ARCHIVED - Management of Large Public IT Projects - Canada

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3. Lessons Learned

This section describes lessons learned from the cases featured in this report and is presented in two categories: government-wide lessons learned, and lessons learned at the level of the individual organization or project.

3.1 Government-wide Lessons Learned

Government-wide projects should:

• fit within a clearly expressed strategic plan for government investment in technology;
• be joint-venture partnerships between the central agencies and the departments and not the exclusive domain of one or the other;
• be driven by a clear risk and opportunity assessment supported by the program and service delivery community within government;
• be sustained by the highest executive and political management;
• be adequately funded; and
• be monitored and measured by precise, pre-defined and negotiated reporting requirements.

Business alignment

• Business should be engaged right from the start of large IT projects. The project needs to be aligned with, and support, the business directions and priorities.
• Planning for information technology investment must be fully integrated with the business/program objectives and planning processes of an organization.

Governance

• Establishing the initiative as a government priority is fundamental to success.
• Establishing Deputy Ministers' (DM) Accountability as a subsequent step ensures management commitment and decision-making at the most senior levels. It provides the context and requirements for creating governance structures (e.g. increased role of the TIMS sub-committee of DMs, other special committees and working groups) across the government, and the hierarchy set of roles and responsibilities that would deliver the results.
• Clear accountabilities and decision-making authority should be defined at all levels for all stakeholders. Appropriate frameworks should be established to ensure that if problems cannot be resolved promptly, they are elevated to the appropriate higher level of resolution.

Role of central agency (Treasury Board Secretariat)

• Large, complex multi-organizational government initiatives are most effectively managed through a collaborative effort that focuses responsibility for end results on departments; the central agency provides facilitation, co-ordination and monitoring.
• Strategic interventions ("swat" type actions) provide valuable opportunities to resolve issues.
• Even though accountabilities and responsibilities between central agencies and groups may be defined, they should be clearly communicated to departments.
• Policy direction is essential but it must be more flexible and be accompanied with appropriate supportive guidelines and mechanisms
• Efforts should continue to further entrench and institutionalize the EMF in all departments and agencies.

Risk management

• A continued focus on risk in planning and carrying out the initiative provides a critical context for identifying and managing concerns and potential issues.
• Risk management initiatives for government-wide use in major initiatives needs to be timely and directed to meet the needs of departments with varied levels of experience in risk management.
• Risk management methodologies and techniques should be adapted to the initiatives. The adaptation of the risk management methodology to the Year 2000 project, which was made available as part of the EMF suite of solution sets, was useful. However, the ease of implementation varied across departments and in some cases was dependent upon the availability and skilled resources.

Performance management

• A very visible reporting and central agency monitoring is an essential tool in ensuring that progress is achieved and maintained, and in establishing credibility for the whole endeavour.
• Reporting processes need to be simple and timely.

Communications

• Creation of a formal communication strategy and plan is essential.
• Effective communications are more complex to establish and more difficult to maintain than expected.
• All opportunities and possible vehicles for communicating must be utilised.

Procurement

• Government-wide Standing Offers continue to provide an appropriate and expedient vehicle for obtaining professional services
• Standing Offers need to be in place as early as possible in order to be effective and need to be more flexible in order to cope with changing situations
• Departments need to be fully cognisant of the contract selection process and contract content in order to maximize their utilisation of these vehicles.

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