Client case
Cooperation and thinking small
Problem
An innovative digital transformation project is at risk of failing. The aim of the project is to develop a generic case management system for the government, within a new dedicated cloud environment. The promise is quite substantial: a generic business solution to model primary processes, which makes it easy to implement a case-oriented system for the government. The Dutch Radiocommunications Agency, part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, wants to digitalise their operations and is one of the first clients. DICTU, an ICT service provider for the Dutch government, is the supplier. After two years of work, limited progress has been made and the parties are opposed. A breakthrough is necessary.
Arie is the program manager of this project. He exudes an air of calm and confidence. He works together with the stakeholders to achieve results. He wants both client and supplier to be winners. To realise this, everyone in the organisation needs to join in and understand what interests are at play. Only then, a project team can function optimally and achieve results. Arie is also able to coach and guide a management team working on a complex business project.
Approach
Next Ready Partner Arie was hired as a program manager. Together with both the client and the supplier, it was decided that redesigning the project was necessary. This included the replacement of a number of team members on both sides. The project was divided into a program portfolio of small sub-projects, with their own business cases and an overall benefit review plan. Instead of using a waterfall approach, it was decided to introduce Lean thinking in the redesign phase and an Agile Scrum methodology with deliveries every two weeks, and Prince II components in governance. The supplier’s team was relocated to the client on site.
Besides the focus on process redesign and technical realisation, specific attention was given to a change program to meet the objectives of a customer-oriented, result-focused and transparent organisation. After all, a new way of working was introduced, impacting the various departments and reducing the number of employees.
Results
This new method yielded tangible, workable components and an external portal for 60,000 customers going live after seven months. With this as a starting point, more and more functionality has been added for external clients and for internal employees. The number of employees has been reduced and the total cost of ownership has been reduced for the application landscape.
In order to get a grip on all initiatives for new IT projects, the project portfolio approach was set up for the entire organisation. For the majority of the initiatives, business value was deemed insufficient and unnecessary costs were avoided.
Decisive factors during this project
When a project or program runs poorly, it can be helpful to re-evaluate and bring in new people to get back on track. Timely intervention can have a great positive effect. Working together as a team, with both the supplier and the buyer, is necessary for success. During this project, we switched from thinking big in technical requests and demands, to thinking small; working in sub-projects and directly delivering business value by implementing developed software as soon as possible. Next Ready Partners has played a decisive role by taking the lead in the transition from a technical software development IT project to a strategic, business value-creating program for the long term.