A week in the life of...
Jeanette Hibbert MSc FCIPP Payroll manager (strategic payroll)/product owner, Legal and General
Monday Working on a project full-time means no regular routine, but we run annuity payrolls every day, so each day is similar, except for some month-end and annual events. As product owner for payroll, my time is spent in meetings to design the solution for our teams, with a focus on customer experience. We are automating many manual processes; the new systems will administer the products we offer, ensuring everything is compliant, accurate and timely. There are no employee payrolls so we don’t have statutory payments, but product rules can be complicated so this is a step forward in the customer journey. This week we are preparing for another go-live weekend, migrating further functionality. Many people have worked long hours carrying out testing up to this week and we’re heading into more intensive testing for defect fixes and agreements of migration plans. Each day I have a number of calls with the project and testing teams. I then have a quick huddle with my team to ensure we all know what we’re doing today. I also have a board meeting hosted by my line manager, the divisional chief operating officer. It’s an opportunity to ensure as a leadership team we are all informed and aligned in what’s happening. We talk about the voice of customer, business and employees, and have actions plans to ensure we are offering an outstanding service to all. We also look at industry insights in customer services, in which we actively participate. More meetings to discuss the defects as we are spending time establishing whether they are serious, urgent and relevant to the current migration. Actions are agreed and we discuss these to ensure they are staying on track.
Tuesday We start with defect calls and the usual stand-ups, but with go-live scheduled for the weekend our daily project calls are not running as usual. We have the project work stream (project manager, myself, business analysts, and vendor representatives) meetings every day, planning ‘sprints’ of work. We release functionality per ‘feature’, which is a group of user stories/requirements. This means we can release functionality and migrate customers in batches rather than one big bang at the end, so we can support on an ongoing basis. The testing is taking longer than expected so most of those involved have not been available for development work. Our focus is on assessing impacts of the delay on the delivery of the items selected. Until we establish the amount of work required for the additional warranty release, we can’t re-plan. We also have a final payroll run today (on customers already migrated), so once the team have completed their checks I confirm receipt of BACS and FPS confirmations. Wednesday We’re making good progress on the final testing and defect movements and moving along at a great pace. It feels like we will be all systems go for the weekend and everyone is more optimistic. Although everyone is tired, they are really committed to delivering. As well as the new systems and functionality I am responsible for the design and delivery of the new operating model around payroll. More meetings today to ensure the design is fit for purpose and for putting a timeline together for next steps. I’m collaborative and fully expect the teams to be
involved in building the new way of working, but we need to ensure there is a framework ready for this to happen. Thursday Officially the end of the testing window, and it’s the final push. We’ve had challenges around managing scope and environmental clashes, but we’re almost there. As we move to the end of the day, there are, despite everyone’s best efforts, a small number of tests that will need to be carried over. Though not critical to the go-live, they still need running. We have another run on a payroll today, so another round of final confirmations on this. I have been really impressed with the dedication and collaboration across the teams. Friday Meetings today for final decisions. As most of us are working tomorrow for the migration, we are leaving on time if not early – we’ve had some long days. We’re running checks that everything is in place for tomorrow as it’s a big operation with more than fifty people working. We have robust detailed steps in the process, as we migrate and close records on the old system and move across. Saturday We migrate on non-working days to ensure we can still service our customers. We have regular check-point meetings as we work through our tasks. Environmental issues have delayed us and a couple of challenges have added to the time lag, but we’re getting there. After a long day we’re live. Another successful migration! o
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | September 2019 | Issue 53 48
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