With a diverse client base that comprises large government agencies, global corporations and small commercial enterprises, CSC faces a challenge common to all IT service providers: how to deliver focused business solutions to an increasingly large and complex group of clients. To meet that challenge, CSC employs CSC Catalyst.

Catalyst is CSC’s company-wide methodology for delivering services to address each client’s particular challenges and goals. When the CSC Corporate Knowledge Program was established in 1996, a team of CSC business approach experts commenced consolidation of disparate methodologies from CSC’s operating divisions into one global methodology. This methodology – Catalyst – enables users to share best practices, processes and tools from numerous CSC divisions.

“Using Catalyst across the entire company ensures that CSC offers clients consistent, repeatable and high-quality service,” said David Jones, methodology architect for the Catalyst Group in the CSC Corporate Knowledge Program, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia. “Even though employees are separated by geographic location or division, Catalyst provides a common set of processes and tools that unite us as a company and help us to better deliver business value to our clients.”

Each CSC client faces unique business challenges. Therefore, the Catalyst methodology employs a comprehensive yet flexible framework. Regardless of an engagement’s size or scope, CSC practitioners frame client needs or problems in terms of expected business change. Catalyst practitioners determine which aspects of the business are likely to change and then select and tailor processes and work products to address the change. Catalyst processes support the broad variety of CSC engagements, including systems development, consulting, systems integration, organizational change and operational services.

“Catalyst is business-driven in that initiatives are defined first in terms of the business value they need to deliver,” noted Fred Thorne, CSC Catalyst chief architect. “Catalyst is enterprise-focused in that projects are viewed in the larger context of the enterprise goals and initiatives, and Catalyst supplies the coordination, integration and governance needed for large, complex environments.”

Catalyst Offers Dual Uses

Catalyst is deployed in two ways. CSC uses the methodology to deliver programs and projects, many of them for CSC’s large outsourcing engagements. In addition, CSC clients license Catalyst for use within their own organizations. In both instances, the Catalyst Group generates revenue by billing the CSC account team or business unit for use of Catalyst assets, training or consulting.

“We incorporate the Catalyst methodology in all of ASD’s [Application Services Division] approaches,” said John Tittle, director of delivery assurance for ASD. “We sell Catalyst to our clients. It’s part of our sales cycle. We implement Catalyst, and we follow its work products. Catalyst is truly – and this isn’t marketing hype – the backbone methodology for how we do our day-to-day business in ASD, all 5,000 of us.” He added that when potential clients ask why they should outsource to CSC, the answer often references Catalyst and its benefits.

“With Catalyst, we can make promises about being 95 percent on schedule or on budget with our projects, and we can measure it,” Tittle explained. “That is an important part of CSC’s value proposition for outsourcing clients.”

David Nyman, CSC Catalyst client support director and practice manager in Consulting Group’s Large Program Management practice, noted that much client interest in licensing the methodology stems from CSC’s successful service delivery and performance.

“Clients see our consultants using Catalyst. They see us finishing our projects on time and within budget, and they say, ‘How did you do that? It must be Catalyst. We want to use it too,’” he said. “Reactions to our performance are usually our best Catalyst licensing, marketing and sales avenues.”

CSC account representatives manage the purchase of all Catalyst licenses and assets by clients; outsourced clients are offered a Catalyst license as part of each contract. Part of the revenue earned through Catalyst license and maintenance fees is returned to the Catalyst group to help fund further development and refinement of Catalyst.

Nyman added that in addition to licensing Catalyst, CSC offers consulting services to support Catalyst deployment. Services can include training for the clients’ employees and creation of client teams to support Catalyst once CSC representatives leave the client site.

When clients utilize Catalyst, their processes and tools align closely with CSC’s processes and tools. This creates a valuable synergy. “We want clients to license our methodology because they will be doing work the same way CSC does work,” Nyman explained. “We can become their preferred provider because we both work the same way – we both use Catalyst.”

He added that Catalyst implementations – during which CSC employees are present at a client site – offer many opportunities for identifying additional client needs. “We are inside the client’s organization. We can see their challenges, other needs they might have, and other ways in which to serve them,” Nyman said.

Benefits to CSC and Clients

Catalyst offers users improved service delivery, economies of scale and more efficient global collaboration. Clients license Catalyst in order to realize many of the same benefits that CSC enjoys from the methodology’s use.

“Team members arriving on projects are able to perform quickly. Everyone is working from the same methodology ‘playbook’ in which they understand the language, and projects can be better coordinated and solutions more efficiently integrated,” explained Jones. “In addition, the amount of time spent constructing deliverables is reduced, because work products need not be built from scratch.”

Work products available in the Catalyst toolkit were helpful to Sam Gross, CSC chief technology officer for a major client in the telecommunications industry. When the client required a new IT delivery plan, Gross built one using Catalyst’s field-tested best practices, and saved himself and his client much time. “It’s tough when you’re dealing with a new contract and trying to absorb the scope of deliverables you owe the client,” recalled Gross. “I was able to look at all the deliverables and with Catalyst, I was able to find assets that I needed to deliver to the client. I saved six months of work because I didn’t have to develop it all myself.”

“With Catalyst, we’re doing things that have worked – and that have worked well,” added Elizabeth Weber, director of the CSC Catalyst Group. “We can go to market and do work for our clients in a repeatable and consistent fashion, incorporating global best practices.”

Catalyst Key to Certifications

The ability to repeat a process consistently is essential for various certifications, such as those based on the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) issued by Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. CMM encompasses five levels of certification, which organizations earn to demonstrate that their processes are adequate, repeatable, and well managed. Catalyst strives to align with such industry standards. This adherence to standards appeals to CSC clients who want their organizations or projects to be certified against these standards. While using Catalyst does not guarantee compliance, it does provide a good starting point.

“Catalyst by itself is not CMM Level 2- or 3-compliant. The procedure sets that we write are Level 3-compliant,” explained Tittle, who noted that many of ASD’s large accounts, including General Dynamics and Raytheon, have reached CMM Level 3 compliance. “Procedure sets tell you how to manage the work; Catalyst tells you how to do the work. If you don’t have the methodology, you can’t prove that you can repeat the work.”

“CMM requires that you have a documented formal process for key areas, such as change management,” added Jones. “Catalyst has that, so you’re already one step closer to compliance.”

For example, CSC’s Catalyst methodology helped differentiate the company from its competition in bids for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Business Systems Modernization and the U.S. Army’s Wholesale Logistics Modernization contracts. One of the key differentiators is that Catalyst addresses all aspects of the business change, not just the IT aspects. Another differentiator is that it covers all phases in the life cycle from strategy through to operations, and all levels of management activity.

In the “IRS Business Systems Modernization Program Progress Report,” the IRS acknowledged the central role Catalyst plays in providing project coordination, stating, “The IRS adopted the proven Catalyst Methodology from CSC as the basis for all work [on the program].”

One Methodology, One Language

Key to successful project coordination are common processes and terminology among all employees. Catalyst provides such common processes, as well as tools for improving them. These processes and tools enable Catalyst users to comprehend issues and solutions in a uniform manner, thereby improving efficiency and productivity.

“In Consulting Group, we do a lot of what we call business area architectures, or BAAs. We basically scope the client’s needs for new systems, for organizational change, and for technical infrastructure,” noted Nyman. “Everyone who uses Catalyst knows what a BAA is, so when I mention techniques and work products like process maps, people immediately know what I’m talking about. It really helps our productivity.”

This common vocabulary enables people to join a project and quickly begin working, without experiencing a large learning curve. “One minute you can be managing a project in the UK, and the next minute you could be managing a project in Sweden or Germany,” said Helen Jones-Kelleher, who employs Catalyst in her role as CSC UK intranet redevelopment manager. “It’s very important that you all have the same language – which Catalyst provides.”

Related Information:

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Read part one of the the Catalyst series.

Read more about CSC Catalyst.

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