Having worked on 3 major government programmes, as a taxpayer, I get totally frustrated by the spiralling costs associated with these programmes.
As a concept, the idea to move all government agencies to one common platform using common operating procedures is great. The idea is to have one ‘vanilla’ instance and allow limited customisation delivering the service from a small number of shared service centres . In order to achieve this though, a significant amount of drive and determination is required from the programme sponsor. When the sponsor adopts a “light touch”, this signals open season to the often reluctant clients (namely government departments or agencies) to replicate their existing processes being delivered by their legacy systems. This means little or no effort is made to streamline operating procedures and processes – the result of which is that the benefit the implementation of the new system was bought for is never achieved. With no control on “customer demands” the raison d’être of the project vanishes in a trice never to be seen again.
The composition of the supply chain to the client can also be a significant point of risk. Invariably there is a lead supplier with a plethora of sub-contractors providing different components of an implementation or ‘build’. For example the lead supplier will have responsibility for delivery, but farm out aspects of the build, data extraction, data transformation and data load to third parties. The opportunities for conflict multiply exponentially with each added party. Robust and rigorous project management is required – as is a governance mechanism that allows for timely decision making. In my experience the governance of major programmes in the public sector space is geared far more to making sure all stakeholders have a say…than taking the right decision at the right time!
Multiple stakeholders on both client and supplier naturally makes working to unified goal all the more difficult. When it goes wrong, instead of all parties working to a common goal, it usually ends up with all parties finding ways to avoid blame…and litigation by finding another party that is slightly more culpable, to blame. On the subject of litigation, if your project is being run by the legal team rather than the PMO it’s a sure sign you are a contender for a visit from Major Projects Authority, NAO and Public Accounts Committee rather than up for an award…
Whilst changes to an original specification are inevitable, as alluded to above, when it gets to the point in a shared service when it looks like there is a separate solution being developed for each customer you know you have a problem!
Often, it is difficult to determine who “owns” a change request and therefore who should be paying for it. Contracts may not be clear in the first place and are highly unlikely to set out in painful detail what exactly is meant by terms like “…..and will meet statutory reporting requirements.” Which particular statutes apply given that different statues may apply to each and every customer, as well common ones relating to financial reporting.
It is here the existence of a design authority and robust governance play a crucial role in keeping programmes and projects on track.
How can it be stopped?
- Stronger leadership and direction from the project sponsor.
- Ensure the programme sits within a governance mechanism that is fit for purpose
- Apply learning to the commercials from previous projects before embarking on the next fiasco
- Find ways within the contracts to reward positive team working behaviours
As a taxpayer I feel I have suitably vented…
