The Enterprise Program Management Office (EPMO) was created in November 2005 with the goal of making a more efficient, integrated enterprise at Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS). This office helps determine how the OKDHS enterprise can work together to achieve its current and future goals and objectives.
The EPMO plans to develop the comprehensive enterprise architecture framework necessary to build an information technology (IT) infrastructure and business support that assists the entire OKDHS agency in achieving its current and future goals.
For more information about the EPMO, visit the following pages:
The implementation of the EPMO’s business initiatives will affect all divisions. At some point in the future:
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All decisions about modifying processes that are shared by multiple divisions will be managed through the EPMO
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The values found in drop-down boxes on OKDHS shared systems will be defined by the EPMO
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Information about OKDHS business practices will be stored with the EPMO, creating a central location to aid management in making business decisions
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It is evident that all divisions within OKDHS are working to provide great service to OKDHS clients; however, they are not always collaborating with each other to be as efficient as they could be. When these divisions work independently of each other, they are not maximizing the use of limited agency resources. This is often referred to as the silo effect.
The EPMO works with subject matter experts to evaluate the business processes of each division, identifying duplicated efforts and investments, gaps in the system, and opportunities for collaboration with divisions across the agency.
This big-picture perspective helps align the strategic plans, business processes, and technology of each division with the overall OKDHS agency vision. All OKDHS divisions working together toward the same goal enables each group to improve the delivery of services to Oklahomans.
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Some divisions are so overwhelmed with workloads that they cannot focus on evaluating and aligning their business processes with other divisions. This is where the EPMO assists. Each year, EPMO business projects will be identified based on the OKDHS strategic plan.
The first task of the EPMO is harvesting information about business processes from a division. The EPMO looks for potential subject matter experts (SMEs) in the division to temporarily join its team. These people know and understand the goals, objectives, current business processes, tools, and personnel needs for their division. They work closely with the EPMO to document what they do, how they do it, why they do it, and who does it.
Once the information is gathered and compiled, the team has successfully documented the current state of the business process or the as-is state. Next, the EPMO will work with the SMEs to design a desired future state of the business process or the to-be state. Once this is achieved, the team will perform a gap analysis which will identify what it takes to get from the as-is state to the to-be state.
Finally, the EPMO team’s recommendations for the to-be state of the business process will be presented to the Business Process Governance Board for approval.
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