Contract and Project Management in BiiP

Background and context

The Department of Buildings and People $($DBP$)$ offers services to support needs of specific communities and people to have equitable access to opportunities, overcome struggles and hardship and recover from adversity. As part of their Property Management Portfolio approach, the DBP includes a Property Development Division $($PDP$)$ who build, develop, purchase, and maintain dwellings and other properties to support the residents of the state. PDP purchase, develop and maintain all properties according to an agreed schedule and assigned funding.

Figure $1$ DBP Organisational Structure

A diagram of a company

Description automatically generated

Property condition inspections were carried out annually for a subset of properties to check the condition of the dwellings and other properties under the responsibility of PDP$.$ These inspections were loaded to an existing database application and provided reports which allowed the PDP to schedule maintenance as part of the annual program of works and to highlight properties that were no longer eligible for maintenance but needed to be rebuilt or sold. Management of sale and demolition of properties as well as building or purchase of new properties were the responsibility of the Contract and Project Management Business Unit $($C&PMBU$)$

The initial problem and solution delivery

Over time, it became evident that this database was no longer satisfying the needs of the Business Unit. It was also evident that needs of other areas of the PDP were no longer satisfied by the existing databases, resulting in the creation and maintenance of several spreadsheets and small MS Access applications to generate reports and schedules, as well as to keep track of all contract and project management works for maintenance and new construction projects within the Division.

To allow for more effective management of all new and existing properties, DBP provided a significant budget for the development of a new Asset Management Application $($BiiP$),$ comprising modules relevant to the needs of the Property Development Division in support of the policies and activities of the department. This application was intended to deliver integrated solutions to all Portfolios, Divisions and Business Units within the DBP and was to be delivered over a $5-$year period. The initial budget was estimated as $$900$M$.$ The supplier was selected by a Tender Process based on specified requirements, specified timeline and available budget. The selected supplier was shown to have exhaustive experience in each of the areas supported by the applications, and the key Project Managers allocated to the management of delivery of each specific application and module, were specialists in their field as well as in Project and Program Management.

Each Division was to receive an application supporting their specific requirements, and each application was delivered in Modules, appropriate to the requirements and business processes of the specific Business Units within the Division.

The new BiiP application was developed in stages. The Property Management Application was left to the last tranche of requirements and development and included the Contract and Project Management $($C&PM$)$ Module which was left to the final delivery. A predictive project management approach was followed, requiring significant time and effort in the identification, documentation, and approval of the agreed requirements on which the new C&PM module was to be developed, tested, and finally deployed.

The requirements were assessed and documented by the Requirements Analyst, an employee of the Contract and Project Management Business Unit, who was an Architect and had been seconded to the BiiP Project Team. At this stage of the development, the BiiP program was well over budget $($by $$2\mathrm{.}5$B and $5$ years overdue$).$ The government had changed twice during the lifetime of the program and the program was delivered under $4$ consecutive Department Ministers each of whom had to report progress to Parliament and to the Auditor General at least annually.

Under this scenario, the requirements document was approved by the Director of the Property Management Portfolio, who was an external consultant with no building experience. The document was released to the Project Team to scope, develop and deliver. The requirements document for the C&PM module which had been scheduled to be delivered in $2015$ was received for development in $2020.$

Once the module had been completed, it was tested by the Developer team, followed by the Project Team led by the Requirements Analyst. It was then released to the Test Manager, who had developed specific test scripts based on the approved requirements document, a requirements traceability matrix, test data and test sign off documentation. The Test Manager engaged Acceptance testing staff from within the Test Team and these Test Team members tested each function and workflow according to the documented test scripts. It was only at this stage, that Users were engaged for Acceptance testing to check the workflow and functionality. These Users were provided with training in the use of the application and specific module, and were then provided specific test scripts, which contained the steps to be followed to test each function based on the agreed requirements. Users were asked not to vary the tests or to stray from the defined test scripts or steps.

Testing was costly and delays ensued as the User team raised defects in functionality and useability. Most of the defects were closed as the solution complied with the agreed functionality and the raised defects were out of scope. Comments from within the User testing team were negative and raised several concerns about the usability of the module in their workflow and work practices. As these comments did not identify agreed defects, because the application delivered functionality according to the agreed and signed requirements, the Business Unit Manager accepted the delivery of the finalized C&PM module based on the Test Report which demonstrated no critical defects, and only defects which could be remediated in the future as part of an upgrade to the application. It was a broadly based joke in the organization, that these defects would be placed in the $$too hard$$ basket and funding for these upgrades would be difficult to source as the program was significantly over budget.

Ongoing problems

Six months later, the Applications Support Director engaged a Project Manager to investigate why the C&PM module was not being used by the C&PM Business Unit and why all work was still managed on spreadsheets. The specific role of the Project Manager was to investigate the requirements and the final deliverables and prove that the deliverables were defective, so that the supplier should remediate all deliverables under the terms of the delivery contract.

The Project Manager interviewed the C&PM Business Unit Manager and key users to understand the issues and rationale behind the use of spreadsheets rather than the automated application, with approval workflows, which would simplify the work and reduce the administrative burden in managing the purchase and building of building assets on behalf of the Department. The Project Manager found two key outcomes.

First was identification of C&PM Users not liking the new application because approval workflows were different to those in the previous application, and required the Business Unit Managers to approve invoices and purchases instead of their Executive Assistants. The Executive Assistants had discovered a workaround whereby the Business Unit Managers provided their Executive Assistants with their login and passwords, and the Executive Assistants would log in and out of the application according to the required permissions. This was a breach of the Department$$s security policy and could result in immediate termination of the employee$($s$).$

However, this in no way explained the continued use of spreadsheets. Anecdotally, staff in the C&PM Business Unit identified defects in functionality which they stated had been identified in testing but were ignored. Digging further through the testing reports, the Project Manager located the concerns that had been raised by the User Acceptance testing team regarding the useability of the application and its fitness for purpose. The Project Manager also located several specialists in the C&PM team who were prepared to explain how the process worked and where the application blocked the real$-$world process. The outcome was that if they created the Project and Contract within the C&PM module, they were unable to complete the project and close the contract unless they returned all funds that were retained from the invoices that were submitted by the building suppliers. While this was not a problem if the building was completed with no defects, it was a significant issue if the building required defect remediation before it could be handed over to residents. Any Project which had withheld retention funds to remediate building defects was unable to be closed in the C&PM application, resulting in no new contracts being issued to the supplier. Now that the issue was identified, the Project Manager documented her report and considered her final recommendations.

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