State of Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission Business Process and Technology Assessment

Maryland partnered with Public Knowledge® to enable the Commission to deliver workers’ compensation services to employers and injured workers.

The Situation

The Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission assessment addressed technology that no longer meets the agency or customers’ needs. The agency was burdened with a great deal of handling labor-intensive processes, like the transportation of paper documents. The system infrastructure also put the agency at risk for hardware failure and made it difficult to update applications. The Workers’ Compensation Commission realized they needed an Enterprise System Modernization (ESM) effort to move from depending on multiple stand-alone systems to an enterprise application and architecture as a way to streamline workflows.

The Workers’ Compensation Commission asked for a Business Process and Technology Assessment (BPTA) to develop a list of short-term and long-term risks and issues paired with recommendations and an action plan for workflow improvements and technology recommendations. These plans would be used to provide design alternatives to migrate from the current collection of disparate information systems platforms to an enterprise-wide framework of current technology with extensibility capabilities.

The Solution

The Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission Assessment performed by Public Knowledge® delivered a team that brought a process-based approach to document current and ideal processes. Public Knowledge® also included technical staff to conduct an analysis of the current technical infrastructure and make recommendations for an enterprise-wide framework. A current state process-gathering approach was used to collect information about the Workers’ Compensation Commission work along with issues and risks. The technical assessment was done in parallel to the current state process gathering. That assessment included documenting the technical architectures and infrastructure migration paths with an emphasis on security and maintainability.

The ideal processes were designed to address the prioritized issues while providing information that would be used to recommend an enterprise-wide framework and an action plan that included a project methodology approach.

The Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission Assessment’s deliverables included:

• Biweekly status reports
• Project schedule
• Current state process models including its enterprise process architecture
• Ideal state process models including a modern enterprise process architecture
• Architecture Assessment
• Prioritized issues based on business value and complexity
• Risks and mitigation recommendations
• Final Comprehensive Report with action plan that addressed hardware, software and project management approach

The Public Knowledge® team, working with the Workers’ Compensation Commission users, analyzed existing workflow processes, data models, and business rules. Public Knowledge® recommended improvements to meet the goal of maintaining a secure Enterprise Content Management System that supported judicial case management and all other key business processes.

The Outcome

Using Public Knowledge®’s Lean/Six Sigma-based Business Process Management approach, the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission received a comprehensive set of requirements for a future project to migrate from its legacy systems to an adaptive enterprise-wide framework. The Public Knowledge® deliverables associated with the Business Process and Technology Assessment Project were provided in an online format that allowed both technical and business staff to drill down on each process and understand all inputs, outputs, and technology needed to support it.

The recommended approach to project management was “modified Agile” to create and implement workstreams using a Business Process Management Suite (BPMS). The BPMS would allow Workers’ Compensation Commission to translate the work stream processes into code. The goal was to avoid a “big bang” approach that is always risky, while using tools that Workers’ Compensation Commission’s IT staff could use to create and maintain the system.

The Agile approach supports the Information Technology Department learning and growing in capabilities as the software and environment changed, while continuing to show progress to stakeholders, users and claimants. A commitment to strong project management and communications resulted in The Workers’ Compensation Commission learning how to determine if a COTS or new development approach would be used to meet the agency’s needs. With Public Knowledge®’s support, the Workers’ Compensation Commission’s BPTA initiative resulted in aligned and streamlined business functions and processes, and they are now poised to take full advantage of an updated enterprise framework.