Page 4089 - Week 13 - Thursday, 2 December 2021
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placing limits on the number of vouchers available for each participant, enabling only one voucher per person to be used in a store per day, and ensuring the use of verified mobile phone numbers for participant registration. The review found that the basis of these decisions on selecting the vendor of the overall system was sound given the limited options available to deliver the economic stimulus objectives in the time frame that would make a difference to ACT small businesses.
The review supports that conducting the trial of the myDarwin product was a good idea. The review found that the risk management approach adopted during the trial was sound and that careful thought was given to the risks the program might face when being implemented in the ACT.
The review confirms that commissioning a major consulting firm during the trial to carry out a high-level threat and risk assessment across the technology was useful. And it identifies that there was a thorough follow-up of the key learnings and insights gained from the trial, with several enhancements and improvements made to the program before the June rollout.
Members will read that there are lessons identified in the review, and three recommendations are made to improve the likelihood of successfully delivering future programs where there is a key dependency on a purpose-built web-based application, particularly if a program was originally designed for a smaller number of users.
First, the review recommends that consideration be given to clarifying and strengthening the role and accountabilities of a project manager where there is a cross-ACT government initiative, particularly where there is an important information technology component. This would provide greater support to the chair of the project and the project owner.
Second, the review notes that better controlling scope is a lesson learned. It recommends that project boards are aware of the importance of ongoing control of what is and is not in scope in a project; and, related, that clear deadlines are set ahead of its delivery. This assists in ensuring that any changes to web design and functionality are timely.
Third, while the review acknowledges that the myDarwin program had operated successfully without known issues or incidents, that it represented good value for money, that decision-making around choosing it was sound, and that there had been the benefit of the threat and risk assessment undertaken during the trial on the technology side of the program, a high-level independent expert technical verification of the broad fitness for purpose of the web-based application would also have been useful.
While the review notes that it is difficult to determine whether additional testing would have identified the root causes of the issues which materialised, this verification of the program may have revealed some of the technical issues which were faced when the system was under considerable load. Importantly, it would have assisted in defining and controlling scope. As a result of these lessons learned, the
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