With over two years remaining on GSA’s ten-year E-Gov Travel Service (ETS) contracts, it may sound odd to say that federal agencies need to accelerate their planning for transitioning to ETS2, the successor fifteen-year contract that is projected for award in Spring 2012. Yet that is exactly the case. Given that ETS2 will be awarded to one or two contractors, and given that there are 3 current ETS contractors, every agency must plan for the “worst case scenario” of transitioning to a new contractor and new service offering. ETS2 transition is a complex project that requires each agency to:
1) Allocate budget for ETS2 implementation, plus any transition-out services required from the agency’s current ETS contractor
2) Conduct its acquisition (if there are two awards by GSA) and issue a task order to the agency’s ETS2 contractor
3) Identify and allocate agency resources to the project team, augmenting them with contract resources if needed
4) Develop and execute an agency-specific project plan that includes (at a minimum):
- A communications plan that addresses all ETS2 stakeholder communities
- A business process review (BPR), to optimize agency processes in the ETS2 environment
- Configuration of the ETS2 service to reflect agency organization structure and business/travel rules
- Loading data into the ETS2 service (e.g., traveler profiles, accounting strings)
- Establishment of Travel Management Company (TMC) rules (e.g., ticketing window)
- Definition and implementation of interfaces between ETS2 and agency business systems (e.g., Financial, Human Resources)
- A training plan that addresses each ETS2 user role (e.g., Traveler, Travel Approver)
- A help desk plan, using agency and/or ETS2 contractor resources
- A launch plan that describes how the transition will be rolled-out across the agency
Any federal agency hasn’t done so already should consider identifying and allocating a dedicated project manager for ETS2 transition as soon as possible so that its transition planning can begin.
By: John Potocko, PMP®