Tech Decisions: Can you give us a few examples of how this partnership with the business side has worked successfully since joining MetLife?

Stoll: We have some [partnerships] that have worked well and are working well. One of them is something we call Project LESS [Legacy System Simplification]. That was a significant effort within MetLife individual business where we worked with business to consolidate and integrate many legacy systems. One of our overall objectives is to simplify our environment.
We also have implemented a single unified life application processing and underwriting system across all our distribution channels for all our life products. We currently are working to bring the annuities front-end processing into that same common front end. For an organization the size and breadth of MetLife, that is quite an accomplishmentdealing with many business locations, business partners, and business functions. To be honest, its been very successful.

Tech Decisions: How are your teams brought together, and where does accountability fall? Where do your project managers factor into this accountability?

Stoll: Its really a multifunctional team. Theres application development, quality assurance, and what we call the enterprise technologythe data center, the network. All those functional components have to come together. On the business side, there are business analysts and administration. The way we generally structure this is the business will have a business lead and we will have a technology lead. From a day-to-day standpoint, I look at [IT] project managers as having the accountability, helping to coordinate things. They do that in part with the business side. By my nature, I always like to have one person accountable, so even though theres joint accountability [on the project], Ill hold my manager accountable for assuring internal delivery.

Tech Decisions: Which is the more difficult proposition, understanding businesss problems or helping business understand ITs problems?

Stoll: Although either problem set standing alone can be a challenge, our approach to establishing project teams eliminates those difficulties. By setting up teams that include IT and business representation, discussions occur that explore a variety of aspects of the business problem and the proposed IT solution. A joint team enables ongoing communication, a better understanding and appreciation of other team-member responsibilities, joint accountability, and joint decision-making. This approach also helps establish reasonable expectations and helps the final product fulfill the business need within both the business time frame and budget.

Tech Decisions: Are there any other benefits to be gained?

Stoll: An added benefit is IT associates are able to learn about the business, understand the business needs, and influence alternative solutions, and conversely, members of the business team gain an understanding of IT solutions and challenges. The end result is IT associates become advocates for the business, and business associates become advocates for IT.

Tech Decisions: What are the technology challenges the MetLife individual business area faces today, and how do you go about identifying them?
Stoll: We still have a number of legacy systems and technologies that should be integrated and sunset. Our challenge is to continue to identify cost-effective opportunities to reduce the number of administrative and down stream systems while at the same time simplifying our end-to-end processing and infrastructure environments. In addition to this effort, we must continue to support our leadership in new-product innovation and development, improved service quality, and expansion of our self-service technologies.

Tech Decisions: As the leader for Project LESS, can you explain how it originated and has made MetLife a more effective operation than before?

Stoll: Project LESS was a very large undertaking that involved multiple IT and business areas. We looked at our systems portfolio and realized there were significant opportunities for us to reduce costs, increase efficiencies, and enhance speed to market. We identified 53 systems we could sunset and sold the plan to the business based on an aggressive schedule and definable benefits. In November 2002, Project LESS concluded on time, reducing our applications portfolio and returning a bottom-line impact that justified the investment.

Tech Decisions: Even the technology-challenged would recognize having more than 50 legacy systems would be a major problem for a company to deal with, but how hard is it to push for a replacement when you know time and financial restraints for the carrier will be enormous?

Stoll: We understood the potential difficulty we faced and so entered into an intense planning phase before bringing the initial plan to the business. When we did begin discussions with the business, we had determined and were able to demonstrate the project would be cost justified. To limit inconveniences to the business, we set aggressive schedules to complete the entire project within one year. Additionally, we created a Project Management Office (PMO) specifically for Project LESS and convened a steering committee composed of the business and IT representatives most directly affected. The chair of the committee was the business executive with the greatest number of projects and the largest investment within this environment. That PMO constantly monitored the success of each portion of the project and coordinated business and IT needs.

Tech Decisions: Which areas of the MetLife business do you think will see the most improvement in the replacement of so many legacy systems?

Stoll: This project focused on legacy systems [for administration and underwriting] within individual business, but we did recognize Project LESS could be used as a model that could be reused in other areas of the MetLife enterprise. To facilitate the potential reuse of the project we had what we called a road-map function to develop a documented, repeatable process. Now that Project LESS is a documented success, there is no need to reinvent the wheel if another line of business would like to integrate and condense legacy systems, or even if an acquisition were to occur requiring us to merge systems.

Tech Decisions: As a CIO, what challenges and opportunities do you see for the future? How will they benefit MetLife?

Stoll: We have demand that far outstrips our ability to meet it. So we continuously are looking at ways to better meet that demand. And if we dont partner properly, we will not be as effective. One of the strong partnerships we are forming right now is with the institutional business of MetLife. [Institutional business] CIO Mark Hammersmith and I are looking at better leveraging our investments in our technology stacks and in our applications where it makes sense to do that. That will help us meet our client needs.