Department of Infrastructure Asset – Management System Project cont… Project Management The level of project management experience possessed by the project team in areas such as planning, organising and controlling what is a large and complex IT project was limited. This was compounded by an inadequate number of staff who were allocated to the project by client Agencies (and the inappropriateness of some those who were allocated). The effect of resourcing levels upon the project appears not to have been highlighted sufficiently with the result that client Agency managers did not give the issue adequate attention. Vendor Management The relationship and the level of trust between the NTG and the SI with respect to this project appeared strained during the project (as reported in previous audits and reviews of the AMS project) and did not appear to improve until late in the There was an inability on the part of the SI to provide the level of project’s life. leadership and expertise the NTG might reasonably have expected and the SI did not appear to have the capability or the capacity to deliver the proposed solution in the Northern Territory. At the same time, there was no evidence of an effective vendor management plan. Implementation Strategy There was no evidence that the project team had considered how the implementation of the system was to be approached and as a consequence that important issued was not placed before the steering committee. For example, one approach might have involved implementation in a single, pilot, Agency with the objective of ensuring that the system met expectations before it was implemented in other Agencies. An alternative approach might have involved the phased implementation of the different modules. Instead the project team appear to have accepted from the outset that all nine SAP modules would be implemented simultaneously across all client Agencies. This was an approach that exposed the project to heightened levels of risk and is an approach that does not appear to have been attempted with other SAP software implementations elsewhere in Australia. In hindsight, the implementation approach which was adopted can be said to have affected the overall success of the project and created additional strain on the limited number of NTG staff who had been made available.
Department of Infrastructure – Asset Management System Project cont… Project Management The level of project management experience possessed by the project team in areas such as planning, organising and controlling what is a large and complex IT project was limited. This was compounded by an inadequate number of staff who were allocated to the project by client Agencies (and the inappropriateness of some those who were allocated). The effect of resourcing levels upon the project appears not to have been highlighted sufficiently with the result that client Agency managers did not give the issue adequate attention. Vendor Management The relationship and the level of trust between the NTG and the SI with respect to this project appeared strained during the project (as reported in previous audits and reviews of the AMS project) and did not appear to improve until late in the project’s life. There was an inability on the part of the SI to provide the level of leadership and expertise the NTG might reasonably have expected and the SI did not appear to have the capability or the capacity to deliver the proposed solution in the Northern Territory. At the same time, there was no evidence of an effective vendor management plan. Implementation Strategy There was no evidence that the project team had considered how the implementation of the system was to be approached and as a consequence that important issued was not placed before the steering committee. For example, one approach might have involved implementation in a single, pilot, Agency with the objective of ensuring that the system met expectations before it was implemented in other Agencies. An alternative approach might have involved the phased implementation of the different modules. Instead the project team appear to have accepted from the outset that all nine SAP modules would be implemented simultaneously across all client Agencies. This was an approach that exposed the project to heightened levels of risk and is an approach that does not appear to have been attempted with other SAP software implementations elsewhere in Australia. In hindsight, the implementation approach which was adopted can be said to have affected the overall success of the project and created additional strain on the limited number of NTG staff who had been made available.
2013_March.docx