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Projects for the State of Washington
Below are descriptions of some of the services we have provided to the State of Washington.
 
Project Planning Services for the Automated Client Eligibility System (ACES) Project

The Project – ACES is a FAMIS (Family Assistance Management Information System) supporting Washington State’s administration of the Federal Title IV-A programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Food Stamps, Medicaid, and state programs including General Assistance.  ACES provides a statewide on-line application that administers the supported programs with consistency, timeliness and accuracy.  ACES also interfaces with a wide variety of Federal and State systems which provides the state with a vehicle to prevent welfare fraud by detecting misrepresentation of claims and duplication of benefit payments to recipients.

The ACES project was a large scale systems integration contract to modify another state’s FAMIS for Washington.  The system is a highly complex, tightly integrated COBOL application with a MVS operating system, CICS transaction monitor and IMS database.  The application has approximately 2,000 KLOC of executable code.  The application supports a client environment of 3,000+ users that are located throughout the state at seventy regional community service offices and headquarters in Olympia, WA.

 

Our Role – Rhodes Consulting provided project planning and project management consultation to a "Major Consulting Firm" who had contracted with the State of Washington for this project. Following is a brief description of some of the ways in which we assisted our customer:

  • Served as facilitator in defining the project scope with the various teams.
  • Developed an integrated project plan using our customized MS Project tool.  The project plan consisted of more than 6,200 tasks and included the efforts of 15 teams.
  • Determined the schedule and resource requirements for the project.
  • Regularly tracked and reported project status to executive sponsors, management and technical teams.
  • Managed project schedule by extensively employing advanced critical path methodology and “slack”.
  • Tracked and monitored resource usage.
  • Provided project management advice to both the technical and management teams.
  • Developed a detailed methodology to plan and track system maintenance and enhancement work after initial system implementation. Describe the details of this particular product or service. Consider using the same information you might include on a brochure or other catalog list.

 

Project Management Support for Welfare Reform
The Project – In 1997, the legislature of Washington State redefined welfare and allowed less than 6 months for the changes to be implemented. Team consisted of approximately 100 program managers, policy makers, and social workers representing the different human services of Washington state.

 

Our Role – Rhodes Consulting provided project management support to the State executive in charge.  Following is a brief description of some of the ways in which we assisted our customer:

  • Collaborated with approximately 12 teams to:
    • Define how to accomplish objectives
    • Define project tasks, develop a schedule, and monitor progress
    • Develop and implement a process to detect and resolve issues
  • Implemented processes such as Quality Assurance to help the project identify issues before they became problems.
  • Served as project manager, as needed
  • Due to the complexity and scope, we also worked closely with other agencies to ensure inter-agencies efforts were defined and coordinated.
  • Since the project executive was not an experienced project manager, advised the executive and other managers on how to apply project management principles for the successful completion of the project.

 

Management Consulting Services for the Special Commitment Center

 The Project – Washington State was held in contempt of court by a federal judge because of inadequate response to requirements of the court.

 

Our Role – Rhodes Consulting provided management consulting services and collaborated with agency teams to define the necessary actions to address the "contempt of court" ruling and assisted in defining an effective communication strategy that would satisfy the court.  These actions were documented in the “Injunction Response Report”.

Judge Dwyer was very complimentary of the efforts of Rhodes Consulting and stated in his findings “Ongoing management consultation was provided in order to develop an extensive “Injunction Response Report”, a comprehensive and well-organized presentation of the program’s goals, objectives, action plans and achievements.”

 

Facilitation and Support of an Organizational Restructuring Project

The Project – The Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) in Washington State announced that the Division of Development Disabilities (DDD) was to be merged with Aging and Adult Services into the Aging and Disability Services Administration (ADSA).

 

Our Role – Rhodes Consulting proposed an approach that management subsequently accepted and, as a result, facilitated the successful reorganization. Following is a brief description of some of the ways in which we assisted our customer:

  • Presented to executive management an approach for defining the new organizational structure that combined the agency mandated reorganization with the existing management improvement initiatives already in process in DDD.
  • Provided a Transition Manager to facilitate the transition by guiding teams through reorganization discussions, documenting business processes and, in some cases, defining new business processes where none existed before.
  • The Transition Manager produced a report that documented the facilitated efforts of the teams, the proposed reorganization, the risks to be monitored, and the subsequent transition activities to be encountered.

 

Project Assistance for the Division of Developmental Disabilities

 

The Project – Washington State Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) was being criticized by the legislature and other stakeholders for inadequate and inconsistent business practices.

 

Our Role – Rhodes Consulting served in many roles during this project such as, project manager, facilitator, and project planner.  Working with program managers and subject matter experts, Rhodes Consulting has been able to assist in improving the division's credibility through developing processes to successfully initiate and execute projects. Many of the projects undertaken involved improving business processes such as client assessment of needs, and client service quality monitoring. Following is a brief description of some of the ways in which we assisted our customer:

  • Collaborated with and managed teams to define project requirements and scope of work.
  • Managed critical projects which often included those with information technology components.

 

Project Management Services for Fircrest Downsizing Project

The Project – The national trend has been to move clients with development disabilities from an institutional setting to community settings. This project involves extensive planning and implementation efforts to assist in the downsizing of one of these institutions, Fircrest. Fircrest School is an institution for persons with developmental disabilities in Washington State, in keeping with the national trend, the Washington State Legislature provided for the downsizing of that school. This project requires extensive planning, project management and implementation. The challenges are project oriented, as well as political and human relations.

 

Our Role – Rhodes Consulting provided project management and process improvement services in support of this project. Following is a brief description of some of the ways in which we assisted our customer:

  • Provide planning expertise to describe a comprehensive approach for accomplishing the downsizing while maintaining client health and safety.
  • Provide project management best practices mentoring to the project manager director.
  • Design and implement project management processes such as an issue management, change management and risk assessment planning.
  • Utilize facilitation expertise in developing business processes to aid in downsizing.

 

 

Project Planning Services for Fircrest Downsizing the PSRA Project

The Project – The State of Washington is implementing Civil Service Reform, Collective Bargaining, and Contracting Out, as well as a new human resources system simultaneously. This is a massive, multi-year project.

 

Our Role – Rhodes Consulting provided project planning support for this endeavor. Following is a brief description of some of the ways in which we assisted our customer:

  • Work with the teams that have subject matter expertise to develop the scope, tasks and schedule of much of the rule making portion of this effort.
  • Define this effort using our customized version of MS Project. The project plan of approximately three thousand (3,000) task is regularly maintained and tracked.
  • Assist the project managers in capturing project status.
  • Report project status weekly to management and use critical path methodology extensively.