New GSA framework aims to help agencies make the move to shared services

A model of the M3 framework. (GSA)

The General Services Administration introduced a framework Wednesday to help agencies move their back-office systems to a modernized shared service environment.

Created by GSA’s Unified Shared Services Management office, the Modernization and Migration Management, or M3, framework is meant to lead agencies through the six phases of successful shared services migrations — from initial assessment to the actual migration and operations — in areas like financial management and human resources, with corresponding key steps and outcomes for each.

“By sharing and streamlining mission support services and retiring or modernizing inefficient legacy IT systems, we’re better able to overcome the challenges of large-scale mission support projects, support core agency missions, and make our IT infrastructure more secure – all while achieving a more efficient, secure, and effective government for the American people,” GSA Administrator Denise Turner Roth and Dave Mader, controller for the Office of Management And Budget, wrote in a blog post.

Along with an M3 Playbook and Investment Review Process, the framework aims “to increase the likelihood of success as agencies modernize and/or migrate their mission support functions such as financial management, human resources and acquisition,” the post says.

The playbook, based on lessons learned from more than 100 shared services experts across government, gives agency customers and shared service providers guidance, tools and templates to adhere to the framework.

The framework’s mandatory Investment Review Process helps OMB track and ensure the success of agencies’ modernization and migration investments, and that they benefit the federal government as a whole. OMB and GSA’s USSM office will work with an investment review board “to assess and mitigate potential hurdles to [agencies’] success.”

The board will consist of executives from USSM, OMB’s Resource Management Office, the federal cross-agency Shared Services Governance Board, “and lines of business managing partners with expertise and experience in large scale modernizations and migrations.”

“The process ensures a more outcome and risk-based dialogue and provides greater transparency into costs and funding requirements for modernizations and migrations, delivering a federal government that is smarter, savvier and more effective in delivering for the American people,” Roth and Mader’s blog post reads.

The review board will also “assess outcomes at each phase and make recommendations to OMB on budgeting for modernization and migration investments,” according an introduction of the M3 framework.

“Achieving phase objectives, demonstrating adequate planning, and proactively identifying and managing risks within these phases should be adequately demonstrated to the IRB for customer and provider organizations to move from one phase to the next,” the introduction explains.