Category Archives: change management

NAO says HMRC is tackling tax evasion but needs to further exploit IT systems’ potential

Posted on 05/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has applauded HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC) work in tackling tax evasion to deliver £4.32 billion of additional tax yield between 2006 and 2011. HMRC also reduced staff numbers and introduced a range of improvements in its compliance work.

But, the NAO says, although the Department has introduced new IT capabilities to identify incidences of evasion more effectively, it is not yet exploiting the full potential of the new systems. It has also had to defer and reduce the scope of projects to keep within annual budgetary limits, leading to reductions in benefits.

According to the NAO’s report, the Compliance and Enforcement Programme cost £387 million to 2011-12 and was made up of over 40 projects intended to increase compliance yield – the measure of additional tax arising from compliance work – by £4.56 billion between 2006-2011.

Against that target, the Programme actually reported additional yield of £4.32 billion over the five years to March 2011, with HMRC forecasting that it will generate an additional £8.87 billion of yield between 2011-12 and 2014-15. However, the NAO points out, HMRC will not achieve all of the Programme’s forecast benefits because of changes to scope or slippage in delivering projects, as well as over-optimism in its forecasts.

HMRC reduced staff numbers by the planned amount of 3,374 full time equivalents by the end of 2008-09, two years ahead of schedule. It also generated an improvement in productivity -defined as the level of yield generated by each full time equivalent – of approximately 36 per cent, below its forecast of a 42 per cent improvement. HMRC did not routinely measure the impact of the Programme on customer experience.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said:

“This major programme has helped HMRC to increase tax yield substantially and has introduced ways of working which will strengthen HMRC’s compliance work in future.

“The Department could, though, achieve better value for money from its investment in compliance work by improved understanding of the impact of individual projects and ensuring that its staff have the capacity to exploit new systems to the full.”

On improving HMRC’s compliance work, the NAO report says the following:

 “The Programme has improved HMRC’s ability to undertake compliance work but it has yet to exploit the full potential of the new systems. In particular, the new ICT systems can substantially improve how HMRC assesses evasion risks to identify cases for investigation. HMRC is embedding new systems and approaches into working practices. We assessed the implementation of a sample of projects:

• Project design. Overall, HMRC managed design phases well but, particularly on projects to implement new ICT systems, it did not sufficiently consider redesigning business processes or developing the staff capability needed to exploit the full potential of the new technologies.

• Implementation. HMRC did not always communicate clearly the rationale for projects and, although it provided training and guidance, these were not always timely or requirements were underestimated.

• Assessing the performance of new systems. HMRC has established management information on the use and performance of new systems and, over time, will seek to use this to better understand the impact on business performance.

HMRC – The compliance and enforcement programme

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, government, Government IT, IT projects, project management, public sector

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Australian Gateway Review key in revealing extent of Victoria Police IT project deficiencies

Posted on 05/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

A report has found that the police in the state of Victoria in Australia lacked the capacity to deliver a major IT project and wasted millions of dollars on a failed system.

According to The Australian, the force had lost around $30 million as a result of the decision to abandon the replacement of its Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP) system, said the report by an Australian QC, Jack Rush.

“The investigations of the inquiry into the LEAP replacement and two other IT projects at Victoria Police revealed a lack of project management methodology and discipline leading to systemic mismanagement,” the report said.

“The inquiry identified a culture within Victoria Police that cost overruns were acceptable but above all, there was a lack of any form of strategy to define the IT needs and requirements of Victoria Police for the future.”

Victoria Police admitted last year it had underestimated the cost of replacing its inefficient, ageing LEAP system by $100m, before it abandoned the replacement project. 

Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said he would adopt the report’s recommendation that the force seek external assistance through an advisory group and had already been consulting external experts.

“Victoria Police needs help in delivering these projects and I will certainly be reaching out both nationally and internationally to make sure that we get this right,” he said.

A key Gateway Review was instrumental in the ending of LEAP, as the report discusses:

“The PIMS preliminary business case was subject to a Gateway Review in late July 2011. The scrutiny of this review process appears to have been the cause of considerable reflection at senior levels of Victoria Police command. The Gateway Review indicated interviewees advised that the preliminary business case did not provide sufficient justification for additional funding to complete the replacement of LEAP; and varied greatly in their expectations and understanding of what outcomes the Policing Information Management System (PIMS) would provide and the technology necessary to achieve outcomes.

The Gateway Review observed “… that best practice and strategic assessment begins with a fundamental understanding of what the problem is that requires fixing and the strategic response that the organisation is looking for.” The review found that the PIMS project was deficient in these respects:

  • the strategic vision for Victoria Police as it related to the PIMS project;
  • current and preferred policing workflow;
  • business requirements based upon the operational needs of modern policing; and
  • information management plan

Rush Report

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT projects, project management

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New child support system has 90,000 requirements – in phase one

Posted on 29/02/2012 | 3 comments

                               A new old-style government IT disaster?

By Tony Collins

While officials in the Cabinet Office offcials try to simplify and cut costs of Government IT, a part of the Department for Work and Pensions has commissioned a system with 90,000 requirements in phase one.

The projected costs of the child maintenance system have risen by 85% and the delivery date has slipped by more than two years.

Even with 90,000 requirements, phase one, which is due to go live in October, excludes 70 requirements that are “deemed critical” says a report published today by the National Audit Office.

The NAO report indicates that the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission has commissioned an old-style large IT system using traditional developing techniques and relying on large companies.

G-Cloud and SMEs have not featured in the Commission’s IT strategy – and it abandoned agile techniques last year on its child maintenance project.

The Commission put the cost of its new child maintenance system at £149m in January 2011. Ten months later it put the cost at £275m, an 85% increase. The Commission was unable to give the NAO a full explanation for the difference.

Lessons from past failures not learned?

Today’s NAO report says there is a risk the Commission will repeat mistakes by the Child Support Agency whose IT system and business processes were criticised in several Parliamentary reports. The Commission takes in the work of the Child Support Agency – and indeed runs its own systems and the Child Support Agency’s in parallel.

Officials at the Commission told the NAO they have a good track record of holding back IT releases until they are satisfied they will work.  “Nevertheless, we found that the Commission is at risk of repeating many of the mistakes of 2003,” said the NAO. Those mistakes include over-optimism and a lack of internal expertise to handle suppliers.

Mixing “agile” and “waterfall” doesn’t work

Initially civil servants at the Commission tried to “mix and match” agile and traditional developing techniques – which Agile advocates say should not be attempted.

In 2011 the Commission gave up on agile and “reverted to a more traditional approach to system development” says the NAO report.

The mix and match approach meant there were two distinct routes for specifying requirements and “resulted in duplicated, conflicting and ambiguous specifications”.  The Commission did not have previous experience of using the agile approach.

The Commission’s child maintenance system was due to go live in April 2010 but the delivery date has slipped three times. Phase one is now due to go live in October 2012 and phase two in July next year but the NAO report raises questions about whether the go-lives will happen successfully. The Commission has not planned in its financial estimates for the failure of the system.

The NAO finds that the Commission has struggled to make its requirements for the new system clear. The Commission’s main developer Tata Consulting Services has had protracted discussions over the meaning and implementation of requirements.

The NAO also hints that IT costs may be out of control. It says the Commission may not secure value for money without properly considering alternative options for restructuring and “adequately controlling its IT development …”

These are some of the NAO’s findings:

IT costs could increase further

“The new system is based on ‘commercial off-the-shelf’ products. However, a recent audit by Oracle identified that the performance, maintainability and adaptability of the new system would be key risks. This could increase the cost of supporting the system. The scheme does not yet include plans for the integration with HM Revenue & Customs’ Real Time Information system due to be implemented in 2013, or introducing Universal Credit because of the differing timescales,” says the NAO which adds:

“Achieving the Commission’s plans without further cost increases or delays appears unlikely. The Commission reported to the audit committee in October 2011 on the high risk that the change programme may not deliver phase two functionality within agreed timescales … The Commission did not develop a benefits realisation plan until November 2011.”

103,000 of Commission’s 1.1m cases are handled manually

“Ongoing technical problems have resulted in a large number of cases being removed from the IT system and managed manually. These are known as clerical cases … The Commission has had to operate the ‘old’ and ‘current’ schemes in parallel.  Due to flaws in the IT systems for each scheme, some 100,000 cases have had to be processe:d separately by clerical staff at a cost of £48 million,” says the NAO. It takes 900 contractors to manage the clerical cases.

Comment

Despite numerous NAO reports on failures of Government IT-based projects over the past 30 years the disasters are still happening, with the same mistakes repeated: over-optimism in every aspect of the project including timetables and financial estimates; excessive complexity and over-specification, no sign of cost-consciousness and, worst of all, an apparent indifference to being held accountable for a major failure.

A glance at the monthly outgoings of the Commission (well done to the coalition for requiring departments and agencies to publish contracts over £25,000) show sizeable and regular payments to familiar names among the large suppliers: HP Enterprise Services (formerly EDS), Capgemini, Tata Consultancy Services, BT Global Services and Capita. There is hardly an SME in sight and no sign of imaginative thinking.

Meanwhile some senior officials at the Commission put in monthly expenses for thousands of pounds in travel, accomodation and subsistence for “Commission meetings”. One wonders: to what useful effect?

Officials at the Cabinet Office are trying to change the culture of departments and agencies. They are encouraging departmental heads to do things differently. They advocate the use of  SMEs to show how new ways of working can trounce traditional approaches to projects.

But the Cabinet Office has little influence on the Department of Work and Pensions. Indeed the DWP has lost its impressive chief innovator James Gardner.

We praise the NAO for noting that the Commission risks repeating the IT-related and project management mistakes of the Child Support Agency. But we note with concern that the NAO still puts up with Whitehall’s non-publication of  Gateway reviews, which are independent reports on the progress or otherwise of big and risky IT-based projects.

Would the Commission have been so apparently careless of the risks if it had known that regular Gateway reports on its shortcomings would be published?

How many more government IT-based projects are late, over budget and at risk of failing, their weaknesses hidden by an unwritten agreement between the coalition and civil servants to keep Gateway reviews secret?

NAO report – Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission: cost reduction

Government repeating child support mistakes – ComputerworldUK

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Posted in Agile, capacity building, change, change management, CIO, Gateway reviews, Government IT, India, IT projects, managing change, managing outsourced services, openness and transparency, operational issues, outsourcing, private sector lessons for the public sector, project management, public sector, public services

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Worth reading on mutuals: “Are public sector spin-outs on shaky ground?”

Posted on 27/02/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

For those contemplating setting  up public sector mutuals, the headline on a piece by Craig Dearden-Phillips in the Guardian about their legal and contractual prospects may start ringing alarm bells.

“Are public sector spin-outs on shaky ground?’ sounds a very pessimistic view in the wake of a successful action by Michael Lloyd to prevent 3000 NHS staff being transferred into Gloucestershire Care Services, a new social enterprise.

The outcome of the case, as Dearden-Phillips points out, is likely to affect the way in which the NHS and local councils approach the question of how they set up mutuals and social enterprises.

“Last week’s events in Gloucestershire were, without doubt, a setback for the mutuals agenda in the NHS and councils,” he says. “Lloyd may well rue the day he took the action he did, particularly if those NHS services end up in the hands of for-profit operators. But Gloucestershire was not a decisive reversal. What events there showed was not that spin-outs from public bodies cannot be engineered, but that those leading them need to navigate the law, and public opinion, with care.”

Links

Leigh Day & Co Solicitors’ statement

Stroud Against the Cuts statement

Stepping Out

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, mutualisation, mutuals, procurement, public sector, public services

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Good news: IBM-led shared services company is recognised as “failing”

Posted on 17/02/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

After years of depicting problems at an IBM-led shared services company, Southwest One, as teething, Somerset County Council has conceded that the venture is failing.

The Conservative leader of Somerset County Council Councillor Ken Maddock used the word “failing” nine times in a speech on Wednesday about Southwest One, a company run by IBM on behalf Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and Avon and Somerset Police.

Southwest One’s contract, which was signed in the early hours of a Saturday morning in 2007, was doomed from the start, in part because of the complexity of the arrangements and in part because of pervasive secrecy that antagonised hundreds of Somerset council staff who were already opposed to the joint venture; and they were the very staff who were seconded to Southwest One to make the venture work. [It’s a truism that staff, if they are motivated, will often make their way around difficulties but may be overwhelmed by them if not motivated.]

Last month Campaign4Change set out in detail some of the most disruptive and continuing problems at Southwest One; and we said the difficulties could not be tackled in earnest while Somerset council and its partners were portraying the venture as a success. On 31 January 2012, our post was mentioned on the website of the local Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger.

The good news now is that the council has, this week, for the first time, spoken of Southwest One in unequivocally negative terms. No longer is every council criticism of the company qualified by a positive comment, such that one cancels out the other.

Whether our post last month has made any difference is not important. What’s pleasing is that IBM and Southwest One’s partners are free to make progress, now that Somerset has told it like it is. Much of the credit for the council’s emergence from its long, self-administered anaesthesia lies with Dave Orr who has campaigned for years to highlight the failings of Southwest One, as has Liddell-Grainger.

Maddock’s speech on Southwest One

Maddock’s speech to a full council meeting is reported at length by the Somerset County Gazette and by Liddell-Grainger.

Maddock said

“As an administration we inherited a partnership that promised a huge amount, but it was not delivering. Southwest One’s accounts year on year show losses, staggering losses just published of £31m, and failures to hit modest savings targets.

“We have bent over backwards to try to make this partnership work. But we have to state clearly that our primary duty in looking after the public’s hard earned money is to make sure we get the best possible deals, that we get the best possible value for the public’s money.

“I have to say that Southwest One is failing this test.

“We are currently looking at all our services and all our contracts to see whether we are doing the best we can for our customers,  whether we are providing the best possible services for our customers and at the best possible prices for our customers.

“I have to say that Southwest One is failing this test.

“We need a Council that can cope with future government cuts and rising demand. We will need to be efficient and flexible.

“I have to say that Southwest One is failing this test.

“Sadly, Southwest One is failing. It is failing to deliver promised savings; failing to cope with a changing financial landscape; failing to be flexible enough to adapt in challenging times and provide the best possible value for money.

“To make up for this failure, we will now accelerate our extensive review of everything that the council does: Almost half our most vital services are carried out by private sector or not for profit organisations – we will look to increase this where appropriate.

“We will encourage social enterprises, partnerships, communities and voluntary groups to get more involved in what we do and what we run. We will look to put the customer at the heart of what we do.

“And we will do this whilst we continue to do all we can to make Southwest One work. But I have to be clear; it is failing; it is inflexible; and it is intransigent. We are therefore looking at all the options available to us.

“I do have one final message for Southwest One – and that is to the staff and our Somerset County Council colleagues and secondees working there.  The message is this: This continuing failure is not about you. It is about the contract, the complications, the failed technology, the missed opportunities, the lack of promised savings.  It is about Southwest One itself, not about the people working for it.”

Comments on Maddock’s speech

Some of the comments on the Somerset County Gazette website were apt. One said “Somerset County Council has finally come to accept what we, the minions, have known for years: South West One is a failure and a pretty expensive one…”

Another said

“At last SCC admits to what everyone in the real world knew from day one …”

Comment:

One of the lessons from IT disasters in the private and public sectors is that things often start to improve once the main parties own up to the seriousness of the problems. The good news, perhaps, is that Southwest One may now be at its lowest point. It has at long last purged its bowels, so to speak.

Ian Liddell-Grainger’s website.

Southwest One gets £10m IBM amid “staggering” losses.

IBM struggles with SAP two years on – a shared services warning?

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Posted in Campaign4Change, capacity building, change management, IBM, IT projects, public services, reducing cost strategically, SAP, shared services, supplier relationships

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Will the BRICS learn the lessons from developed nations’ limp track record of IT project delivery?

Posted on 13/02/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

There’s not much doubt of the hot spots for IT spending over the next few years:  the BRICS.

According to this piece on ZDNet, while Europe remains transfixed viewing a Greek tragedy, other countries, notably the BRICS, are pushing ahead in terms of IT spend. 

Research firm IDC suggests that total IT spending will grow 5 percent in 2012 with emerging markets, smartphones, storage and software at the head of the pack.
 
Although European IT spending is likely to remain weak for the foreseeable future, spending in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China – this seems to exclude ‘the S’ of South Africa) will see double-digit growth rates:
 
  • Brazil IT spending will rise 9 percent;
  • Russia will increase 11 percent;
  • India will  be up 16 percent;
  • And China’s tech spending will jump 15 percent

That spending means we can expect large increases in new IT projects – or perhaps I should say business projects delivered through IT.

Will the BRICS do a better job of the project management and delivery of these IT projects than we’ve managed in the developed world? Well, let’s just say there’s plenty of useful best and worst practice for them to take on board.

Links

Russia last in BRICS for faith in business

Can Brazil drive innovation?

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Posted in Brazil, BRICS, Campaign4Change, change management, China, India, IT projects

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CIOs and marketing leaders may be competitors for critical role in harnessing customer data

Posted on 13/02/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

It’s a sign of the times that by  2017, according to the Gartner research group, organisations’ chief marketing officers will be spending more on IT than the CIO. It is departments such as marketing that are helping drive consumerisation within the organisation with healthy purchases of tablet computers – usually iPads – outside the remit of the IT department.

There are good reasons for that. As this article in Ad Age points out, data was once ‘the domain of tech geeks and direct-marketing gurus’, while chief marketing officers focused on loftier things like shaping brand perception.

Not now. Thanks to an explosion of data from social-media platforms, call centres, customer transactions and loyalty programs, CMOs ‘who want a seat at the table will have to harness customer data and leverage it – or risk being relegated to chief promotions officer.’

The article suggests a key alliance – or will it be a battle? – of the future will be between the CMO and the CIO to become a de-facto chief customer officer.

As Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff puts it, “The only sustainable competitive advantage is knowledge of and engagement with customers. Brand, manufacturing, distribution and IT are all table stakes. The only source of competitive advantage is the one that can survive technology-fueled disruption, an obsession with understanding, delighting, connecting with and serving customers. In this age, companies that thrive … are those that tilt their budgets toward customer knowledge and relationships.”

Welcome to the Age of the Customer

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Posted in Big Data, Campaign4Change, change management, Consumerisation, Marketing

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Why effective project management should focus on people, not just processes

Posted on 09/02/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

I recently read an interesting post in the Gallup Management Journal which argued that when it comes to project management, most organisations put their practices before their people.

In other words, they place more emphasis on ‘rational’ factors, such as the process itself, and rather less on emotional drivers that could actually deliver project excellence – actually, just a project success would do! – such as their employees’ engagement with the project and company.

The piece, by Benoit Hardy-Vallee, points out that, “Project management is integral to the business world. Milestones, kickoff meetings, deliverables, stakeholders, Gantt charts, and work plans constitute the everyday world of most managers, whether they are called “project managers” or not. Given the vast experience organisations have with project management, it’s reasonable to wonder why all projects aren’t completed on time, on scope, and under budget.”

It argues that cost and time overruns on IT projects have had a profound effect on national economies, and suggests that one estimate of the IT project failure rate is between 5% and 15%, which represents a loss of $50 billion to $150 billion per year in the United States. In Europe, although the figures look pretty dated, they are still staggering in size: IT project failures  cost the European Union €142 billion in 2004.

What’s more, the piece argues, this trend is here to stay. With an ever-growing need for accessible and integrated data, organisations require larger platforms to manage supply chains, customer relationships, and dozens of other crucial systems.

“Mega-software projects are now common in private and governmental organisations, and development is not slowing down, especially in emerging economies.”

The blog argues that large projects, especially those in the IT sectors, already have a poor record. And forcing team members to adapt to project management processes and procedures only makes it more likely that the project will fail.

It goes on to suggest that a different, more powerful behaviour-based project management might be a better way of  enabling project groups to gain higher levels of emotional commitment and performance from their team members, as well as increased levels of emotional involvement from stakeholders to help improve both engagement and performance.

“A typical project management approach focuses on processes, policies, and procedures. Every task and step is described in detail by a set of rules.  Many companies implement rigid processes that dictate behaviour and use statistical methods to control quality (such as total quality management, kaizen, lean management, and Six Sigma). Process guides and rulebooks support work practices, while quality control systems assess and improve these practices.

“The problem with a single-minded focus on processes and methodologies is that once people are given procedures to follow, compliance replaces results. Everybody is concerned about how to do the job, not about the outcome if the job is done well.

“Companies that take this approach do so for valid reasons: They can’t manage what they don’t measure. More importantly, they can’t let projects run without any direction, hoping for the best. However, by relying on managing only these rational factors, organisations fail to harness the power of human nature by engaging employees’ emotions.”

The article concludes: “It’s time to update project management not with more methodologies, but with more emotional content. Employees’ and stakeholders’ disengagement can make a project fail, but behaviour-based management can make projects succeed.”

Gallup Management Journal

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Posted in Agile, BRICS, Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, IT projects, project management

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Bridging the divide: an engineered approach to IT projects

Posted on 06/02/2012 | Leave a comment

The State Auditor in California recently criticised a planned high speed rail system between San Francisco and Los Angeles because the project suffered from critical, on-going oversight problems. In this guest blog, Bob Evans, founder and Managing Director of TestIT Software Assurance, explains why it is critical to have a ‘single source of truth’ for any IT development, to provide the required level of cohesion, discipline, control and transparency that should be expected from any engineering project.

The risks associated with developing or changing IT systems are well documented. IT failures always bring despair and reputational damage to all involved.

Do you remember the scene in Blackadder where General Melchett suggested that walking slowly (again) towards the German machine guns would be “the last thing they’d expect” – and so “that’s what we’re going to do”? This seems to be the attitude found in many IT procurements. What’s needed is a fresh, radical and innovative approach, especially in these changed times where senior management focus is on delivery and cost.

Keeping Control

Establishing and maintaining control of an outsourced project is the single, most important part of IT development; it is imperative for the purchaser to remain in full control at all times. In all of the failure scenarios that we have researched, it is obvious in every case that control has been lost, with always calamitous consequences.

The nature of the procurement process and inevitable time pressure means that the requirements of a new software system aren’t always well-defined at project inception. Typically, specifications are incomplete or ambiguous and put together from a range of disparate sources, with non-existent internal process and control. The “silo” attitude that is often encountered across departmental organisations is usually a key factor here.  Requirements that are not made clear at the start of the project will inevitably lead to confusion, delays, additional cost and even to dispute.

And if a contract is awarded on the basis of a flawed specification, the chosen vendor is in a strong position to justify delays and ramp up the costs. When planned schedules are missed and costs spiral out of control, well intended remedial actions can then create new, unforeseen problems, leading to even more rework.

The culture of care and diligence found in many traditional engineering environments is sometimes lacking in the IT industry and in our experience, engineering discipline is usually the first casualty when pressure is applied. Very quickly, the focus shifts to fire-fighting and a project loses sight of its objectives. It’s like building a bridge – but when halfway across, only fitting every other bolt.

 Contrived Tests

It’s no surprise that applications that have seemingly passed an Acceptance Test, when deployed on a live system, prove to be problematic. Validating the effectiveness of an IT system is typically a contrived process – put simply, tests are designed to pass! They would be – they are usually designed, controlled and often even run by the software vendor.

If you were buying a used car from a local garage, you’d get the RAC to come along and check out the mechanics. You wouldn’t even think of asking the mechanic who worked at that garage to do the inspection would you? But invariably this is the case in IT.

As discussed above, it is imperative that full control of the project remains with the purchaser. But without, continual up to date feedback and independent metrics, it’s hard to know what’s really going on. And the critical decision – when to go live – cannot be made with confidence.

Agile Development

The concept of Agile Development has been round for many years. However, it is still to be seen whether this approach can really work on a large, complex project. A properly managed set of sprints – with precise objectives, proper controls and diligent, independent validation at appropriate times may indeed lead to a more rapid and successful conclusion. However, it should be noted that as development continues, the needs of the business will necessarily change. If controls are not adequately maintained, no process – not even “Agile” ones – can keep up. What is delivered is what the vendor believes is required, rather than what is actually required by the business. And no matter what methodology is used for developing software, at the end of the development cycle it is essential to verify, independently and thoroughly, that the product meets the needs of the business.

The Agile Manifesto focuses on “working software over comprehensive documentation”. Documentation is of course often cumbersome. However, minimising the amount of information while maximising the value of the information is what’s really needed.

When it’s too late – and organisations end up mired in a legal dispute, we’ve been called in to play the part of the pathologist. It is soon apparent that the project was doomed from the start – no spec, no metrics, no control, no hope. Suppliers who didn’t listen, purchasers who didn’t actually know what they needed in the first place.

But there is another way. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency recently used independent software assurance to ensure success of its high-profile CERS/SVD project. There was an acknowledgement right from the start that requirements were bound to change and controls put in place to manage this. There were efficient, timely tests – not at the project end, but continuous tests, right from project inception. There was an approach that asked:  “What can we do given the available time and budget?”, rather than the popular “one-shot, whistle and bells” approach. And there was pro-active searching for and identifying issues early on – when the supplier was still on site – which meant that remedial actions were fixed by the supplier, at no additional cost to the project. Independent, constantly updated metrics also meant that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency stayed in complete control.

It isn’t rocket science. But for IT projects, the discipline driven by an engineering-based approach is generally more likely to lead to success. That’s why bridges get built – and IT projects often don’t. 

TestIT Software Assurance

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, IT projects, managing change, managing outsourced services

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CIOs must lead business change with consumerisation, Cloud focus

Posted on 03/02/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Some work published by PwC in the US has argued that top-performing U.S. organisations show greater mastery in how they leverage digital technologies by the way they embrace consumerisation, the Cloud and social media.

The management company’s Digital IQ survey says these companies are offering mobile tools for customers, measuring data through social media, mobilising applications to the public cloud and are applying innovative use of business intelligence. It also finds that most enterprises are still playing catch-up on the consumerisation of IT.

PwC believes the CIO plays a critical role in the planning process for increasing a company’s Digital IQ. It argues that CIOs must be excellent at managing the internal factory, but also excel at mobilising new plans into action.  

The Digital IQ findings call for business leaders — and, in particular, today’s CIOs — to lead their organisations to change and innovate from the inside out. The report findings suggest that excellence in IT has not been commoditised and is still differentiating as a competitive advantage. Indeed, IT-enabled, multi-channel connections with customers can make a marked difference to business results. But to succeed, today’s CIOs — and the C-suite more broadly — must excel at not just managing internally, but also mobilising new plans into action.

PwC argues that a high Digital IQ requires the CIO to find better ways to sift through and drive insight from the increasing torrent of data streaming from every manner of device and interaction, and to create a platform that can deliver these capabilities across a varied set of changing mobile devices.

PwC’s survey showed that 63 percent of respondents revealed their greatest challenge is the inability to gather, understand and act on customer data. Fifty-eight percent cite an inability to quickly understand and adopt the new information technologies needed to be competitive.

“Consumerisation of IT is on the rise, and in the Survey we continue to see a need to serve the mobile customer, move to cloud services, and use data more effectively,” said Chris Curran, principal at PwC. “Organisations that have an integrated strategy—which includes technology—seem to perform better.”

For those interested in the consumerisation of IT, the Corporate IT Forum is holding a summit on the subject in London on 22nd February.  You can find out more details here

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