I’m pleased to say that one of my recent blog articles has been published on “Techwell.com”, where I have contributed as a guest author. I’d love to hear what you think, so please take a look and add a comment on the site.
Excerpt:
“The United Kingdom government has reportedly saved £490 million (approximately 788 million USD) of information and communication technology (ICT) and digital spending in just six months, representing around 2.4 percent of its ICT budget.
In these austere times, figures like this should be welcomed. However, the question has to be asked—How were these figures achieved? Certainly, it seems that significant savings have been made by re-negotiating service contracts with key suppliers.
There is evidence too that the government is under pressure to deliver more with less on projects. The UK government published a Major Project Approval Process in April 2011, which aims to achieve a “step-change in spending control” by strengthening the government’s project appraisal and selection processes. Perhaps we can assume that better scrutiny of potential IT projects will weed out those unlikely to deliver benefits and those likely to overrun and exceed their budgets.
Both of these things seem—at face value—extremely positive. What seems even more positive is that the Major Project Approval Process specifically requires that a business case is produced—including an assessment of the business need, and detailed guidance on how to produce business cases is provided. This focus on up-front enterprise analysis—a core business analysis skill, as outlined in A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge—can only be a good thing, right?
Well—yes and no. It is excellent that the UK government has introduced stricter controls for all of its major projects, but it is extremely disappointing to see that the role of the business analyst (BA) is strangely absent in the mandated guidelines and policy manuals. In fact, the business case guidance document goes so far as to suggest “key participants” for various workshops…article continued below…“
Click on the link below to read the rest of the article. Enjoy!
http://www.techwell.com/2012/12/uk-government-jeopardizing-its-major-projects