This article is an excerpt from The Art of Tendering: A Global Due Diligence Guide, which is available for purchase.
In its October 2010 report, the Alberta Auditor General included a section entitled “Athabasca University – IT Governance, Strategic Planning and Project Management”, where it noted that Athabasca University’s multiple IT projects, which over a ten-year period were budgeted at $90 million, lacked overall co-ordination and a clear definition of objectives. The Auditor General made a series of recommendations relating to governance of these technology projects.
The Auditor General noted that the University’s major technological overhaul was “critical for the University to deliver online courses to students and provide the financial and administrative systems that support the academic environment and student services.” However, to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the 30 concurrent IT projects, the Auditor General recommended that the University implement a solid project governance framework aimed at avoiding delays, cost overruns, and project failures:
These diverse, costly and often complex IT projects require that the University’s governance and project management processes provide clear oversight and accountability. Without clear governance and project management processes, these IT projects can overwhelm the University’s resources and may not meet the University’s needs or be delivered cost-effectively and on time.
The Auditor General’s report observed that the university had failed to establish these project governance frameworks and that the “University still does not have well-designed and effective IT policies, processes, standards and project management systems.”
The Auditor General also found that University management had failed to ensure cost-effectiveness, co-ordinate its multiple projects, or consistently define technical standards for its specific procurements:
Management was unable to demonstrate that it is implementing its IT strategic plans cost-effectively, and that it achieved the expected results and benefits. The University had not:
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developed an integrated IT delivery plan to link the University’s individual IT projects to its IT Strategic Plan, in order to highlight project priorities, critical sequence, inter-dependencies, and high-level risks
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consistently prepared business cases to provide key project planning information to the steering committees and executive committee, including details on project objectives, development costs and projected maintenance costs, benefits and risks
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consistently measured and reported sufficient and relevant project status information to the steering committees and executive committee to allow them to effectively govern projects and provide oversight to the IT strategic planning process
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formalized project management standards to provide clear and consistent procedures on how to manage IT projects
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defined a clear mandate and authority for its project management office to establish and enforce standards and processes for successful portfolio management, project governance, reporting and effective risk management for all IT projects
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defined a formal systems development methodology and architectural standards to ensure that systems are developed and implemented using an efficient, consistent and cost-effective approach.
The University’s failure to establish proper governance frameworks to co-ordinate between the different projects undermined its ability to set the consistent technical standards required to ensure compatibility and interoperability between the acquired products and systems.
As demonstrated above, the failure to establish a proper governance framework in a multi-project initiative undermines an institution’s ability to define project specifications or ensure that discrete project deliverables result in a properly integrated overall system. As the Auditor General noted, the lack of interoperability remained an ongoing problem since the University had “not progressed with its 2005 plan to improve the integration and efficiencies in its financial, human resources and payroll systems. IT strategic planning documents do not clearly reflect this system integration initiative as a priority project. The University’s business processes remain inefficient, as significant manual processes are required.”
When working as part of a broader initiative, project teams require clear and consistent technical standards so that they can clearly define the requirements of their particular procurements. As the Auditor General’s report indicated, the failure to co-ordinate multi-project initiatives can undermine the ability to set consistent standards and achieve properly integrated end results. The review of Athabasca University’s IT initiative provides a useful project governance case study for all institutions, and underscores the importance of proper project planning to the future development of project specifications and for the downstream administration of contracts.
