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After completion of the Program and warranty Phase, Sun Life should be able to manage the Product on its own. Hence this stage is very important for Sun Life personnel to understand the technology, development model, Data management etc.

Transition of the Product to Sun Life requires transferring 3 types of Activities as below:

Work Transition

• Work-in-Progress feature requests/defect fixes
• Features planned for short term release
• Support requests from internal and client services teams

Asset Transition

• Existing APIs, DBs, Plug-ins, Front-end Code, API gateway operation
• Unit tests, Functional and non-functional tests, previous test results
• Tools for SCM, Test Management, Knowledge Management
• CI-CD Pipeline with all jobs, integrations, scripts etc.

Knowledge Transition

• Documentation of Features, architecture, design and source-code
• Processes for User story creation, Planning, Development, QA, deployment and Release

The process for Transition will be through 3 phases: 

1. KT Workshops, where dedicated time will be used to provide knowledge Transfer on defined areas
2. High-Guidance Parallel Phase, where Qentelli team will own the responsibility of the development lifecycle, with participation from Sun Life Team
3. Low-guidance Parallel Phase, where Sun Life team takes over the ownership of the Product with support from Qentelli team

Our approach to Agile software development consists of the 12 principles from the Agile Manifesto for a successful delivery of each increment of the end-product. This approach enables Sun Life’s change in requirements at any state in the development cycle promoting customer satisfaction at the forefront. We make sure to enable continuous collaboration between our teams and the stakeholders at Sun Life. 

We will follow the philosophy of SCRUM development lifecycle and the various phases of the project management are described below.

User Story Creation:

User stories are short, simple descriptions of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, usually a user or customer of the system. They are written throughout the agile project. Usually a story-writing workshop is held near the start of the agile project. 

In order to create good user stories, start by remembering to INVEST in good user stories. INVEST is an acronym which encompasses the following concepts which make up a good user story:

• Planning:

Sprint planning plays an important role in the universe of Agile development methodologies which prioritize responsiveness, flexibility, and continuous improvement, and seek to help organizations excel at managing work in a world where priorities and markets are shifting rapidly. 

As customer requirements and competition evolve, sprint planning determines what work to tackle next.

In software, sprint planning determines which product changes or features can be delivered and how to roll them out most efficiently in the next iteration. This planning process ensures that the team tackles a realistic amount of work and accomplishes the most important work first. 

• Estimation:

This helps the team determine how much work to bring into the sprint. By splitting product backlog items into small, discrete tasks and then roughly estimating them during sprint planning, the team is better able to assess the workload. This increases the likelihood of the team finishing all they say they will.
Identifying tasks and estimating them during sprint planning helps team members better coordinate their work.

• Estimation Techniques

Story points: Points are used to assign each engineering task a set amount of time. People commonly mentioned using Fibonacci series numbers to help offset the uncertainty that comes with larger stories. Fibonacci uses 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 instead of using 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 for assigning points.

T-shirt sizing: Assigning small, medium or large labels for each engineering initiative to indicate its complexity.

Time buckets: Simply using days and hours to estimate, instead of t-shirt sized buckets or story points.

• Definition of Done

The Definition of Done ensures everyone on the Team knows exactly what is expected of everything the Team delivers. It ensures transparency and quality fit for the purpose of the product and organization. Each Scrum Team has its own Definition of Done or consistent acceptance criteria across all User Stories. A Definition of Done drives the quality of work and is used to assess when a User Story has been completed.

• Daily Standups: 

This is an opportunity for the development team to discuss what they accomplished the day before, what they will be working on for the day and what obstacles are impeding their progress. The Scrum Master is usually the facilitator. The meeting is meant for all team members to share their input on the sprint and get a clear understanding on what work was already completed, what issues need resolving and what is left to do.

This will give good insight into the progress of the sprint and give an early indicator on if the commitments and sprint goal are being met.

• Sprint Demos:

At the end of each sprint, the team is responsible for providing a working piece of software that is potentially shippable and get feedback from the product owner and other stakeholders. The result will be weighed against the initial sprint goal and the team can use this time to provide their suggestions on what was accomplished.

• Sprint Retrospectives:

This is an opportunity for the team to reflect on how they did in the sprint and determine ways in how they can improve. The team collaboratively suggests what they should start doing, stop doing and continue doing.  Any actions items identified will be fed back into the Sprint Planning meeting to accommodate any new changes into the next Sprint.

• Reporting & Tracking:

We believe accurate reporting is a key element in fostering quality communication within an organization, especially large, complex, global enterprises such as Sun Life. Without quality communication, employees have trouble distinguishing important from unimportant business data. Regular status reports, including those that support quality assurance teams and processes, help ensure that everyone is doing work that is up to your company's quality standards. We leverage Project Management tools present in the market where reporting such charts is easier and is part of the Sprint lifecycle. They help provide real-time dashboards that can be visualized by all the personnel on the project.

Metrics that will be measured that empowers quality and sustainability of the end product using the Agile Program Management:

• Reporting & Tracking:

o Qentelli will continuously capture knowledge generated during the Program Implementation. This would cover:
o Discussions on user stories, evaluation of alternatives
o Meeting minutes
o Architectural decisions
o Design decisions
o Specialized technical knowledge
o Documentation within source code
o Review comments/fixes
o Program status reviews
o Retrospectives and Demos

Tools to capture and disseminate information collected on the above are: 

o Confluence as the primary repository
o Auto-generation of source code comments
o SharePoint site for larger documents
 

The Governance Model is a baseline of key elements that are required for project governance based on the project's scope, timeline, complexity, risk, and, stakeholders. A communication plan will be developed once all the stakeholders have been identified and their interests and expectations have been defined. A well-formulated communication plan delivers concise, efficient and timely information to all pertinent stakeholders. A high-level overview of the Governance layers we follow is outlined in the diagram below:

The table below summarizes the various reports that will be published periodically for engagement governance. These reports will be made accessible to Sun Life on a real time basis through the project management tools.

Communication Plan:

Qentelli will defined and implement a communication plan during this project to define the right audiences, messaging, and tactical communication activities to support the project and provides direction to develop and encourage business-wide commitment to the vision of the project. The communication plan also includes an escalation process that is required to address issues / risks and assist with remediation and provide absolute transparency during the engagement. The Plan includes:

• Identifying Stakeholder information needs and information channels.
• Identifying key messages necessary to effectively communicate the project strategy, goals and benefits.
• Identifying tactical communication needs including audiences, messages, channels, responsible parties, escalation channel and reporting.

For timely resolution of all issues, the following Escalation matrix will be used: 

A systematic approach to OCM is beneficial when change requires people throughout an organization to learn new behaviors and skills. By formally setting expectations, employing tools to improve communication, and proactively seeking ways to reduce misinformation, stakeholders are more likely to buy into a change initially and remain committed to the change throughout.

Successful OCM strategies include: 

• Agreement on a common vision for change -- no competing initiatives.
• Strong executive leadership to communicate the vision and sell the business case for change.
• A strategy for educating employees about how their day-to-day work will change.
• A concrete plan for how to measure whether the change is a success -- and follow-up plans for both successful and unsuccessful results.
• Rewards, both monetary and social, that encourage individuals and groups to take ownership for their new roles and responsibilities.

Some of the risks and mitigation plan are presented below. We would maintain a Risk log and review the same every week with the key stakeholders from Sun Life.

This proposal articulates the technical approach to modernization strategy that provides agile, rapid, low-cost migration and transformation capability. The proposal focuses on:

• Development and delivery services in tandem with a comprehensive agile organizational design structure that will deliver the envisioned modernized digital tools to the monolith approach across Sun Life.
• An end-to-end process consisting of automated tools, methods, and delivery - able to support a diverse array of technologies, geographies, regulatory requirements, operating models, and target environments.
• A strategy to implement Micro Frontend Development that includes a broad set of technical skills to support front-end and back-end developments including reusable components that can be leveraged across the web and mobile platforms.
• Creating a single codebase through PWA - to have a single build regardless of the device and across the different businesses.
• Implement patterns of modernization that lower total costs and mitigate functional and technological risks.
   

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