Planning engagements consist of LRWL developing, or assisting in the development of, various types of plans - typically including:

• Strategic and Business Planning - The client's future direction in terms of serving the needs of its customers (active members, retirees, beneficiaries, employers, and outside entities) must be formalized:
  
  • Assist the client in developing a "vision" for the agency - in terms of service, technology, etc.
  • Examine possible avenues for making the vision reality.
  • Conduct risk analysis and/or cost benefits analysis, as appropriate, to select the best avenue for that particular client for moving forward.
  • Develop list of action items / tasks necessary to achieve the client’s vision, objectives and goals.
  • Prioritize action items / tasks, identify interdependencies, develop time and cost estimates for each and assign appropriately.
  • Update the plan at pre-determined intervals (usually quarterly, semi-annually or annually) to reflect new information and developments.
    
• Information Technology (IT) Planning - Often done in concert with strategic planning and/or procurement of a new pension administration system, IT planning is undertaken to provide guidance in implementing and periodically updating the client's technical infrastructure. At a high level, this typically includes:
  
  • Develop a strategy for keeping pace with technological innovations. Typically, a retirement system client wants to remain sufficiently current to avoid being exposed to withdrawal of vendor support for hardware and/or software. At the same time, most clients do not wish to be the first retirement system to embrace new technological enablers; instead, they desire practical, proven technical solutions. LRWL can provide assistance in defining the particular client's stance with regard to its evolving technical infrastructure.
  • Assess the client's current technical environment, identifying shortcomings and exposure to risk.
  • Identify alternatives for upgrading the client's technical infrastructure, and the pro's and con's of each; provide insight into other retirement system clients' experiences with the technological alternatives. If requested by the client, develop a calendar-based schedule for regular replacement of technical hardware components (servers, workstations, etc.) to maintain the currency of the technical environment.
  • Select the direction that is appropriate for the particular client, given its culture, budgetary constraints, risk aversion, etc.
  • Develop list of action items / tasks necessary to achieve the new technical infrastructure.
  • Prioritize action items / tasks, identify interdependencies, develop time and cost estimates for each and assign appropriately.
  • Update the IT plan at pre-determined intervals (usually quarterly, semi-annually or annually) to reflect new information and developments.
  • Develop initial new line-of-business implementation plans, schedules, and budgets; these can be at a high level or at the level of identifying all tasks, their inter-relationship, describing the tasks, and creating overall budgets.|
    
• Disaster Recovery Planning - Disaster Recovery Plans (DRPs) are developed to provide well documented procedures for restoring processing in the event of an unexpected interruption. At a high level, the effort typically involves the following steps:
  
  • Identify the risks of processing interruptions.
  • Prioritize the risks and their likelihood of occurrence.
  • Select those risks that are most likely to occur and most likely to create major interruptions in service for treatment in the DRP.
  • Determine the appropriate mode for disaster recovery - e.g., "hot site", "cold site", replace equipment at client's processing location, etc.
  • Draft the DRP, i.e., detailed procedures for determining when to declare a disaster situation, steps to be taken to restore processing capabilities in a degraded mode, and steps to be taken to restore full processing capabilities once the disaster situation has been resolved.
  • Develop procedures for conducting "dry run" tests of the DRP at regular intervals.
  • Update the DRP at least once a year and whenever indicated by the results of a "dry run" test or actual invocation of the plan in a disaster situation.
    
• Business Continuity Planning - Business Continuity Planning is analogous to Disaster Recovery Planning, except that the Business Continuity Plan addresses all other business needs in addition to data processing - e.g., setting up alternative staff work space and facilities (telephones, copiers, etc.), instituting manual procedures and work-arounds as necessary while automated processing services are interrupted, etc.