Introduction
The essay is a case study analysis for project management of Sydney Water Company. The company decided to develop a project that would improve its customer services.
The first section entails the pre-contract planning, business and functional requirements. The second part highlights the tracking of the project against the business case. The third part is on project planning and key milestones. The final part is a table on PMBOK knowledge areas.
Pre-contract Planning, Business Requirements and Functional Requirements
With regard to pre-contract planning. Sydney Water unveiled the importance of the Customer Information Billing System (CIBS) project to its operations. The project would make the customer services better, supplement the existing information systems and provide efficiency in business.
This is how important the CIBS project would have been to the organization. The company did not carry out sufficient planning and specifications regarding the project. This later on resulted to numerous requests for changes and eventually led to colossus extra costs and delays.
Prior to getting into the contract with Price Water Coopers, a competent project team should have been set up to do the work. This should have comprised of one member with intimate knowledge in the subject of the project.
However, the selected team lacked competencies in handling the work meaning there were no proper mechanisms put in place to select a capable team to do the work.
Although Sydney Water realized the significance of a business improvement process, it resorted to the utilization of a computer system during the project. The project was not implemented via a company information technology.
After coming up with the project, they realized that the computer architecture of the CIBS project was incompatible. Consequently, a functional requirement was not met. It was a business requirement for the company to continue with a project requirement that was integrated. However, this did not materialize.
Although testing was a functional requirement, it really delayed and was not done adequately. Relevant documentation was not provided by Sydney Water which made it difficult to have a full access to the selection of a contractor.
Nonetheless, apparently, Sydney Water was able to select and evaluate the contractor in a thorough manner. The administration of the contract was inadequate resulting to single variation to the contract leading to a transfer or roles and risks to Sydney Water from Price Water Coopers.
Some business requirements were not available for the project. These include important contingencies, hard ware and soft ware that were not included in the initial budget. Besides, from the start of the project, there were unclear procedures on how the project was to be reported to the board of directors.
The information given was not clear enough to make the board of directors make a decision or assess the position of the project. Such insufficiency made the board not to be fully informed regarding important aspects and risks pertaining to the project.
Management of risks is a very important aspect in any business venture, and more so, in a business project. It is a critical business requirement prior to beginning any project. This is because every project or business is always susceptible to risks.
It was therefore a requirement for the project team to identify main risks to the project and come up with sufficient mechanisms of managing the risks.
Nonetheless, it did not happen by both the company and the project team. The culture of this organization reveals that all project risks have to be transferred to the contractor when outsourcing of the organization’s key projects.
The Tracking of the project against the Business Case
A business case is a document whose purpose is to provide the project’s baseline by elaborating the benefits of the business as a result of the project (Gregory, 2009, p. 138). Apparently, there was no support of the CIBS project from a strong business case.
The company did not provide a version of the business case that had been endorsed by the board of directors. Even though it was an obvious fact that costs were escalating and benefits were reducing in the course of the project duration, the board never asked for the preparation of a revised business case.
The board had the mandate of overseeing the project including making some directions for the business case to be revised. However, the board did not direct the GM-Finance to do a review on the business case of the project and to be responsive on the project’s fiscal matters.
The evidence of choosing CIBS project over other alternatives was not adequate. For instance, there was a discrepancy between the cost of upgrading the existing system in comparison to the budgeted cost of the CIBS project.
There are changes that were made on the contingency cost by both the DMR and the board. The business case was not revised accordingly to reflect these changes.
This was in spite of prompts from several parties alluding to the revision. For example, in 2001, after the DMR findings, the GM – customer services realized the necessity to make some revision on the business case.
The director of Sydney Water project made inquiries with respect to the duration required to complete the project and a budget that the board could accept. Within the same year (2002), the internal audit suggested a formal revision of the business case.
This was a reflection of the project management’s belief that what really mattered was the successful implementation of the remedy and that costs were flexible.
For example, the recommendations to access the business case from the internal audit to the Sydney Water management were embraced and addressed after six months. This did not materialize and the management reported that it was more concerned with the positive results from the project.
An increase in costs seems to have been accompanied by a reduction in benefits during the time the project has been in progress.
At almost the close of the project, there were ninety people from the CSD performing several duties on CIBS. This required adoption of several strategies for maintaining business services. These would include outsourcing functions, hiring staff temporarily and beginning business improvements.
The extent at which staff reduced due to CIBS was less in comparison to the benefit outlined in the business case.
After a multiple revisions on the R3 benefits realization, still the stakeholders failed to approve it. There were some areas of benefit that varied from the initial business case. These include for instance, e-commerce, closure of some offices and ownership changes.
One of the views held by the Sydney Water people was that in the public sector, it was possible for projects of this nature and size to not only go over budget, but to also delay. This could be one of the reasons behind not updating the business case.
Project planning
This is a task that should be done by the steering committee. Their role should be to assess the feasibility of the project, develop the project’s business plan and take responsibility regarding the project outcomes.
The steering committee also ensures that there is an alignment between the scope of the project and what the stakeholders require.
The scope of the project is supposed to be defined by the business plan of the project which should be owned by the steering committee.
In the project undertaken by the Sydney Waters, this was not adequately captured. This is due to the absence of the steering committee to devise a business plan which should outline the project scope.
Second, the CIBS project manager did not come up with a specific Project Execution Plan which should have outlined the responsibilities of the project team.
The project manager should plan for the project effectively by forming sub-projects to help in the delivery of the project. This took place since the CIBS project was sub-divided into three: release 1 release 2 and release 3.
Third, effective project planning requires the presence of a competent project team. The team should work according to what has been laid down in the Project Execution Plan. Representatives from different units affected by said the project should be part of the project team.
The team should also comprise of members with requisite skills. The project team for the CIBS project did not have all the required skills to handle the job meaning that there was no plan in place regarding the selection of the members of the team and their specific qualifications. These skills should be part of the process of project planning.
The Sydney Water project fell under the customer services division. However, this division did not have a clear channel of communication with the project team. Also, during the project planning in 2000, input was not sought from Sydney Water by PWC.
Moreover, due to the dissatisfaction by PWC’s general project plan, Sydney Waters insisted on improvements. This negatively affected the project success. Thus, there was inadequate project planning in this respect.
Key Milestones
A milestone is a mark of progress that indicates when important points in a project have been attained. Milestones are embedded within the project’s time frame and show the important path towards the ultimate output. It is the end of a certain stage that shows a work package or phase has been completed.
It is often marked by a high profile review meeting, endorsing of some documents and a completion event. There are several aspects in the CIBS project that point to the way in which the management of the project milestones was conducted.
The CIBS project was mainly subdivided into three phases: release 1 (R1), release 2 (R2) and release 3 (R3). R1 and R2 were fully implemented even though R2 was not fully functional. R1 had been scheduled to be completed in August 2000 but it took longer than this.
The implementation date for R2 was also changed due to technical issues and phased roll out. Implementation of R3 was also delayed from March – September 2002. This was due to requests for change in closure of price negotiations. All these delays were due to inadequate project planning and specifications
Another key milestone in the CIBS project was the testing of the solution. It ended up taking a longer time than was anticipated. This made the project to take longer than was planned. Testing also produced numerous errors.
Correction of errors took longer than expected because changes were to be sent to the STS in the UK and the feedback was not immediate. The management ought to have known this in advance and use another system that would be in line with the project’s time frame.
PMBOK Knowledge Areas
Reference
Gregory, P.H., 2009. CISA Certified Information Systems Auditor All-in-One Exam Guide. NY: McGraw-Hill Professional.