A COE is a cross-functional team that supports all lines of business in planning and implementing strategic initiatives. In addition to tactically supporting either a DPA or robotics project, many of the services provide by the COE support the enterprise’s strategic goals and Pega delivery maturity.  Capabilities of the COE are largely delivered through expert services, either at specific milestones of projects or as needed.

A primary focus of the COE is to define and socialize the strategic services. The COE is directly responsible for these services. Consequently, there are no political or organizational barriers to this recommendation. Moreover, these services are foundational in that they provide the minimal knowledge necessary for Pega project teams to be successful.     

Strategic services

Develop a clear vision and approach to Pega initiatives

The COE ensures the right projects are implemented the right way and – equally important – that projects that deliver significant ROI and/or fit the enterprise’s strategic goals are treated with higher priority.

Establish and foster partnership and trust between the business and IT

The COE lives in the grey area between business and IT. The COE helps empower the business and enable collaboration through promoting agile methodologies such as Scrum.

Integrate process optimization and innovative engineering efforts

There is limited value in automating a non-optimized, existing process. The COE aims to ensure that all processes have been duly optimized before they are implemented.

Define and promote best practices

Ensure technical and delivery processes are understood and followed by project teams during Pega delivery, i.e., build management, application migration, testing, monitoring, etc.

Ensure proper technical governance

Equally important to defining and promoting best practices, the COE ensures technical governance is being adhered to by the project teams. Technical governance is specific to Pega projects and is in addition to the project governance.  Technical governance is implemented through application reviews looking at various aspects of the applications, e.g., design, performance, configuration, reuse, usability, phase readiness, etc. and follow-up activities based on a set of recommendations.

Evolve reuse strategies and centralize shared asset management

Effective reuse across an organization does not happen automatically. The COE drives the enterprise from ad-hoc reuse to a comprehensive reuse strategy.

Drive process maturity within the enterprise

The goal of the COE is to advance process and develop maturity within the enterprise. It achieves this objective by aligning the individual needs of the business with the enterprise’s strategic goals.

Tactical services

Standardize Pega project delivery

The COE develops an optimal delivery process that blends Pega best practices with the enterprise’s software development lifecycle (SDLC). Once this is established, the COE enables the business and IT on the delivery process and their specific roles.

Drive continuous process improvement of Pega initiatives

As the owner of the delivery process, the COE is responsible for improving the process as the enterprise changes or the methodology evolves.

Determine fit of business initiatives with Pega Digital Process Automation and Robotics

While a project may be an excellent candidate from a business perspective, there could be significant architectural or technical obstacles that may negate any business benefit. The COE needs to be part of a project selection process where it can be a champion for Pega.

Promote use of shared asset repository

A key asset of the COE is the shared asset repository. Acting as the steward, the COE approves new assets as they are submitted for inclusion, oversees and supports the search and consumption of assets by individual project teams, and promotes their value.

Delivery partner relationship management

In an enterprise that uses delivery partners to implement a Pega project, the COE is critical to ensuring that the deliverables meet best practices and quality standards. The COE also ensures that partners take advantage of the asset library and follow the delivery process mandated by the enterprise.

Ensure Pega project resource enablement, rotation, and retention

The key to any Pega project is having the right people with the right skillset as part of the project teams. If the project resources are a revolving group of individuals, the COE needs to ensure that all resources are enabled on Pega best practices and ready to jump into the  project at any time.

Perform R&D projects

Depending on the capacity and skillset of its resources, the COE undertakes specific prototyping or development tasks which could include piloting new product features, proactively building reusable components, or refactoring assets to be reused.