Case Study: Financial Management System
Q2 were asked to project manage the implementation of a new Financial Management System (FMS) for a local authority within a twelve week timescale. The project was already underway; the supplier had been selected and the project had reached the early design stages. Progress had been slow and the project was off-track because no formal planning had been done. Fixed implementation dates were approaching, the client/supplier relationship was suffering and there were heavy workload commitments.
The project needed to be properly defined so we held a project kick-off meeting with the client and supplier. From this meeting a Terms of Reference was drawn up which included the project objectives, scope, levels of resource required, risks, functionality requirements and timescales. This was signed off by all parties.
No formal plans had been generated so detailed planning started immediately and this soon indicated areas of risk to the project. Full testing could not be carried out because of resource shortfalls and the fixed timescales. To overcome some of this, overtime was authorised and some of the functionality deferred until after live implementation.
The system had already been designed and built although there were still some design issues. Testing and training started straight away and problems raised through testing were dealt with using a pre-defined problem and change management process. This kept track of problem status during testing and before and after implementation.
Using our project management skills the project was brought back on track and the project closed within budget and, more importantly in this case, to time. Full functionality was implemented after the go-live date and, having resolved the design issues, the system is now fully integrated.
