Closure Review
Project Summary:
Project Review
With regards the Estates and Buildings business activity associated with stock control, purchase ordering, purchase/sales invoice creation/processing, recharges, property and lease management, project / programme financial management. This project has established the on-going business requirements, undertaken a Gap Analysis based on what can be currently delivered within the current core systems (finance and procurement) and provided the Financial Management Process Review report outlining conclusions and recommendations.
In completing this work, the project team have undertaken a considerable effort in both determining and documenting both the business requirements and the Gap Analysis reports.
The project sponsor stated - “the business analysis that has been undertaken for a number of projects, and in particular the financial management project has been invaluable”
Business Objectives and Deliverables
In reviewing the stated deliverables for the project, the following have been delivered;
No | Description | Delivered |
| Stage 1 | ||
O1 | Identify the business requirements for Estates and Buildings to
|
|
D1 | Produce process flows, based on aspects of Estates and Buildings financial management requirements incorporating ;
| Y |
D2 | Produce detailed business requirements based all aspects of Estates and Buildings financial management incorporating ;
| Y |
| D3 | Analyse current and predicted business users usage of the system in terms of both software licensing and underlying IT infrastructure Note. Will review as part of the design stage within the next project | N |
O2 | Ensure identified requirements can logically interface with existing or proposed University of Edinburgh corporate systems, e.g. authorised signatories and procurement |
|
D1 | Document data interfaces relating to stated business requirements and the relevant corporate systems, e.g, authorised signatories and procurement Note. confirmed that the designated authorisation can be delivered through eFinancials | Y |
| Stage 2 | ||
| O3 | Produce an Options Appraisal analysis to determine if defined business requirements can be accommodated within existing University of Edinburgh systems such as; Archibus WebCentral or eFinancials | N |
| D1 | Prepare a gap analysis with regards Archibus WebCentral and the stated business requirements Note. It was discovered that there is no financial management related functionality present within the standard out of the box version of WebCentral. Whilst having been approached by Mass to gauge interest in developing such a solution within WebCentral, the strategic decision was taken not to pursue this route but to focus solely on the functionality delivered through the standard offering through WebCentral
| Y |
| D2 | Prepare a gap analysis with regards eFinancial and the stated business requirements | Y |
| O4 | Establish the Estates and Buildings strategy for the on-going financial management activity | Y |
| D1 | Identify preferred solution to meet both current and future requirements Note. The project has focused solely on integration with existing core systems, noting that additional integration enhancements will require to be designed and developed | Y |
| D2 | Produce a business case based on the findings of the Options Appraisal Analysis Note. This will be fully evaluated as part of the design stage of the next project. This was approved by the project sponsor and the project board | partly |
Schedule
The project, whilst scheduled to be initially completed in July, has extended through to September. In reviewing the project milestones, the following observations have been recorded
| Milestone | Original | Actual | Comments |
| Planning | 20/08/13 | 29/11/13 | The planning phase was delayed due mainly to a resource conflict for the project manager and holidays |
| Business Analysis | 27/03/14 | 30/05/14 | Whilst acknowledging the impact of the previous milestone delay, the project log notes that additional time was required to complete the business analysis phase for two specific reason;. (i) Resource conflicts with key members of the project team from within the business area (ii) Having reviewed the initial draft of the business requirements, it was noted by the stakeholders, that further analysis is required with regards firstly, Estates and Building customer requirements and secondly, estate development budgeting. |
| Gap Analysis | 06/06/14 | 12/09/14 | Whilst acknowledging the impact of the previous milestone delay, the project log notes that additional time was required to complete the Gap Analysis phase having presented the initial report to the project board on 30th July, further time was approved to enable further investigations be undertaken with regards the clarification of gaps identified within the procurement activity. This has resulted in further investigations being undertaken to review the potential functionality PECOS, SciQuest and eProcurement (within eFinancials). |
| Acceptance | 11/07/14 | 10/10/14 | Impacted solely be previous milestone delays |
| Closure | 24/07/14 | 29/10/14 | Impacted solely be previous milestone delays |
Analysis of Resource Usage:
Staff Usage Estimate: 196 days
Staff Usage Actual: 116 days
Staff Usage Variance: -41%
Other Resource Estimate: 1 days
Other Resource Actual: 1 days
Other Resource Variance: 0%
Explanation for variance:
With reference to piccl item 5,
The project is solely focussed towards determining the requirements to integrate the relevant finacial mangement processes associated with stock control, purchase ordering, purchase/sales invoice creation/processing, recharges, and property and lease management, project/programme financial management into eFinancials. Initally contingency days had been incoporated into the project to consider potential options within both Webcentral or alternative systems, but now with the focus on solely, to determine the business requirements and ascertain the gap analysis with eFinancials, the overall budget has been revised to 136 days .
Key Learning Points:
- For a project where there is the requirements for considerable business analysis to be undertaken across several business areas, greater awareness of the time and effort required by the business stakeholders should be fully defined and confirmed at the start of the project to ensure availability and minmise resource conflicts
- It is vital to ensure that all project stakeholders understand their role and responsibility within the project
- The numbers attending the initial business analysis consultation workshops were too large and unwieldy to manage. Subsequently, better results were generated through the creation of smaller focus groups covering specific areas of business
- It should not be underestimated the time and effort to arrange workshops with attendees from different areas of the business in conjunction with external supplier representatives, as attendance at workshops and project meetings appeared to vary and dwindle in some cases.
- The use of ABS consultancy time greatly assisted the Gap Analysis phase in relation to the availability of the functionality within eFinancials and eProcurement
- It has been suggested that for large projects where there are certain unknowns at the start of the project, consideration might be given to allowing additional time contingencies when setting project milestones
Outstanding issues:
There are no specific outstanding matters from this project. The next project will now look to determine an integrated system design between the Archibus facilities management system, eFinancials and the designated procurement application.