Introduction
Innovation defined by business dictionary (2015) is “process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay”. Some might say that within a community or country it is the people’s responsibility to come up with innovation ideas that will create a conductive environment for themselves and generations to come. Projects within public sector is nothing new as thousands of project are done each year, some of which fail and others bear fruit and deemed successful by the many stakeholders.
The Australian government has always conducted numerous projects for different reasons and will continue to do as they see fit, and one of the reasons is most IT project are conducted in the public sector is for innovation purposes, and just simply the existing technology is becoming obsolete or costly to maintain.
A couple of projects initiated by the public sector that were as failed projects deemed will closely be analysed as to why the failed and why they all bare similar traits as though they all had the same project manager and team.
The main project management area that will be touched on is scope management and cost management, these areas will be covered in great details exposing how when scope and cost are not managed properly can lead to project failure.
The 3 project projects to be covered are, the smartcard public transporting system known as “myki” project that was contracted back in 2005 to replace the aging and current metcard system. The second project that will be looked at is HEATHSMART, this project also involved replacing an obsolete, unsupported computer software applications with capable, industry- standard software systems to support the transformation of health care.
The final project that will be looked at is LINK, this was going to be the system to replace yet again an aging system used by the Victoria police called LEAP.
All These project had major scope creep that had a huge impact to the budget of the entire project, these projects were initiated at different times, the myki project was initiated in 2005 the HEALTHSMART was 2003 and link project was in 2007.
Nonake (1994) talks about knowledge more especially tacit and explicit, he says “Tacit knowledge could be projected as the foundation for survival whereas explicit knowledge could be viewed as the codified version of tacit for future generation to utilize as a tool for survival, in short, transition from tacit to explicit could be related to evolutionary process”. This can be translated concerning these projects, first of all explicit knowledge is easy to communicate, store, transfer and is easily retrieved the project managers and whoever that was directly involved in the project could/should have learnt from the previous projects in order to avoid the same mistakes.
Cases.
The MYKI Project.
Smartcard systems project was a step up in innovation and a benefit to how commuters use public transport, the smartcard system was convenient and efficient to use and also a self-improvement technology as it captured relevant data about how the commuters used public transport which helped in strategic planning of transport fares.
The myki project was first introduced in 2005 by the labour government, this project was to replace the already existing Victoria ticketing system called metcard that was coming to an end.
The initial budget was 988million dollars and was broken as follows:
1. $177.1 million Project delivery
2. $345.5 million 10 years of operation
3. $475.3 million Operating the Metcard system in parallel with myki during the transition, and related operating costs for the former Transport Ticketing Authority (TTA).
As part of this transition TTA was replaced by PTV and assume all responsibility TTA had.
The myki system had different components to it, the first component was the smartcard, this card works like the a bank card but with certain limitations, this card was for top up and users were to touch on and off, which would prompt the second component to calculate the fare and deduct it form the card, The devices where for top up purposes
The benefits the myki system was bring to Victoria was
Ease of use.
Convenient purchase and payment options.
Efficient operations in terms of boarding.
High-quality information for transport planning.
Increased flexibility to change and drive user patterns through differential pricing and fare.
Depute all the benefits and advantages the implementation of this system brought, the smartcard ticketing system was a complex and system to design and implement.
The project was due in July 2007 but due to multiple delays, cost issues and scope creep it was pushed back