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 December 2025 reporting period. • The project team continues to make progress on Phase 1 Develop/Full Test Prep Subphase activities and is preparing for the P1 development scheduled to start on January 20, 2026. • The project completed the P1 Scope Validation Subphase in December 2025. • The leadership team held a Fireside Chat on December 10, 2025, and answered questions from the project team and provided a six-month look-ahead.

Focus Area/Rating	Comments
Governance Green	• 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 ESC meeting for December 2025 was cancelled due to staff availability during the holidays. • The project continues to track and resolve decisions in a timely manner.
Time Management Green	• The functional and technical team continues to hold User Stories refinement and dependency planning sessions for PI-1. The sessions are planned until January 2026. • The P1 functionality will be developed over three Planning Intervals (PI), estimated from January 2026 until October 2026. P1 Sprint 1 is scheduled to start on January 20, 2026. • The IPO Managers are monitoring user story refinement & estimation activities against the scheduled milestones. • The Solution Integrator (SI) and Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) team continue to work on several key deliverables that are due in January 2026.
Cost & Contract Management Green	• In agreement with the cost reporting timeline, all reported costs are for the November 2025 reporting period. • The cost details for this assessment period are as follows: The project incurred total actual costs (project + planning) of $141 M, representing 97% of the allocated budget of $145 M, and $53.7 M, or 5.7% of the total approved project costs of $ 938 M. • The proposed DART funding allocation plan was delivered to DOF in October 2025 and is pending their approval. The team responded to DOF questions and is incorporating feedback into the DART Interagency Agreements (IAA). • The team has a risk logged to track delays in DOF approval, which may affect the participation of department staff in project activities and diminish their trust in the project team. • The project has eight (8) active contracts. The contract costs are within budget.
Scope Management Green	• No change in scope was observed for this reporting period. • Change Request (CR) 003 was approved on December 2, 2025. The CR documents changes related to the merging of two deliverables, and reference documentation for payment, Milestones. No impact on scope, schedule, or cost was noted from this CR. • The team continues to work on the department phase and wave modification process, which is estimated to be finalized by January 2026. CalHR/Policy Updates: -- The finalized Additional Appointments Policy for statewide implementation was published to the HR manual in December.
Resources Green	• Recruitment efforts for key project resources, CSPS Technical Chief and CSPS Integration Manager, are in progress. The IPO Managers will continue to monitor the technical team vacancies as the project progresses into development. • The overall resource variance decreased to 13%. The project reported that seventeen (17.0) of the one hundred (100.0) SCO-authorized positions, and two (2.0) of the twenty-five (25.0) CalHR-authorized positions remain vacant.
Quality Green	• The project continued to update ELM with Agile Work Items essential to support P1 Design and Development. • The project has identified 138 Epics, 560 Features, and 2,375 draft User Stories for P1. • The project continued the User Story (US) refinement and estimation sessions in December 2025. • The SI submitted the December 2025 status report on January 9, 2026. The report noted no new risks during this assessment period. • The IV&V team submitted the Monthly Activity Report (MAR) on January 9, 2026. The team has identified one (1.0) new finding and risk related to identifying and logging of configuration related decisions. 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. • As the project moves from planning into development, the IPO Managers recommended that current risk and issue meetings be held at a regular monthly cadence with the entire team to ensure proactive risk identification. • The project identified one (1) new low-level risk and no new issues this assessment period. Mitigation strategies are in progress. • The project closed two (2.0) risks in December. - Risk# 18867- Insufficient Resource Allocation for 3rd Party Vendor Interface Communication. - Risk# 41- Payroll Payment Process Change Opportunities • The project is tracking top risks in each category (Refer to Risks & Issues focus area for further details). Near-Term risks (less than three (3) months): - Risk# 5 - Project Resource Availability - Risk# 6- Retention of Project State Staff. - Risk# 18860 – Limited Experience with Agile for Project Team. Long-term risks (greater than three (3) months): - Risk# 3- Implementation of other new Human Capital Management (HCM) systems in Agencies/Departments. - Risk# 18814 – Payroll File Creation Timing - Risk# 18844 – Implementation of Centralized Customer Service (Help Desk)
Transition Readiness Green	• The Organizational Change Management (OCM) team was observed in the following activities during this reporting period: - The CSPS Awareness Campaign was launched in September 2025 and completed in December 2025. The team is gathering post-deployment surveys to assess the campaign’s effectiveness. - Agency Change Experts (ACEs) continue to meet with DART liaisons in their respective departments to discuss implementation methodologies, timelines, and identify department contacts. - The project team is re-initiating Human Capital Management (HCM) system discussions with external departments, and is working on communication plan updates. Sessions have been planned for early January 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)