Bi-Monthly Report to Councils - Business Papers€¦ · Web viewImplementation services related to Waste Management The Syndicate themselves may also bring about variations as they

PROJECT: COUNCILS ONLINE VERSION: 1.0CLIENT: SYNDICATE OF NSW COUNCILS

VOTAR PARTNERS PTY LTD © COPYRIGHT 2003 1

Councils Online

Syndicate Project Managers

Bi-Monthly Report to Councillors

November 2003


Table of Contents

1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................. 3

2 PROJECT MANAGEMENT................................................................................................................3

3 CONTRACT MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES........................................................................................4

4 STREAM ACTIVITIES........................................................................................................................ 54.1 ALL STREAMS................................................................................................................................ 54.2 ASSETS & SUPPLY......................................................................................................................... 64.3 PEOPLE......................................................................................................................................... 74.4 MANAGEMENT SUPPORT................................................................................................................. 74.5 SERVICE MANAGEMENT AND CONSTITUENT INTERACTION................................................................84.6 TECHNICAL.................................................................................................................................... 84.7 ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT.......................................................................................9

5 DELIVERABLES ACHIEVED...........................................................................................................10

6 PAYMENT STATUS.........................................................................................................................11



BI-MONTHLY REPORT TO COUNCILLORS

1 INTRODUCTION

This report to Councillors is the third progress report on the Councils Online project for the NSW Syndicate of Councils. This report, and subsequent reports going forward, will be for the prior 2 months and will highlight expected activities in the coming 2 months.

2 PROJECT MANAGEMENT

This consists of the key activities of the Syndicate Project Manager and the Council Project Managers in the management of the project for the past 2 months, and other upcoming activities.

Past 2 Months

1. The design of Councils Online, in the context of Phase 1, has been signed off subject to a number of outstanding issues being addressed. This design will be the basis of the build and acceptance testing.

2. Agreement in principle has been reached with CGEY to bring forward the commencement of Phases 2 & 3 so as to accelerate the delivery of benefits and to factor in a time contingency at the end of Phase 3 that would otherwise not been available.

3. Much work has been done to remove resourcing conflicts so as to resource Phases 2 & 3 independently of Phase 1. Identification and provision of resources from all Councils to join the Project Core Team for Phases 2 & 3 is progressing. Only a few positions remain to be filled.

4. Contract Deliverables and work products required in September and October have been completed as at 31 Oct 2003.

5. Risk Management matrix has been updated to reflect additional mitigation strategies for previously identified risks and to reflect new risks.

6. The northern satellite project office at Wyong has continued to be utilised by the Assets & Supply and Service Management streams. The Councils Online high-speed telecommunications were installed and made operational during September, which has eliminated the need for the temporary arrangements.

7. User Acceptance Testing launch event staged in mid September teams. User Acceptance script writing has commenced as has the training of User Acceptance Testers. Infrastructure to support the User Acceptance Testing is generally being provided by CGEY with the exception of an email server. Wyong Council are providing the support required to enable and support the infrastructure for User Acceptance Testing.

8. Reviews of each Councils critical data has revealed generally high levels of quality in the data and some areas for improvement. Each Council is progressing the improvement work and plan other reviews later in the project.

9. Council Related Projects are progressing and are now under the management of each Councils IT Manager. Fortnightly meetings and reporting are also occurring with CGEY so as to provide visibility to all concerned parties.

10. CGEY continuing to co-operate with business process areas that are clearly outside the scope of the contract with the Syndicate as they relate to: Waste Management process Development of Workers Compensation functionality Data Conversion

11. CGEY are starting to suggest that some variations may be requested as they relate to: Integration between the Trim Electronic Document Management system and the Pathway

Property and Rating system Implementation services related to Waste Management

12. The Syndicate themselves may also bring about variations as they relate to: Printing software Remote hosting of the Council Geographical Information system

All of the variations above are only possibilities.



Coming 2 Months

1. Based on the in principle agreement to bring forward Phases 2 & 3, continue with the identification of required resources for the Core Team.

2. Execute the User Acceptance Testing beginning 1 December through to the end of January with a 3 weeks break in between.

3. Finalise with CGEY what constitutes a disaster for the purposes of initiating the Business Continuity Arrangement under the contract.

4. Continue to monitor the progress of related projects and data cleansing at each Council.5. Ensure adequate facilities exist to support the yet to be identified Core Team resources for Phases

2 & 3 that need to be accommodated at Wyong.

3 CONTRACT MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

This consists of the key activities of the Syndicate Project Manager and the Council Project Managers in the administration of the contract for the past 2 months, and other upcoming activities.

Past 2 Months

1. The Syndicates legal advisors have now finalised the template Deeds of Novation that include: Software licence, Software maintenance and support, and Source code in escrow.

CGEY Legal Advisors will now tailor the Deeds to reflect the differences that exist in the back-to-back agreements that CGEY have with their sub-contractors. Fortnightly updates of progress will also be provided to the Syndicate. In the case of the Application Services Provider, Hewlett Packard, a different Deed of Novation is required. Draft being prepared by CGEY Legal Advisors for the consideration of the Syndicate.

2. Subject to the finalisation of the above, arrange Deeds of Novation to be signed by each Council, CGEY and each of their sub-contractors

3. Negotiated with Geac for the provision of data extraction services from TCS to populate Councils Online. Only Library data extraction service are yet to be engaged.

4. Due diligence undertaken to reconcile between contract Schedule 2, Specifications and the design of Councils Online. Syndicate satisfied with alignment between the Schedule 2 and design.

5. All invoices due as at 15 November approved for payment by all Councils.

Coming 2 Months

1. Based on the in principle agreement to bring forward Phases 2 & 3, review contract for potential changes in areas such as: Any contingent time being to the benefit of the Syndicate There being no cost consequences if the time contingency is exercised Deemed acceptance not being linked to UAT, conversion rehearsals or system testing Modifications to contract Schedules

There are not expected to be any cost consequences with the contract changes due to bring forward Phases 2 & 3.

2. Continue to monitor the effectiveness and completeness of the data extraction of TCS data by Geac. As further data requirements for Councils Online are understood then the extension of the Geac TCS data extraction services will be negotiated.

3. As 2 Councils do not use Geac Library systems, determine the approach to contracting services for the data extraction from the non-Geac Library systems.

4. Ensure that Deliverables are on time and of an acceptable standard before recommending payments to CGEY



Coming 2 Months

5. Progress the development and signing of the Deed of Novation

4 STREAM ACTIVITIES

The intention here is to highlight the key achievements and milestones achieved in the past 2 months, and to advise of the major milestones planned for the next 2 months.

4.1 ALL STREAMS

The following are the key activities that generally relate to all the business process streams.

Past 2 Months

1. The principle focus of the core team has been: Ongoing assessment and refinement of the applications’ configuration Preparation and delivery of CRP2 Ongoing development of test scripts and business scenarios Functional and systems testing

2. Conference Room Pilot 2 was successfully conducted with much praise going to the Councils Core Team staff regarding their demonstrated skills and knowledge of Councils Online. Feedback was gathered and is being addressed by the Core Team.

3. CGEY and the Syndicate have identified the need for a Central Implementation Team to support each Council through the cut over to live process. The Team consists of CGEY and Syndicate staff, mostly from the Core Team for Phase 1. Within each Council there will be a counterpart role to provide local support to the Central Implementation Team.

4. Phase 1 system testing is running overtime due to a number of issues such as: Delays in the development of the Chart of Accounts Delays in the development of Matman enhancements Decision to not progress the integration between Kronos and Oracle Payroll as previously

expected Amount of configuration required to Oracle Payroll as a result of difference in Councils

5. Due to Phase 1 system testing delays User Acceptance Testing has been rescheduled. The result is reorganising the testing within the planned 6 weeks with the focus on the cut over to live dates not changing.

6. Test script development and execution of functional and system tests are under way and will continue into January.

7. Data conversion preparations and rehearsals have commenced. These will now continue through to the final conversion for go live.

Coming 2 Months

1. Finalise building and system testing of Councils Online based on the finalised design evolving from all streams

2. User Acceptance Testers will take over the occupancy of the satellite office till the end of January when the Core Team for Phases 2 & 3 are expected to reoccupy. Investigate if any other accommodation is required at Wyong.

3. Commence the training of Council user acceptance testers in anticipation of User Acceptance Testing commencing December 2003.

4. Determine the most appropriate structure to design & build Phases 2 & 3 which may or may not align to the Phase 1 structure.

5. Continue with: Supporting the refinement and tracking of project progress against plan. Support risk and issue management. Support change control and defect logging and management.

6. Closely scrutinise the CGEY management of vendor activities to ensure commitments to critical timeframes and scope and quality requirements are met.



Coming 2 Months

7. Commence Phase 2 & 3 design work.

4.2 ASSETS & SUPPLY

This Stream consists of those Council activities related to the management of assets and purchasing.

Past 2 Months

1. The mega-processes that are included in this Work Stream are as follows: Asset Life-cycle Management Project Management Works Estimating Plant & Equipment Hires Asset Leasing Out Purchase to Pay Inventory & Stores Management

2. An approach to the one-to-one matching of assets in the Oracle Fixed Assets module and those held in the MatMan equipment register has been agreed. Plans also developed by most councils for the other preparatory work to ready the assets data for one-to-one matching.

3. During the past 2 months some design changes were enacted related to Assets which included: Use of Oracle Projects and Mat-Man to manage projects and work orders Ability to capture Purpose of Acquisition for Assets Single vs various overhead recovery rates for inventory Single vs variable employee on-cost recovery rates (Wyong) Self-approval of requisitions

4. Existing SPIS (special purpose information system) data that typically resides in spread sheets, MS Access data bases, MS Word and in other formats is being reviewed and formatted for conversion into MatMan and/ or Oracle by each of the Syndicate councils.

5. Champions have now been identified in each Council to have input into the ongoing management of historical assets using COL.

Coming 2 Months

1. Micro-manage the progress of the one-to-one matching of assets in the Oracle Fixed Assets module and those held in the MatMan equipment register

2. Monitor the progress of the preparation of data sourced from spread sheets, MS Access data bases, MS Word and in other formats.

3. Continue to work with each of the work streams to identify key Organisation Impacts on each of the 5 Councils

4. Train and support User Acceptance testers through User Acceptance script writing.5. Prepare for the Phase 2 & 3 design and build commencing 1 December 20036. Consider a proposal from Xcellerate IT around pre-printed stationary for the printing of cheque

remittance so as to be consistent across all Councils. Proposal may extend to fax gateway and scanning solutions.

7. Finalise design, build and system testing of delayed parts of COL.



4.3 PEOPLE

This Stream consists of those Council activities related to the management of the employees of Council from recruitment to payroll.

Past 2 Months

1. The mega-process that is included in this Work Stream is as follows: Hire to Retire

2. Work is continuing with Kronos to negotiate a more timely and appropriate delivery date for a number of custom interfaces. This has required some changes to be made to the system and integration testing.

3. Decision made to not progress the integration between Kronos and Oracle Payroll as previously expected. Oracle Payroll will be configured/ enhanced to simplify the links to Kronos and still be delivered in time for User Acceptance Testing.

4. The payroll elements mapping has identified many difference across the 5 Councils related to the various awards/ EBA’s. This has necessitated a lot of unforeseen work to establish “fast formulae” within Oracle Payroll. CGEY have brought in additional resources to address.

5. Some concerns regarding what is being delivered in COL using Intaz SafeT Smart. 40% of Intaz is now planned for delivery in Phase 1 and the balance in Phase 2. Phase 2 will contain much of the functionality that Champions had input into during the design phase.

6. Additional Syndicate resources supplied to the stream during the past 2 months to assist with the progress of Phase 1 design, build and testing.

7. Role definitions against positions finalised to support role-based training, training documentation and COL secure access.

Coming 2 Months

1. Monitor the progress to establish “fast formulae” within Oracle Payroll.2. Complete system build and testing so as to deliver all of COL for User Acceptance Testing by

early January 2004.3. Support the User Acceptance Testing of each Councils payroll run prior to each Council cutting

over to live.4. Train and support User Acceptance testers through User Acceptance script writing.5. Prepare for the Phase 2 & 3 design and build commencing 1 December 20036. Finalise design, build and system testing of delayed parts of COL.

4.4 MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

Past 2 Months

1. The mega-processes that are included in this Work Stream are as follows: Finance to Manage Cash Management to Treasury Development Contribution to Completion Information to Plan Application to Acquittal Agenda to Action Receive to Retrieve

2. The common components of the Chart of Accounts have been finalised. Work is continuing in line with a published work schedule to finalise the details of non common requirements.

3. Finance managers are working to conclude Council specific Chart of Accounts values and map these to subsidiary system values, core team have completed mapping of common elements and supplied this to Finance Champions.

4. A sample mapping of GL Chart of Accounts values to all other subsidiary systems values has been provided to champions. Each Finance Champion will now be required to map their unique GL Chart of Accounts values to all subsidiary system values.

5. Additional Syndicate resources supplied to the stream during the past 2 months to assist with



Past 2 Months

the progress of Phase 1 design, build and testing.

Coming 2 Months

1. Finalisation of the priority 2 tasks for the establishment of the complete Chart of Accounts inclusive of what is common across the Syndicate and what is unique to each Council.

2. Train and support User Acceptance testers through User Acceptance script writing.3. Prepare for the Phase 2 & 3 design and build commencing 1 December 2003

4.5 SERVICE MANAGEMENT AND CONSTITUENT INTERACTION

Past 2 Months

1. The mega-processes that are included in this Work Stream are as follows: Services to Cash Maintain to Rate Calculate to Rate Waste to Disposal Meter to Cash Enquire to Return Register to Monitor Book to Function Apply to Complete Title to Parcel Register to Inter

2. Trials data conversions have been conducted at some Councils with TCS to Pathway the primary focus.

3. Much work has been undertaken to develop Pathway letter templates. This has proven to be much larger exercise than expected.

4. Bulk purchase arrangements established by way of a joint RFQ being issued to Panel Contract suppliers for the provision of receipt printers.

5. Additional Syndicate resources supplied to the stream during the past 2 months to assist with the progress of Phase 1 design, build and testing.

Coming 2 Months

1. Train and support User Acceptance testers through User Acceptance script writing.2. Continue the development of Pathway letter templates with a view to establishing the core

templates ready for User Acceptance Testing with the balance to be completed ahead of Phases 2 & 3.

3. Prepare for the Phase 2 & 3 design and build commencing 1 December 20034. Finalise design, build and system testing of delayed parts of COL.

4.6 TECHNICAL

Past 2 Months

1. Resources for defect correction and approved changes to Phase 1 design will be identified and retained.

2. CGEY testing activities have been ongoing, specifically in relation to: Acceptance of hand over of Production hardware from HP Performance testing of infrastructure Unit and regression testing of custom developments System and Integration testing of the solution



Past 2 Months

3. Role and position data has been used to develop the security profiles for solution.4. CGEY established a working group consisting of Syndicate representatives to:

conclude design of layout and content of portal; define management approach to portal; and define the alignment of portal and intranet.

5. CGEY continue to work with HP to accelerate the network link commissioning. HP have indicated that there may now be delays with LMCC and RCC links due to the need for exchange infrastructure upgrades.

6. All production hardware has been received, staged and is currently being progressed through the operational acceptance testing.

7. The Development and Test environment is currently fully operational and is now providing the basis for assessing the performance and system tuning options for the Production system.

8. Phase 1 development items, currently identified as impacting the development effort arising from design changes and defect repair, are fully resourced.

9. Feedback from CGEY regarding integration requirements between Geographical Information Systems and Councils Online provided. Early expectations are that most, if not all, of the integration requirements will be met. Awaiting confirmation

10. NT Server Testing completed.11. Data conversion programs started. 12. Central Name & Address Register (cNAR) build well progressed. Design documents being

provided to Project Managers for further consideration. 13. Portal development continuing with more input from the Syndicate. Design documents being

provided to Project Managers for further consideration.

Coming 2 Months

1. Phase 1 custom development build to continue. This will primarily involve: Defects and Change Requests; Payroll pay rule calculations; Components reallocated from vendors to CGEY resources.

2. Continue testing activities, specifically in relation to: Acceptance of handover of Production hardware from HP Performance testing of infrastructure Unit and regression testing of custom developments Integration and System testing of the solution Support for UAT

3. Finalise security profiles and commence set-up for the solution based on role and position data.

4. Councils will continue with site specific preparation planning and execution activities.5. CGEY preparing a paper as to the relevance of the Central Name & Address Register (cNAR).6. Provide infrastructure and initial support for the infrastructure at the Wyong satellite office for

the User Acceptance Testers

4.7 ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Past 2 Months

1. Developed training documentation based on templates provided and published Oracle Tutor user documentation.

2. Site specific detailed action plans developed and will be refined and implemented at each council by the change managers and the management team as an ongoing task.

3. Based on the mapped positions and roles the initial training needs analysis has been completed. Ongoing refinement will occur.

4. CRP2 feedback has been gathered and documented. As each stream provides a response to each of their relevant item of feedback, it will be distributed to the project managers.

5. A strategy has been developed to keep the Councils Online website up to date



Past 2 Months

6. The results of the May 2003 Communications Survey at each Council have been analysed with positive results and communicated to project management

7. Communication plans are being revised and revisited by the Change Managers8. Change Advocate Network meetings continue with top 5 issues being raised9. Received Detailed Impact Statements from each stream to aid in developing Change

Management action plans10. Conference Room Pilot 1 feedback sessions have been finalised by the Change Managers

with the feedback collated and communicated to the Project Managers and Stream Leaders. This feedback is being used in planning for Conference Room Pilot 2

11. The Councils Online newsletter has been distributed to all Council staff12. Work continues on the Learning Plan13. Planning discussions around training environments have been conducted with the Database

Administrators14. Development of an Oracle Tutor strategy for business procedures and training materials has

been finalised and agreed by the Stream Leaders15. The Councils are continuing with the identification of End User Trainers along with User

Acceptance Testers, while the Stream Leaders focus on the identification of Trainers for the Train the Trainer sessions.

Coming 2 Months

1. Issue further monthly newsletters.2. Refine and implement each Council’s site specific detailed action plans by the change

managers and the management team as an ongoing task.3. Complete the training needs analysis based on the mapped positions and roles.4. Make final trainer selections and agree the training schedule.5. More detailed planning of the upcoming training will be undertaken and nominations for the

roles of trainers will be sought.6. Continue to plan and implement change initiatives.7. Councils will need to further analyse and can for changes to their unique business process.

This is outside what COL will change.

5 DELIVERABLES ACHIEVED

A fundamental tenet of the contract is that the implementation plan, acceptance of the solution and payments are all linked to the provision and sign-off of pre-determined Deliverables. It is these Deliverables that provide visibility of project progress and acceptability. As such the following provides a status of the all Deliverable due during September and October 2003.

Date Due No. Deliverables Due

No. Deliverables Outstanding

Sept 2003 5 0

Oct 2003 14 0

6 PAYMENT STATUS



The following depicts the payments made to CGEY and the amounts outstanding due to the failure to deliver contracted Deliverables and/ or the agreed postponement of Deliverables as at the end of October 2003.

Date Due Percentage of Monthly

Payment Made

Percentage of Monthly Payment

Withheld

Status of Monthly Payment Withheld

Sept 2003 100% 0%

Oct 2003 100% 0


Documents

Bi-Monthly Report to Councils - Business Papers€¦ · Web viewImplementation services related to Waste Management The Syndicate themselves may also bring about variations as they