Power Platform Shared Services Model for State Technology Services Department

A state technology services department currently provides centralized administration of multiple services, which are foundational to supporting robust, secure and effective enterprise use of these shared technologies. As more and more secretariats adopt these services, the configuration and administration of a standard central service model have become more complex, and each secretariat has presented unique requirements and business needs. The state department has limited ability to support each secretariat's custom IT services due to resource allocation focused on centralized administration vs. solution architecture and development.

Challenges

The state department sought to establish an enterprise-level service model to better support the efficient, effective adoption of shared IT services across the Commonwealth. The service model focuses on the Commonwealth’s use of Power Platform and other Microsoft 365 components and is meant to address the following challenges:

• Tenant-wide configurations must balance the needs of all secretariats and departments across the Commonwealth.

• Each secretariat must make their own investment to develop the skills necessary to effectively architect and implement IT services, even for less complicated use cases.

• Secretariats unfamiliar with shared services may initially choose less-effective approaches leading to rework or additional effort as they develop the skills required to launch unique IT solutions effectively.

• Initial learning curve and/or challenges with "getting up to speed" with shared services may inhibit enterprise adoption and reduce the overall effectiveness of the enterprise solution.

• Secretariats may leverage services in a manner inconsistent with the recommendations and best practices defined by the state technology services department

• The department is currently resourced to support core configuration and administration at the tenant level vs. architectural solutioning and/or engineering for each secretariat.

As Triverus has delivered several Power Platform solutions for multiple secretariats, the state department identified an opportunity to leverage the Triverus Roadmap approach and Subject Matter Expertise at an enterprise level to address these challenges.

The Triverus Roadmap Approach begins with Discovery activities, gaining a clear understanding of the current state, business need, assessing the gaps, and identifying key risks and drivers to support prioritization. After reviewing Discovery findings with key stakeholders, Triverus then works with stakeholders to define the future-state Blueprint and a prioritized Roadmap to get there.

Results

At the conclusion of the discovery phase, we delivered key findings and an initial set of recommended initiatives to support a robust shared service. Several of the initiatives were prioritized immediately for delivery and focused on operations. Others required considerable organizational involvement and coordination and will be prioritized at a later date.

The immediate operational deliverables included a Power Platform Service Definition, Service Process, Service RACI, and Service Environment Definition. These initial deliverables begin to address essential objectives.

• Support improved secretariat relationships leading to secretariat partnership of shared services across the Commonwealth.

• Define and communicate roles and responsibilities for the state technology services department and secretariats.

• Encourage adoption by all secretariats.

• Provide directional guidance and proven patterns and practices to support common use cases.

• Smooth secretariats' onboarding and flatten the learning curve.

How We Helped

We brought our technical Power Platform expertise and knowledge of the Commonwealth's IT secretariat level operations together. That combination leveraged during the discovery sessions resulted in detailed findings and initiatives and provided a meeting point of agreement between the state departments shared services and secretariats.

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