Independent Project Oversight Report (IPOR) Rating

Key Questions

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

Is the project on track to achieve the objectives in the approved timeframe?Yes

Is the project on track to achieve the objectives within the approved budget?Yes

Project Overall Health

Comments

Green

The overall project health rating is green for the July 2026 reporting period. • The Organizational Change Management (OCM) team held the 3rd Department Agency Readiness Team (DART) meeting virtually on July 23, 2026. The team presented design prototypes and system demos for functionality completed during PI 2 to more than 600 attendees. The IPO has observed a consistent increase in attendance as the OCM team’s outreach efforts continue. • Change Request (CR) #006 was approved on July 28, 2026. As a result, the Master Project Schedule (MPS) was updated to allow additional time to complete Phase 1 configuration and to prepare for full testing. There is no impact reported to the Phase 1 scope or Phase 1 go-live date of May 2028. • The project completed Planning Interval (PI) 2 development on July 6, 2026, completing 2,683 of the planned 3,386 story points, representing 80% completion rate.

Focus Area/Rating	Comments
Governance Green	• The Independent Project Oversight Managers (IPO) observed that project leadership, executives, workstream teams, and stakeholders remain engaged in the project activities and decisions. • The project follows a regular cadence for Executive Steering Committee (ESC) meetings. The most recent ESC meeting was held on July 23, 2026. No decisions were requested or escalations discussed during the meeting. • The project held the bimonthly status meetings with the Department of Finance on July 23, 2026, and the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) on July 28, 2026 • The IPO observed that the project continues to demonstrate adherence to IT governance processes and best practices as outlined in the project management plans.
Time Management Green	• PI 3 development started in July 2026 and is 26% complete. • The approved CR#006 schedule changes included the addition of PI 4 and Shared Services (SS) Sprints, which resulted in a four-month extension to the Development subphase and a three-month extension to the Testing subphase. To accommodate the additional development time, the project has fully utilized the Phase 1 schedule buffer, leaving no contingency to absorb further changes or delays. This is being tracked in candidate Risk #18910. •A draft of the revised Fi$Cal interface development task list was shared with the team in July 2026. The IPO recommended incorporating Fi$Cal and other complex interfaces' development schedules into the MPS to provide better visibility into key milestones, track progress, and identify potential impacts on dependencies and the Phase 1 go-live date. • The IPO observed that the project continues to actively track the progress of key tasks, deliverables, and sprint activities against the project schedule. The IPO will continue to monitor task completion relative to the schedule as the project progresses.
Cost & Contract Management Green	• In agreement with the cost reporting timeline, all reported costs are for the June 2026 reporting period. • Costs reported for this assessment period: -- Total actual one-time costs (project + planning): $190M, which represents 77% of the allocated budget of $247M through 2025-26. -- Total project costs: $102M, which represents: > 11% of the approved project costs of $938 M > 66% of the approved project costs of $156 M through 2025-26. • The project continues to receive submissions for DART funding from departments and has approved 76 reimbursement requests with a payment of $972,043 to date for FY 25-26. • The project has eight (8) active contracts. The contract costs are within budget.
Scope Management Green	• The project confirmed that there is no impact on the Phase 1 scope from the approval of CR# 006. • The CSPS Solution Roadmap was revised on July 20, 2026 with PI 2 updates and planned functionality for PI 3. The team developed 166 features across the eight (8) Main Business Capabilities (MBC) and has projected 260 features to be developed during PI 3. • CalHR/Policy Updates: -- Continues to analyze user stories to determine the need for policy revisions or new policy development. -- Continues to work with the functional team to review User Acceptance Testing (UAT) scenarios.
Resources Green	• The overall resource variance increased to 9% due to new positions received in July 2026 for the new FY. The project reported that sixteen (16.0) of the one hundred twelve (112.0) SCO-authorized positions, and one (1.0) of the twenty-five (25.0) CalHR-authorized positions remain vacant. • The IPO observed that the team continues to actively recruit open positions and replacement for contractor staff. The IPO will continue to track resource needs and ensure appropriate resources are maintained as the project progress.
Quality Green	• The team completed PI 2 Sprint 6 on 7/6/2026, with a Sprint velocity of 74%, and PI 3 Sprint 1 on 7/20/2026 with a velocity of 91%. • With the completion of Sprint 6, the team completed PI 2 development with an average velocity of 494 story points or 80 % across all 6 sprints. The team conducted system demonstrations to showcase features completed in PI 2. • Despite the slightly lower completion rate for PI 2, at 80% compared to 83% for PI 1, IPO considers this strong progress by the team, considering the significant planning effort required for PI 3, including establishing two additional sprint cycles and balancing functional and capacity stories across the remaining sprint cycles. • The SI submitted the July 2026 status report on August 10, 2026. The risk for P1 Data Conversion was resolved due to the changes approved in CR006, and the estimated date was updated from October 2026 to December 2026. No new risks or issues were identified during this reporting period. • The Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) team submitted the draft Monthly Activity Report (MAR) on August 7, 2026. The report identified one new finding related to the utilization of all available schedule buffer resulting from the addition of sprint cycles. Please refer to the Quality focus area Details section for more information. The observations shared in the MAR are consistent with the IPO's overall assessment of the project's health.
Risk And Issues Green	• The project is actively managing, monitoring, and tracking the risks and issues. • The IPO observed that recently submitted candidate risks are reviewed by the Executive Office (EO) before being formally accepted or rejected. However, the IPO is not currently included in the risk review and decision-making process and has requested to be included in all related communications and meetings. • The project closed the following risks*: Risk# 18875- Insufficient Resources for Future Planning Interval User Story Development. Risk# 18817- Reporting Labor Costs Data to SCO Book of Record Risk# 81- Expiration of IBM Maintenance Contract Prior to Statewide Rollout of Travel and Expense Maintenance. • The project is tracking top risks* in each category. Near-Term risks (less than three (3) months): - Risk# 5–Project Resource Availability. - Risk# 8 – Annual Budget Approvals - Risk# 18847- Lack of Subject Matter Experts Availability During the DDCI. Long-term risks (greater than three (3) months): - Risk# 61- Failure of departments to communicate CSPS Project Information to Staff. - Risk# 18828 – Lack of Production Support Resources for Production Operations. - Risk# 18844 – Implementation of Centralized Customer Service (Help Desk). * For further information on the above risks, refer to the Risks & Issues focus area details section.
Transition Readiness Green	• The Organizational Change Management (OCM) team was engaged in the following activities during this assessment period: - Completed operational deep-dive sessions with SCO divisions for development of the Future State Operations vision. - Launched DART assignments for Position Control and Organization Structure Validation. -- Continue to support the development of Deliverable (DLV) 2.11 Future State Design and finalize the DLV 6.2 Operations Support Organization Recommendations. • The team received EO approval for the Modernizing Pay Day (MPD) Campaign material and plans to share it at the California State University (CSU) Payroll and Benefits Conference in August 2026.
Conditions For Approval Green	The project has the following conditions of approval as per the superseded Stage 4 Approval Letter issued on May 15, 2025. The project is working on meeting these conditions by the specified due date. 1) Within 90 days of this letter, the SCO shall submit to the CDT a detailed, fully resource-loaded CSPS Integrated Master Schedule (IMS), which includes both State and System Integrator (SI) activities, deliverables, milestones, and tasks -- The project submitted the approved IMS/MPS to CDT on August 12, 2025. 2) Within 90 days of this letter, the CSPS Project Management Team shall review, and the SCO shall approve and submit updated Project Management Plans to the CDT. -- The project submitted approved plans to the CDT on September 2, 2025, and has met this condition of approval. 3) Following the start of project implementation, the SCO shall submit to the CDT the Independent Verification & Validation (IV&V) Monthly Status Report. -- The project is meeting this condition of approval with the monthly submission of the IV&V report. 4) No later than 60 days prior to the initiation of testing activities by the SI, the SCO shall submit the approved CSPS Project Test Management Plan to the CDT. -- The project submitted the approved plan to CDT on December 1, 2025, and has met this condition of approval. 5) In accordance with the State Administrative Manual (SAM) Section 4946 and the State Information Management Manual Section 160, the project shall submit a Transition to Maintenance and Operations Plan, including the plan for any transition of services from the SI vendor to the State, to the CDT for review and approval six months before the approved project end date.
Corrective Action Green	N/A

• Stage 4 Project Readiness and Approval (pdf)
• Stage 3 Solutions Development Part B (pdf)
• Stage 3 Solutions Development Part A (pdf)
• Stage 2 Alternative Analysis (pdf)
• Stage 1 Business Analysis (pdf)