Process
• Follow change control process for changes to
  scope, overall timeline or budget
• Follow a formal Risk Management Project review
  Process
• Building in reviews of large deliverables as they
  are worked on will confirm approach across the
  entire team and measure progress

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Lessons Learned

• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
• Bring project team together on a regular basis
• Hold multiple design sessions with key
  stakeholders in attendance
• Distribute meeting minutes for full team review
  not just to those in attendance
• Develop a communication plan for internal project
  members, management and external users

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Lessons Learned

• Timing is Everything
• If this would have remained a part of original
  2003 implementation it would have failed
• Lack of HR expertise
• More customizations
• Would have been considered a lower priority than
  supply chain
• The success was due to HR being the only
  application implemented in 2007 within Oracle
  eBusiness Suite

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Summary
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Summary

• Implementation was on time and under budget
• 20 was returned to project contingency
• Core HR live in March 2007 with limited Manager
  Self-Service
• Compensation Workbench live in June 2007
• The components that were rolled out to UCMC
  employees was received favorably
• Over 6000 users impacted
• Over 110 departments impacted

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Summary

• Core implementation created a solid foundation
  and methodology for further implementations
• Online Performance Management (2008)
• Increased Manager Self-Service (2008)
• Employee Self Service (2008)
• Payroll (2009)
• General Ledger (2009)
• The implementation fostered a strong and
  successful working relationship between UCMC HR
  and IT

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Questions?
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Contacts

• Mario Ellis
• Director, Compensation HR Systems
• University of Chicago Medical Center
• E-mail mario.ellis_at_uchospitals.edu