Completion Report
Project Summary
This project was initiated to identify and deliver key enhancements to ABS and IS Apps-developed applications within Finance's FIS team.
In order to enable Support to focus on 'Keeping the Show on the Road' activities, it was agreed that a number of small enhancements were be taken forward under this project. This project divided the enhancements into separate batches, and delivered as many enhancements as possible within the allocated budget. While the focus was on ABS applications, there was also to be some small changes to software developed in IS Apps.
Enhancements was tracked via Jira, with a Jira issue for each item. The full list of enhancements was prioritised using the MOSCOW system. The enhancements were re-prioritised and selected prior to the start of each new batch, to enable flexibility and accommodate changing priorities.
Scope
| Scope from Brief | Scope status |
|---|---|
|
This project had a fixed budget of 50 days. (NB: the previous year’s Essential Enhancements project fixed budget was 128 days). |
The project budget was increased to 65 days on 18-Nov-2016 (see Change 3). The project budget was increased to 97 days on 18-May-2016 (see Change 5). The project was suspended in Nov 2016 and unsuspended with an increase to 114 days in June 2017 |
| Those enhancements agreed to be within project scope will be prioritised by the FIS team, in discussion with IS Apps. Any enhancements that are not delivered by the close of this project will be rolled over into the project for next year. |
A number of enhancements had not been included in project scope. Their Jiras were kept open in this project for later transfer to a future Essential Enhancements project. It was however agreed not to have an Essential Enhancements project in 2016/17 and as a result:
|
| Additional enhancement requests may be added at any time during the project. However, each addition must be agreed by the Project Sponsor before being added to the project list. As each new batch begins, the full list will be reassessed and re-prioritised, to determine which should be included in the new batch. | Business priorities continued to change at each monthly meeting throughout the project. |
| Requests for system fixes are outwith the scope of this project. These should continue to be raised as UniDesk calls, and addressed under Finance's Support budget. | Some items were raised both as UniDesk calls and as project Jiras. These were reviewed by the project team, and decisions taken as to how each should be taken forward. (pre SEP process) |
Deliverables
| Deliverable from Brief | Deliverable status |
|---|---|
| Prioritised list of enhancements | Delivered |
| Fully defined requirements for each high priority enhancement | Delivered |
| Prioritised batches of enhancements | Delivered |
|
For each batch approved for action:
|
Delivered (but see Outstanding Issues section, below) |
Schedule
| Target date from Brief | Milestone from Brief | Milestones added since Brief approved | Delivery date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Sep-2015 | Brief approved | 30-Sep-2016 | |
| 30-Oct-2015 | Confirm priorities; Agree Batch 1 enhancements | 30-Oct-2015 | |
| Complete Batch 1 | 17-Dec-2015 | ||
| Confirm priorities; Agree Batch 2 enhancements | 17-Dec-2015 | ||
| Complete Batch 2 | 22-Apr-2016 | ||
| Confirm priorities; Agree Batch 3 enhancements | 22-Apr-2016 | ||
| 01-Jul-2016 | Delivery of final enhancements batch | 12-Jul-2016 | |
| 15-Jul-2016 | Deployment Sign-off Review of final enhancements batch | 27-Jul-2016 | |
| 22-Jul-2016 | Closure SIgn-off Review | 27-Jul-2016 | |
| post-Closure Batch 4 delivery | 17-Aug-2016 | ||
| post-Closure Batch 4 deployment sign-off | 23-Aug-2016 | ||
| post-Closure Batch 4 closure | 02-Sep-2016 | ||
| 24-Jun-2017 | Outstanding Issues - Closure | FPM v2.3 Configuration on Dev Environment | 24-Jun-2017 |
| 24-Jun-2017 | Outstanding Issues - Closure | FPM - International Bank Validation - Change of Hosting | Superceded - FIN118 eFin Upgrade |
Analysis of Resource Usage:
- Staff Usage Estimate: 50 days
- Staff Usage Actual: 112 days
- Staff Usage Variance: 124%
Explanation for variance:
- The project budget was increased to 65 days on 18-Nov-2016 (see Change 3).
- The project budget was increased to 97 days on 18-May-2016 (see Change 5).
- The project was suspended in Nov 2016 and unsuspended with an increase to 114 days in June 2017
- Project budget was reviewed at the point of un suspension in June 2017. It has been agreed to close the project as further budget has not been allocated and there is potential conflict with FIN118 eFIN Upgrade.
Key Learning Points:
Within the first part of this project issues were encountered in the deployments of the eTime changes to Test and Live. The eTime Developer had indicated that these were largely due to Tomcat upgrades to the eTime server, which had apparently failed to follow the eTime deployment documentation, with the result that issues were subsequently encountered in the project's deployments. The recommendation at the time was that a developer should be included in future Tomcat upgrades.
The project as a whole had a priority of 2, but some of its requirements were either Compliance or had extremely high monetary or reputational impact.
Project remained suspended for some time awaiting successful patches. For future projects it should be considered whether a project needs to remain open for this work as the majority can be covered by Apps Man and ABS. Finance requested the project stay open in the instance so there was higher confidence in securing the requires Apps resources when needed but it should not be the case that a project is needed to do minor work (i.e. less than 5 days and low risk).
The PM and/or the Programme Manager should be asked and ensure that the relevant Apps resources are available prior to the final confirmation with ABS, this should not delay the overall process and will ensure that the work can progress smoothly.
Outstanding issues:
While further project Jiras do exist, these items were not selected, by this project, for inclusion in a delivery batch and therefore remain open. These will be reviewed on a case by case basis and aligned to Service Excellence.
FPM v2.3 was rolled out to DEV and TEST, it was agreed in August 2017 that due to external consultant availability it would not be possible to move to LIVE until Oct 2017 at the earliest. It was felt there was a conflict with FIN118 eFIN Upgrade and therefore it was decided to close this project and review with the Project Manager for FIN118 prior to any decision on progression. Before this could be undertaken it was agreed FPM v2.3 would not be made live and the focus would be shifted to move to FPM v2.4 and push the majority of developments into this version of FPM.
Experian has agreed to provide a temporary BW3 licence to cover the period up to the completion of the upgrade to eFinancials and FPM to ensure there are no issues with the bank validation licence.
As this project has no budget and there is a strong alignment the Jiras have been allocated to FIN120 Fraud Protection (https://www.jira.is.ed.ac.uk/browse/FIN120-1 / https://www.jira.is.ed.ac.uk/browse/FIN120-2 / https://www.jira.is.ed.ac.uk/browse/FIN120-3).
The project now requires to be formally closed by WIS.