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Project ref & title / CM04 – Customer Management Project
Programme (if applicable) / Customer Management Programme
Project Manager / Helen Quinn
Date & version / Approved 2.0 21-01-2013

This template should be used to formally close the project and to check how the project performed against its Business Case. This completed document should be submitted alongside the project’s Risk, Issue and LessonLogs. Press the F1 key on any of the shaded headings for help on what is required in each section of this template.

Document history

Date / Version / Last revised by / Details of revision
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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10/05/2012 / V1.1 / Helen Quinn / First draft in progress
18/06/2012 / V1.2a / Helen Quinn / Draft text revised following discussion at Board.
18/06/2012 / V1.2b / Caroline Knox / Title and minor formatting changes only in advance of further amendment.
15/11/2012 / V1.3 / Lynne Harvie / PF06 template in force in May 2012 has since been superceded - Information transferred to new template and lessons learned log. Overall text tidied up and some of the detailed lessons transferred to lessons learned log.
21/1/2013 / V1.4 / Helen Quinn / Amendments to V1.3
21/1/2013 / V2.0 / Lynne Harvie / Final approved version including board comments
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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1. Was the project closed early?

1.1 Yes/No

1.2 If yes, what was the reason(s) for this?

2. What outputs/products have been delivered?

Outputs from Business Case / Was this delivered? / If not, what was the main reason(s) for this?
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To deliver a customer enquiry tracking and management system (Lagan) that will allow the Council to achieve the 4 design principles laid out in the customer management programme across all services and access channels (web, text, face to face, phone, etc.) to improve responsiveness and realise cash savings / Yes
Implement a system which reduces the need for front-line staff to access multiple systems by having in place workflows and interfaces/integrations with legacy systems. / Yes / The initial phase of implementation focussed on broadly replacing the functions delivered through the old CENTRIS system. In this phase workflows and interfaces were put in place for Uniform – reducing the need for front-line staff to access the Uniform system. The system also Interfaces also with Hilight, although the previous system also had this integration. Now that the system is operational future development are planned to make a more significant impact on the number of systems in use in the contact centre.
Implement the system in accordance with the project’s time and budget constraints. / Yes
Implement the specified functionality / Partially / The main functions successfully implemented at go live were;
  • Enquiries
  • Complaints, Compliments & Comments*
  • Reporting a Fault – roads, traffic lights and street lights
  • Making a Booking – for local office appointments
  • School Clothing and Meals
  • Service Requests - integrating directly with Uniform
  • Pest Control
  • Abandoned Vehicles, Household Collection Enquiries - Missed Bins, Replacement Bins,
  • Dog Complaints,
  • Fly Tipping & Illegal Dumping
  • Discarded Needles
  • Commercial Waste Enquiries
  • Littering
  • Waste Disposal
  • Special Uplifts
  • Card Management & Concessionary Travel
The scope of the project changed during the project lifetime (e.g. Skip Hire was deemed out of scope), but by and large the required functionality has been implemented. Noted exceptions are Making a Booking and Commercial Waste. A key new function (not available in CENTRIS) was the ability to record a wider range of general enquiries across the Council and this has been delivered.
* Note: Complaints functions were implemented to specification, however once live it became clear that specification did not meet all business requirements, especially in relation to reporting.
Decommission CENTRIS and Front Line Project (FLP), if applicable.
/ Partially / The PID noted the following objectives:
  • Migration of all current CENTRIS functionality into Lagan.
  • Migration of all current FLP functionality into Lagan
  • Migration of CENTRIS and FLP data into Lagan
  • Decommissioning of CENTRIS and FLP
The project has delivered almost all of the deliverables in this scope. All functionality in Centris and FLP has been migrated to the Lagan system, with the exception of four areas (Blue Badges, Commercial Waste, Taxi Vouchers and Making a Booking).
Work has been on-going since go-live todevelop Making a Booking..
Commercial Waste is being considered as a potential procurement project
Blue Badges is dependant on work being done nationally.
All data related to the functionality transferred to Lagan has been migrated from Centris and FLP.
Although the objective here has not yet been completely met, the majority of the work to allow the systems to be decommissioned has been carried out, and plans are being made to complete the rest of the work. Decommissioning both CENTRIS and FLP remains an objective for the next stages of development.
There is an on-going implication in terms of support required for the IT Applications Support and Applications Development teams to keep these systems up and running, and to provide some level of minimal development.
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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3. How did the project perform against project RAG elements?

Please note the RAG indicators below should be assessed against agreed tolerances that should be detailed in your project’s Business Case (Section 2.10).

Project element / RAG status / Description
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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Cost / Green / Project under budget – mainly due to the team not needing Kana assistance for all of the processes planned.
Time / Green / Delivered on time
Quality / Amber / Question over fitness for purpose for some processes
Resource / Red / More IT resource was used than originally planned.
Existing resources stretched to meet deadline (Overtime required)
Scope / Amber / Not all functionality was included – key elements missing are Commercial Waste and Making a Booking
Risk
Benefits / Amber / No metrics as yet to base an assessment of benefits on at this point.
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4. What intermediate benefits have been realised immediately upon project closure?

Copy and paste into the table below each of the project’s benefits. The majority of the content for each individual benefit table should be pasted from section 2.7 in the Business Case.

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Note: The project is an enabler for the Customer Management Programme. It provides the foundations to work on to bring about the channel shift, standardisation, and shared services aims of the Programme, but on implementation will not deliver measurable benefits. Benefit realisation will be monitored and measured at Programme level and benefits gained from transferring new work into the CMS after go live will be measured and captured.

Benefit name / See note above
Measure
Baseline(s) permeasure
Target permeasure
Benefit Owner
Timescale
Programme End Benefit(s)
Performance to date
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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5. What do stakeholders think about the delivered project?

Stakeholders / Summary
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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Commissioners / The initial implementation of the system has been broadly successful. The Council is one of the largest Councils in Scotland to implement this system, and has some of the largest number of users across the UK. Fife Council was also unique in that we already had a highly bespoke CRM system in place carrying out a small number of transactions with a high degree of functionality and tailoring which needed to be delivered by the new system. Most other Councils tend to start using the “off the Shelf” functions in the system, then evolve to incorporate more complex transactions and integrations.
Fife therefore had very ambitious outcomes to achieve on day 1 of launching the new system to provide business continuity.
There have therefore been some expected teething problems in the first few weeks of using the system. Users had to move from using a system they knew inside out, to using new software which works in a very different way from the old CENTRIS system.
While there are clearly lessons to be learned from the implementation, we have successfully launched this Council wide Customer Management System, meeting the majority of original objectives.
User Feedback / Project team staff worked with groups of users shortly after go live to give intensive coaching and show them useful hints and tips. It is fair to say that user feedback was overwhelming negative during this exercise and initial feedback was that they felt the system was difficult to use, not intuitive, long-winded, error prone. This was particularly an issue for staff familiar with the CENTRIS system, and newer staff who have only used the new Lagan system were more positive about the system suggesting that some of this negativity could be as a result of this being a new system which worked in a different way from CENTRIS. E.g. Some functionality more basic than CENTRIS, issues with templates, lack of e-mail integration and tracking, templates “clunky to use”.
There were major issues around Concessionary Travel which caused real operational difficulty for EEC staff in and disruption to customers. While the functions for new cards worked well, data links to the national card system caused major issues for handling replacement cards. This increased workloads in transportation and created in a lack of confidence in the systems abilities.
Project Manager / It is too early to meaningfully judge the opinion of staff using the system – they are still going through significant change in their work brought about by the new system, they require more targeted training, and have yet to build up the confidence they had with the previous product. Would suggest reviewing this at a later date – possibly six to eight months after implementation.
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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6. What were the key lessons learned whilst delivering this project?

Situation / Nature / Recommendations/comments
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Specific project benefits were not clearly defined at the start of the project – programme benefits were defined but this was not translated into how the project would feed into the programme benefits / Mixed / Ensure all project benefits are defined in the Business Case – ensuring they are measurable and baselined. For programmes, consider appointing a Business Change Manager responsible for Benefits realisation.
Some ambiguity emerged around whether the key objective for phase 1 was simply replacing and decommissioning CENTRIS functions “as-is”, rather than establishing a much wider and more generic case management function for the Council, which could also deliver the main services in CENTRIS. / Mixed / Ensure all end objectives are clear in the Business Case, and that the Business Case is regularly reviewed by the Board and PM, and reinforced for all project staff, and users to improve quality of decision making.
Transferring the range of complex functions from our previous highly bespoke CENTRIS system to an off the shelf case management system meant at timeswe tried to get the system to deliver complex functions it was never designed to deliver (e.g. Commercial waste, card management. / Mixed / Don’t try to stretch a system beyond its core functionality (in this system – case management) and avoid over tailoring.
Don’t be afraid to take alternative approaches if it becomes clear during analysis that systems are being stretched beyond what the system is designed to do.
We should have simplified more back-end processes rather than trying to adapt the system to the Councils processes, sometimes delivering changes which would have a fairly minor impact. / negative / Empower staff to make improvements to our processes to simplify workflow, rather than over tailoring off the shelf products.
Prioritise system changes based on evidence of volume and impact.
The system suffered from reputational issues early in implementation – in part due to errors in some processes and system performance, in part due to users expecting the system to deliver processes in the same way as CENTRIS. Communication and user engagement could have been improved.
Training requirements were underestimated. / Negative / Good engagement and communication from the top down needed to inform users of end objectives, and wider benefits of programme.
Ensure/front-line expectations are realistic, functions delivered are suitable,
Consider amending project plan to extendamount of training given to ensure training needs are met.
Acknowledge any reductions in functionality but put these in context of wider and additional benefits being gained from the change. (I.e. in this case much better case management.)
Engage users early in process to ensure processes will work for them in practice.
The initial milestones in the contract had to be amended during implementation once Kana and Fife Council became more familiar with the system and our needs. There was at times a delay in documenting these changes.
Estimated effort by Kana to fulfil some milestones was insufficient leading to reduced functionality implemented. / Negative / Ensure good links and close joint working with suppliers to make best use of relative skills.
Ensure milestones are negotiated around deliveringoutcomes at agreed cost rather than a capped duration.
Overall System Performance during development and training had a serious effect on system credibility. / Negative / Try to negotiate additional technical support with Supplier with more on-site rather than remote.
Wherever possible resolve System Performance issues and errors before training users
The team composed of cross service staff working together in one location which was a very successful project structure, aiding communication, streamlining working practices andcreating team spirit. / Positive / Maximise cross team working and co-location whenever possible.
Ensure sufficient resources allocated for the lifetime of the project and targeted at where they are required.
Reporting and required PI requirements were not fully in place for go-line as focus of project team was on functionality. As a result some mythology developed about what could and couldn’t be reported. Some data capture was also not built in sufficiently to processes / Negative / Ensure MI requirements are defined and detailed as deliverables in the Business Case at outset of project and are an explicit output at the start of developing any IT system. Otherwise performance and impact will be difficult to measure.
Having 4 environments makes it complex to update process changes consistently. Handovers between environments was often incomplete causing functionality to be lost and on one occasion a link to the live database was copied on to the test system, causing live data to be updated during testing. Keeping 4 environments in synch moving forward will be a challenge. / Mixed / Consider whether 4 environments (Test, Dev, training, LIVE) are appropriate. This is a recommended technical set-up to ensure data and system integrity, but in some instances, such as the Lagan system, is not sustainable
Other local authorities use fewer for Lagan– many use only one environment – although this will come with additional risk which should be carefully managed.
PM recommends firming up on transfer procedures and reducing the number of environments in use, taking advice from both Lagan and other Councils.
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6.1 Has the full Lesson Log been submitted alongside this End Project Report?

7. What follow-on actions are required?

Actions required / By who / By when
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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PF07 Post Project Benefits Review / Iain Duncan / March 2013
Making a Booking functionality to be developed / Iain Duncan / tba
Commercial Waste – system to be procured / Environmental Services / tbc
Decommission Centris / Iain Duncan/ Craig Blyth / tba
Decommision FLP / Iain Duncan/Craig Blyth / tba
Improve complaints functionality / Rab Lindsay / April 2013
Risks
Risk of running services in FLP and Centris beyond August 2013 – paper previously put to Board
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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8. End Project Reportsign-off

Approved by / Role / Date approved
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0
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Project Board (v1.3 delegating final sign off by sponsor) / Project Board / 15/1/2013
Helen Quinn / Project Manager / 21/1/2013
Lynne Harvie / Project Sponsor / 21/1/2013
Project Approach / Page 1 of 3 / PF06-V3.0