Independent Project Oversight Report (IPOR) Rating

2740-227 Digital Experience Platform (DXP)

The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) proposes modernization of the Department’s legacy applications and systems. The modernization of DMV technology is critical to reduce reliance on obsolete, unsupported, and failing technology. This will transform and streamline DMV services delivery to Californians as well as providing DMV the ability to address current and evolving business objectives.

Project Details

Agency / State Entity Transportation / Motor Vehicles, Department of
Total Cost $414,676,034
Last Approved Start Date 09/09/2021
Last Approved Finish Date 06/30/2026
Criticality Rating High
IPOR Reporting Period Overall IPOR Rating
12/01/2024 - 12/31/2024
Yellow

Key Questions

Is the project on track to satisfy the customer's business objectives?Uncertain

Is the project on track to achieve the objectives in the approved timeframe?No

Is the project on track to achieve the objectives within the approved budget?No

Project Overall Health Comments
Yellow
During the December 2024 assessment period, the project’s overall health is yellow, based on observations and analysis of the project’s governance, time management, cost/contract, scope, resources, quality, and risk focus areas. Phase 1 OL: the team continued formal Knowledge Transfer. Phase 2 VR: Governance improved to Yellow: The CR to incorporate the Human Centered Design (HCD) work of another vendor was initiated, but with limited scope. The DMV leadership team is working effectively to make project decisions in absence of the Project Director, transparency with CDT is improving, and progress has been made on the project management (PM) plans. The Schedule focus area remained yellow. CC/IM work is on track and Iteration 2 SIT finished on time. Cost and Contract Management is trending red. Scope and Risk remained yellow. The Resources area remained green. Quality slipped to yellow due to numerous open project risks around testing and code quality. Phase 3 DL: CDT reviewed and provided comments to the draft SPR#2 and is awaiting the final version, which will need to detail the direction and approach of the Phase 3 effort.
Focus Area/Rating Comments
Governance

yellow icon Yellow
During the December 2024 assessment period, the project’s Governance Management health improved to yellow, based on observations and analysis of the project’s governance processes. • In November, the DMV asked the SI vendor to estimate a change request (CR) to incorporate Human Centered Design (HCD) from an ancillary contract. Although the timing of incorporating the work is poor, the team has narrowed the scope in the CR. In December, the SI vendor completed estimates for the CR, and if DMV chooses to proceed before Go Live, CDT recommends selecting only the highest priority flows. CDT also continues to recommend DMV run DxP as a program with extra focus on interdependencies. • Although no replacement has been named yet for the Project Director, the CDT has observed the existing DMV leadership team stepping up to provide guidance and direction. • The SI vendor indicated all major CR’s need to be signed by the end of December to be incorporated for next year’s Go Live. Several of them slipped into January and DMV plans to make a determination on them by 1/15/25. • The CLETS client connection issue between DXP and DOJ was resolved in early December. • The DMV made progress on updating the PM plans but the approvals remain incomplete.
Time Management

yellow icon Yellow
During the December 2024 assessment period, the project’s Time/Schedule Management health remained yellow based on observations and analysis of the Project Schedule Milestones and Deliverables. • Design for Iteration 3 & 4, which has seventy-two transactions, had a planned end date of 9/6/2024. In November, the rating improved to yellow based on the agreement to make up the Iteration 3 start delay by slipping Iteration 2 SIT by two weeks. The team declared Design complete in early December, however, replanned Design due dates for the exceptions continue to be missed. Three transaction Functional and Technical design documents need to be submitted and approved. There are also three outstanding Interface Control Documents. • In December, the SI Vendor and the DMV were unable to gain alignment on several of the outstanding CRs by the end of December. Four CRs will be reviewed at the Executive Steering Committee meeting on January 10th, 2025. The SI Vendor signaled that January 15th is the drop-dead date for approvals. • The VR go-live date is scheduled for 11/17/2025; however, several of the DMV scope items (CLPI Development, FTB Interface Design, and Dishonored Check Interface Design) have caused a 21-day impact to the current schedule forecast. The DMV is working on mitigation plans to reduce the impact. • Thirty transactions are in scope for Iteration 2. System Integration Testing (SIT) for Iteration 2 completed in December and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is underway. • Development for the 33 transactions in Iteration 3 is on track.
Cost & Contract Management

yellow icon Yellow
During the December 2024 assessment period, the project’s Cost & Contract Management health remains yellow, but is trending red, based on observations and analysis of the project’s costs and contracts. • The draft SPR #2 requested an increase to total project costs of 60%. An updated Financial Analysis Worksheet (FAW) was also submitted for preliminary review and a walkthrough was held between DMV and CDT in November. The final version of SPR #2 has not been submitted. • The draft SPR #2 requested the Transitional Architecture work morph from an architecture POC to a full deployment for two transactions; the associated contract needs a Contract Amendment and an NCB to align with the SPR. • At DMV’s request, the SI Vendor submitted a CR to incorporate HCD user experience improvements that could affect the project’s cost. The CR will be reviewed during the Steering Committee meeting on January 10th, 2025. CDT recommends a cautious approach to limit the impact as much as possible by focusing on high-value transactions.
Scope Management

yellow icon Yellow
During the December 2024 assessment period, the project’s Scope Management health remained yellow, based on observations and analysis of the project’s scope and related processes. • DMV submitted a draft of SPR #2 to address DL changes in November. During December, CDT and DMV met to address questions and concerns. DMV worked on updating the SPR #2 during December. • The VR SI vendor and DMV are managing minor scope changes through the CR process. Major changes are also being managed, but the window of opportunity to approve larger changes will close in mid-January. • The approved SPR #1 removed some scope from the SI vendor’s responsibility and transitioned it to DMV. • For DMV-owned scope, the team continued to flesh out the project cross-contract dependencies for each vendor and ancillary contracts. This includes areas such as FTB, CLPI, DCHK, ABBYY, Correspondence, FeeComp, CC/IM, and Master Receipts. In December, those interdependencies pushed the projected go live by 21 days and the DMV team is working to minimize that delay.
Resources

green icon Green
During the December 2024 assessment period, the project’s Resources health remains green. • The CDT recommends the DMV promptly complete the recruitment process for the new DMV Project Director. • The team continues to need 17 out of 90 resources for FY 24/25, an 19% vacancy rate, but continues to focus on hiring and onboarding new staff. The team filled some vacant positions with consultants. • No tool is currently being used by DMV for Resource Management or to manage staff capacity but the DMV has shared a report used for filling vacancies. • The DMV team has refined the FTEs necessary for VR and DL and has provided a draft update of new FAWs, which are being reconciled during the DL Stage 4 and DXP SPR #2 submission.
Quality

yellow icon Yellow
During the December 2024 assessment period, the project’s Quality Management health turned yellow based on observations and analysis of Quality metrics and performance. CDT observes that quality is being monitored and metrics reported. • In December, Iteration 2 SIT met all contractual exit criteria; testing completed with a 95% pass rate from 2234 test cases. • Iteration 2 UAT testing began in mid-December. At the end of the month, 385 Functional test cases had been executed and 48% passed; 52% failed. SI and DMV leadership teams are looking into lessons learned to see how the pass rate for future iterations can be improved. • Data and testing on converted data are scheduled to begin in early January. • The project is tracking/mitigating a number of Quality-related risks, including a risk for Inadequate Interface Testing, Poor Quality Code, Formal Integration Testing, Formalized Regression Testing, and Test Exit Criteria – Pass Rate.
Risk And Issues

yellow icon Yellow
During the December 2024 assessment period, the project’s Risk and Issue health is yellow based on observations and analysis of the project’s risks, issues, and associated processes. • CDT sees the biggest risks at this time to be the delay in completing VR design, incorporating late CRs, external dependencies such as the business partners, and the Phase 3 DL funding, schedule, and cost. • The team is following the Risk/Issue project management plan to determine project-level risks, provide mitigation steps for approved risks, and track open risks and issues.
Transition Readiness

green icon Green
During the December 2024 assessment period, the project’s Transition Readiness health is green based on observations and analysis of the Transition activities performed. • Phase 1 OL Knowledge Transfer between the SI vendor and the state staff continued in December. • During December, the Organizational Change Management (OCM) team and the Training team completed multiple activities including reviewing training assets, setting up a Teams channel to promote communication, and capturing External partner change impact.
Conditions For Approval

green icon Green
During December, the CDT Project Approvals and Oversight (PAO) team observed the DXP Team completed all three approval conditions for DXP Phase 1 – OL. With the SPR #1 approval, two new Conditions for Approval of DXP Phase 2 - VR, CC/IM were required by CDT. Both conditions have been met.
Corrective Action

green icon Green
During December, the CDT Independent Project Oversight (IPO) observed there are no CAPs due from the VR SI Vendor. The team is managing the schedule, and tracing the requirements and scope to contract requirements.

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2025-01-23 - Release-8