The Client
The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools (ASBCS) is a charter authorizer responsible for overseeing public charter schools that operate in Arizona. Overseeing more than 500 charter schools, the agency is the largest charter school authorizer in the state and is the second largest authorizer in the nation. The agency’s stated mission is “To improve public education in Arizona by sponsoring charter schools that provide quality educational choices”.
Their Challenge
ASBCS was finding it increasingly difficult to scale and deliver services effectively, due to an antiquated technology platform that performed poorly and lacked much-needed functionality. Additionally, the Arizona legislature regularly released mandates requiring the agency to implement changes, which the platform was unable to accommodate.
The agency staff had developed a significant number of time and resource intensive workarounds to deal with the system’s shortcomings. Over time, this led to poor customer satisfaction and raised questions about the agency’s transparency and competence in delivering on its mandate.
Agency leadership, including Mary Ellen Lee (President of the Board) and Ashley Berg (Executive Director), knew they needed to replace or overhaul the system but were unsure on how to articulate their needs and secure the needed investment in a difficult funding environment. Additionally, they had limited insight into what options might be available and what it would cost to replace or overhaul the system
Our Solution
This project is the second phase of the Online Platform Modernization journey at ASBCS. MSS Business Transformation Advisory (MSSBTA) was initially engaged for a 6-week effort (Phase 1) to conduct an objective evaluation of the current platform, perform a comprehensive needs assessment, and develop a roadmap for the rest of the modernization journey. The deliverables from Phase 1 served as foundational documents for this engagement.
The focus of Phase 2 was to gather and finalize the information needed to draft the Business Case, also known as the Project Investment Justification (PIJ), and a Decision Package to be delivered to the Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting (OSPB).
MSSBTA first reached out to charter authorizers across the nation to identify the solutions they were using and to assess how well the solutions were meeting their needs. Through this outreach and additional market research, a list of potential vendors was developed. MSSBTA then invited vendors to self-evaluate against the documented requirements and to provide non-binding 5-year total cost of ownership (TCO) pricing. MSSBTA also facilitated online demos and provided an objective third-party perspective of each vendor’s capability to deliver against the agency’s needs.
Based on this analysis, MSSBTA collaborated with agency staff, Arizona Strategic Enterprise Technology (ASET) Office at the Arizona Department of Administration (ADOA), and the Governor's Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting (OSPB) to build the required elements of the Project Investment Justification (PIJ) and the Decision Package for the Governor’s Office.
In addition to the core activities above, MSSBTA provided appropriate and timely status communications to the agency leadership team and ensured that risks and issues were addressed.
Their Results
On a tight timeline, MSSBTA delivered a comprehensive Decision Package to the Governor’s Office on behalf of ASBCS. This package documented the assessment of the existing platform against the agency’s requirements, a gap assessment, impact analysis, and a proposed modernization roadmap. The Decision Package also included the market research utilized to define the potential solutions, a 5-year Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) estimate, the Business Case to transition to a new platform, and an objective analysis and review on software vendor capabilities and “fit”.
Deliverables
Market/Industry Research
Vendor Assessments
TCO Estimates
Project Investment Justification and Decision Package