Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

A: The Accountable Business Transformation Program (ABT Program) will deliver best practices for county business processes and enable access to timely, accurate and useful information. This new business model will enhance the county’s ability to provide essential services to customers and make county government more efficient by reducing duplication of work and increasing access to information.

The ABT Program will implement countywide best practices for the county’s financial, human resource, payroll, benefits and budget business processes. This requires a transformation from current business processes to new business processes enabled or supported by modern applications.

A: The county operates two accounting and financial reporting systems and two human resource/payroll systems. These four separate systems perform the central financial and human resource functions for the county, but they are not well integrated and do not work together efficiently.

County departments and agencies follow divergent policies and procedures, use inconsistent business processes and multiple computing software side systems. This results in poor integration, redundant data entry, time-wasting reconciliation and high system maintenance, staff support and upgrade costs.

By providing better information through an integrated solution, the county will offer better government services through access to timely, accurate and useful information.

A: The ABT Program is a complex multi-year effort and is expected to be implemented in a phased five-year period. The five phases are:

1. Quantifiable Business Case (QBC) — completed,
2. High Level Business Plan (HLBP) — completed,
3. High Level Business Design (HLBD) — completed ,
4. Detailed Implementation Plan, and
5. Implementation and Migration.

The Detailed Implementation Plan phase will set the order and timeframe in which county agencies and departments will be migrated to the new business model of best practices.

A: King County’s elected leadership has taken the lessons learned from an earlier project known as FSRP and structured the ABT Program to successfully meet the county’s need for best business practices.

The differences between these two programs are substantial with the ABT Program having three key focus areas that were not adequately addressed by the previous effort:

1. ABT Program focuses on business process transformation, not just a technology system change;
2. ABT Program focuses on understanding and managing high risk factors through a phased approach; and
3. ABT Program focuses on program metrics: costs, benefits, return on investment (ROI), and key performance indicators.

Additionally, the ABT Program has in place a governance and program management structure to ensure successful completion.

A: Based on lessons learned from an earlier project, the ABT Program is a phased implementation to manage high risk factors.

The phased approach includes significant planning in advance of business process change and system migration. This approach includes change management activities to ensure alignment throughout all branches of government. The approach calls for:

• Spending significantly more time up front in obtaining high-level countywide policy endorsements for key decisions and in managing change. Through ABT governance committee review and involvement, the ABT Program will assess how well the government has internalized the adopted vision and goals, empower key leaders, establish the county’s commitment, readiness and ability to accept change and maintain active participation among the stakeholders.
• Upgrading Oracle and PeopleSoft to the current versions prior to reconfiguring the systems for countywide implementation. Both of these upgrades will be completed in 2007.
• Undertaking a comprehensive planning process that includes developing a high-level business plan, high level business design and a detailed implementation plan, the ABT Program governance committees will review and confirm the plans before the ABT Program can move to the next phase.

A: Based upon the targeted timeline, the earliest one can expect system configuration and implementation efforts to begin will be in late 2008. A schedule of when departments and agencies will be migrating to the new business model will be developed as part of the detailed implementation plan in mid 2008.

A: This project will impact countywide budget, finance, human resources, payroll and benefits business processes. Employees and external customers such as county residents and the state and federal agencies that conduct business with the county may be impacted as we improve county services through changed processes and integrated systems.

A: At this time, we do not know the potential impact to the staff because the ABT Program is in the planning stage of the program. However, we do anticipate best practices to be implemented which may alter some of the tasks employees currently perform in the areas of finance, budget, human resources and payroll/benefits. This may result in employees receiving training and learning new processes and possibly new software systems.

A: There may be changes to an employee’s job and the tasks or processes he/she performs such as using a different workflow or using a new system tool to do a job. In some cases, the task that is being currently performed may be changed due to automation or changes in the business process. King County will coordinate changes in conformance with our policies and collective bargaining agreements and will work collaboratively with labor unions that represent our employees including layoff provisions if needed.

A: Yes, we plan to offer training to employees who will be performing the business processes and using the new systems in their current business function and position.

A: We will know the estimated cost to implement this countywide program after the completion of the next two phases, the High Level Business Design and the Detailed Implementation Plan phases, which are targeted for June 2008. A comprehensive cost benefit plan will be finalzied by July 2008.

The County has funded $3.9 million to the ABT Program through the High Level Business Plan phase.  In September 2007, the County Council approved $5 million to complete the ABT Program’s planning efforts.