Project management frameworks in practice: the C-NOMIS case study

This article deals with the fourth of the OGC's eight causes of project failure: poor approach to project and risk management.

The OGC, in consultation with hundreds of experienced management professionals and business experts, has developed best practice guidelines and frameworks for project management and risk management. PRINCE2, the project management methodology, has become the de-facto standard throughout the UK government, and is the most widely recognised industry qualification in Europe. M_o_R (Management of Risks) provides a similarly standardised approach for understanding and handling the risks to an organisation or a project.

Considering the bedrock of project and risk management support and advice that the C-NOMIS project could fall back on, how did the absence of a solid approach to project/risk management become one of the key factors that the NAO identified in the failure of the project?

The NAO report highlighted several specific flaws in the approach to project and risk management used on the C-NOMIS project:

* Over-reliance on contract staff

Due to a shortage in skilled personnel, the C-NOMIS project relied too much on contract staff, which led to higher costs, more time spent inducting staff into the project and less staff 'buy-in' on the project.
* Inexperienced SRO (Senior Responsible Owner)

The SRO takes personal responsibility for the delivery of the project and any proposed business changes. The first SRO on the C-NOMIS project had little experience of managing large-scale IT projects, and therefore was perhaps ill-equipped to deal with the scope creep that allowed the budget to soar and the estimated duration of the project more than double.
* Risks identified but not properly managed

Although it was recognised early on that the C-NOMIS project was high-risk, there was no contingency budget for implementing risk responses.
* Scope creep

Poor change management procedures led to the incorporation of many adjustments and additions into the original product specification. These changes eventually proved too much for the time and budget allocated to the project, and C-NOMIS overran its tolerance levels.
* 'Good news' culture

The project manager was the key person reporting to the programme director, which led to a 'good news' culture and an absence of external quality assurance on the project. This, combined with the infrequency of project-programme communications meant that senior management staff were not aware of the scale of the problems on the C-NOMIS project.

Summary and solutions

* Ideally, a project management team should remain consistent for the duration of the project. While changes in staff at lower management levels do not usually give rise to a project issue, it is something that should be monitored and, if possible, avoided. Changes to corporate/programme staff can also usually be absorbed by a solid project management framework.

However, changes to senior project management staff (such as the SRO or the project manager) will require the investment of time and resources, as these roles form the links between the different levels of project activity.
* It is not mandatory for senior project management staff to have technical experience in the type of projects that they manage. Indeed, sometimes specialists have more difficulties viewing the project in terms of products rather than activities, and provide less adept than the non-specialists.

However, the C-NOMIS project was reliant to a large degree on the delivery of a complex information management system. The project failed, to a substantial extent, because it underestimated the cost and complexity of the system. An experienced IT project manager, or an experienced project manager equipped with lessons learned on previous major IT projects, might have been better positioned to judge and enforce the scope tolerance on the project and deal with IT suppliers.
* Every project should have external assurance, particularly a project with such a high profile (and such a high budget!) as the C-NOMIS project. Without project assurance it is impossible for the corporate/programme management levels to be certain that the project is making adequate progress - as illustrated by the example of C-NOMIS.
* Too few senior managers understand project management and there is reluctance by these people to attend PRINCE2 training by these people. This is a serious problem that senior managers need to address. Project management frameworks such as PRINCE2 cannot be expected to work if the role assigned to senior management is not performed properly. My recommendation would be to send senior managers on PRINCE2 courses!

Looking ahead ...

A poor approach to project and risk management undermined the C-NOMIS project. In my next post I am going to examine the fifth of the OGC causes of project failure - too little attention paid to breaking down the project into manageable stages.