Identity Platform Migration at Major Wireless Carrier
case study
Problem
Increasing costs from using a legacy security platform and protecting corporate users from security threats required a new solution to improve the enterprise’s information security posture. With a solution chosen, a multi-million-dollar project was funded to migrate and integrate SAML Single Sign-on (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to web-based applications used in the company. The project owner needed a resource to partner with the 16-member enterprise project team and collaborate with internal business leads, enterprise security architects, Identity and Access Management (IAM) engineers, and third-party vendors to organize, schedule, and communicate changes to enterprise end-users.
Solution & Impact
As the IAM Delivery Lead (also titled “IT Risk, Security, and Compliance Analyst”), I orchestrated over 30 SSO platform migrations and integrations in partnership with the parties above and the project owner. Additionally, I developed content to communicate changes including contributing content for the company intranet to:
- educate about SSO/MFA
- increase awareness about the project
- share high-level project status, specifically when changes were complete
We encountered our issues but with clear, persistent communication, we were able to overcome them (including supporting third-party vendors in removing their gaps to become compliant and removing out-of-scope items from the project).
We successfully completed all SSO migrations within scope, under budget, and ahead of schedule. We maintained work continuity while increasing employee productivity and improving security for the enterprise.
My Role
- Project Manager
- Stakeholder Management
- Content Development
- User Acceptance Tester
- Switchover Lead
- Cybersecurity Week Coordinator
Methodology & Tools: While the full project followed a waterfall methodology (using MS Project), we used an agile approach for the SSO migrations, implementing changes as they were ready. Confluence and Sharepoint were utilized to preserve institutional knowledge and Jira was attempted for task management, but stand-ups and other forms of communication were more effective in this sense.
Yolanda,
It truly was a great experience working with you and I appreciated your expertise in guiding our team through the Single Sign-On process. We learned a ton from you and we would not have been able to accomplish what we did without your leadership and guidance.
— Dane Y.
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