Opinion: IT project management

Experience counts in delivering large government IT projects

The NHS is the third largest employer of any single organisation globally and understandably has relatively complex and unique recruitment requirements accordingly. And yet, historically, the large scale computing systems needed for such an organisation have always been farmed out to major generic systems suppliers in the mistaken belief that this represents a lower risk.

Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that without intrinsic vertical industry knowledge, such large-scale system implementations are doomed to failure from the start. What is needed now is a fresh look at public sector procurement, starting with industry expertise and an approach sympathetic to the needs of the organisation, before supplier or technology are even considered.

Mitigating risk

How can organisational size ever provide a valid indication of performance, experience or ability to successfully deliver an IT project in any vertical market? As recent experiences across the public sector would suggest, opting to allocate big ticket projects to the largest vendors as a lower risk strategy is not a failsafe — it is anything but.

There is an understandable desire to mitigate risk when spending public money that is spent with an expectation of transparent accountability, and a larger, generic provider can appear to offer more reassurance that the risk will be better managed. Yet far too many of these high profile projects have failed to meet their objectives.

Meanwhile medium-sized projects delivered by established niche suppliers have not only met expectations but also enabled significant innovation; a fact that has been apparently missed by both decision makers and the public.

Indeed, there is a very strong argument that these larger scale projects have actually stifled innovation across the NHS and the rest of the public sector. These organisations may have a fantastic track record of delivery in other environments but they lack the relevant sector expertise and experience required to truly understand operational requirements and, hence, deliver the best, most functionally rich solutions.

Size is irrelevant: if organisations lack the intrinsic knowledge and a track record of project delivery in that sector, the project is highly likely to fail.

Niche expertise

This in-depth knowledge is especially key in the NHS and across the public sector because project timelines are often tight and projects are typically defined by committee, creating opaque requirements.

This certainly happened with the national doctors’ recruitment system (MTAS) which failed to meet its objectives two years ago. Without the required insight into NHS recruitment practices and day-to-day user needs, the supplier was not able to have frank discussions with key stakeholders to refine the project scope and deliver a solution that actually met operational objectives.

Technology skills were not in doubt; it was a lack of market insight and experience that fundamentally compromised the project’s successful delivery.

Procurement strategy

The NHS certainly appears to be learning tough procurement lessons. From refocusing the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) to embrace the skills and expertise of existing niche suppliers to the recent, successful deployment of the new doctor recruitment system, i:cams, there is a new awareness that national projects are not always the most appropriate and that existing expertise should be valued and leveraged where possible.

With the new recruitment system, Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) took a step back from the concept of a national solution. While NHS speciality recruitment in England and Wales is handled on a regional basis by 14 deaneries, the new i:cams system was initially proposed for two deaneries in 2008, with the objective of proving its functionality at a local level before offering the technology to the rest of the country.

Furthermore, the decision was made to use a supplier with a 20-year history of delivering recruitment solutions, among others, to the health service, which then embarked upon an extensive consultation process with all the deaneries, not just the two initially designated to trial the new solution.

Leveraging experience to engage with stakeholders at every level of the process, both those managing recruitment and new doctors applying for posts, the specifications were fine tuned and, critically, huge buy in was generated to the project. This resulted in 12 deaneries taking the solution for 2009 – and positive feedback across the board. As a result of this approach, the NHS achieved a highly functional solution with full deanery support without incurring any additional risk.

Furthermore, the NHS now has the chance to add national harmonisation on top of the regional system to further streamline recruitment and meet its initial national system objective.

Management priority

The achievement of this project demonstrates conclusively the key factor to success: good market experience-based management, which not only ensures engagement with stakeholders to define requirements up front, but continues that engagement throughout the project to manage expectations, helps in the allocation of resources and keeps customers on track with typically tight deadlines.

In reality, this project was 70% management, 20% development and only 10% design. Without doubt the project required software innovation, underpinned by rapid development technologies that support the ability to change in respond to business needs. But given the experience in the market, which simplified the design process, and rapid development technologies, it was the strong management skills that proved absolutely key to delivering a project of this nature and scale.

And this is a fundamental point for anyone charged with the allocation of public sector IT budget: technology, however clever or innovative, should never be the starting point for such projects. Nor should a generic track record in technology delivery. Instead, it is absolutely essential to understand the business requirements.

NHS — or any public sector staff — have neither the time nor experience to create a detailed system specification. And with decisions typically made by committee, to determine the true business needs demands in-depth domain expertise and, critically, experience. It demands insight into the user experience and an ability to incorporate previous system knowledge — both good and bad — into the project design.

Conclusion

Mitigating risk is a major concern for those responsible for spending public money. Projects are highly visible and under increasing public scrutiny. It is therefore essential to look beyond both size and technology.

When 70% of the resources required to run a successful project are excellent, highly focused management, it is that skill that should be a priority for decision makers. And while it is important to recognise niche experience and expertise, public sector organisations need also to ensure vendors can scale up to take on larger, regional and national projects if required.

Do these vendors have the business model, the business infrastructure, the technical infrastructure, professional skills and strong training programme required to scale up from successful and valuable local deployments to larger projects?

It is not just size but experience, strong management and the ability to flex to customer demands that ensures a supplier can provide the right, effective solution to deliver quantifiable benefits at every level of the organisation.

John Sanderson, Director, Hicom Technology.