Waterloo Regional Police Service: The Common Information Management Systems Project Law Essay Help

The Common Information Management Systems (CIMS) project reached a turning point when the system's vendor, ITG, and one of the project's partners, Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS), could not agree on numerous functional features. After a thorough examination of the issue and the available alternatives, it was suggested that the contract with ITG be maintained, with a revision of the management processes and the contentious problems.

Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) is one of the investors in Common Information Management Systems (CIMS), an information system project that is currently in its fourth year of development. The CIMS was meant to be an expansion of the WRPS's prior information system, with the goals of increasing the efficiency of WMPS operations, integrating all services, and resolving the police department's primary challenge, which is the lack of information exchange. Disputes between the project's vendor, Integrated Technologies Group (ITG), and the project partners, including the WRPS, led by Chief Larry Gravel, have halted the project at present.

The following issues have been recognized as leading to disagreements on the CIMS project:

Poor Project Management

Several points can be made under this factor, including the following:

The Canadianization argument was predicated on the fact that the company had previously worked on the PRIDE project; therefore, it was expected that the requirements would be comparable. Poor estimation of the deadline, when various facts, such as the fact that "only 9-16% of IT projects are completed on time and on budget" (MONOCHRISTOU, 2005), should have been considered. Poor correlation between schedule milestones and payment, as just two functional design specifications (FDS) have been authorized by the time fifty percent of the money has been made. Poor communication without set vocabulary conventions.

The Process of Requesting Proposals

This element involves establishing the initial project needs. The following points can be made regarding such factors:

Integration requirements that were too stringent to attract bids. Failure to change the requirements at two crucial junctures, namely when only one bid was submitted and when additional project members quit. Lengthy RFP window

The Vendor's Obligation

In the context of this project, where the following represent the most significant errors, the vendor's obligation cannot be minimized:

Without communication, terms not stated in the specification were implemented. The choice of a life-cycle model is inappropriate for this project, where models such as spiral or prototyping cycles should have been favored over the waterfall model due to the repetition of numerous stages of development and client interaction.

Criteria

WRPS should establish a number of criteria to guide the process of selecting options and deciding what steps to take when determining the next step. The following factors were discovered in this regard:

Time and Material Limitations

The selected activity should match to the partners' time availability and their financial and/or human resources. It should be emphasized that, as a result of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) abandoning the project, there is a chance that additional partners will also leave. In financial terms, it is important to examine not only future expenditures but also past investments.

The Dependence of the Partners on the Anticipated Capabilities

The selected action should take into account the partners' short- and long-term goals, as well as their dependency on the CIMS's anticipated capability. Taking CIMS out of the equation, the criteria might be rephrased as the degree to which WRPS and other partners are short- and long-term dependent on these functions.

The Danger Factor

Each of the possible action plans would have a set of risk factors that may be measured and ranked accordingly. The list of risk factors could consist of the following:

Technology evolves, rendering it obsolete before implementation. Separation of partners. The current system will become obsolete. Funding issues. Modifications to the internal or external environment.

Communication

Such a criterion is related with the project team's and development team's capacity to reach a solution that is satisfactory to all stakeholders. In this regard, the communication criterion can be understood as the capacity to reach a consensus among all stakeholders on the selected alternative plan.

Governance

Governance as a criterion is closely associated with the term effective, which refers to project management. Such a criterion signifies the team's capacity to represent the partners' demands in terms of predetermined objectives, flexibility, quality, etc.

Alternatives

Based on the previously mentioned issues and the given set of criteria, the following possibilities were discernible:

Continue the project using enhanced project management procedures. Drop the ITG contract and negotiate a new agreement with a different vendor.

The initial choice is to proceed with the project using revised project processes.

This solution entails continuing the ITG cooperation and developing a new strategy to address the existing issue.

The Benefits:

The structure is already in place. The majority of objectives and needs have been agreed upon. Developed partnerships with other police departments. Several milestones have already been reached. It requires less time to complete the project than to redo it. The financial problems are resolved, and partial payments have been made.

The Contraverse:

Existing conflicts. The possibility of delays and missed deadlines. Possibility of losing some system functionality. The budget for the project exceeds the initial costs.

The second option is to terminate the ITG contract and negotiate new terms with a new vendor.

This signifies that the contract with ITG will be terminated, a new RFP will be generated, and a new contract will be signed with a new vendor.

The Benefits:

The acquired experience will permit a more precise articulation of aims and objectives, which will be: Aligned with the WRPS's approach. Conform precisely to the requirements of the systems. Formulated in a manner devoid of interpretation. Effective IT governance based on the ITG partnership's lessons learnt. The emergence of new technology that could better fulfill WRPS's demands. The expenses, timeline, and resources are more likely to be anticipated realistically, hence improving the likelihood of expectations being met.

The Contraverse:

Investment and time losses. Due of the significant probability of partners departing the project for individual alternatives, there are funding issues (see RCMP). The option of sacrificing certain functionality in order to discover new vendors. Before the implementation of the new system, the current system may become unusable.

Recommendations

Considering the pros and disadvantages of both possibilities, as well as the original set of problems in the current scenario, it can be concluded that the best option is to remain with the current contract, attempting to resolve the current issue and jointly formulating a strategy to overcome it. The guiding premise for selecting the alternative is that being halfway through the project is preferable to starting from scratch, as the risks associated with the latter option are high. Consequently, the second alternative can be viewed as an attempt to avoid the issue rather than a solution to it.

Implementation Plan

A two-way review board should be established to examine the project management procedure. From the perspective of the CIMS partners' team, the review should focus on the following:

Prioritizing modifications to functionality based on the likelihood that they may be compromised. Establishing a group of experts to regulate the project management, with set procedures, involvement authority, and knowledge.

From the ITG's perspective, the allocated points will pertain to the proposal to alter the project's life-cycle model by mandating repeated processes.

With the aforementioned goals in mind, a meeting to settle these concerns should be convened, with representatives from each side presenting their proposals. The primary objective of the discussion should be to negotiate a settlement, specify the new terms, and establish the deadline.

The newly formed team of project management governance will be tasked with reviewing the project during its set phases, during which new processes will be included, i.e. testing and evaluation, and passing which will result in the achievement of a certain milestone.

By the completion of each module in the project, the review board will reconvene to assess the project's progress and, if required, alter the objectives, timeframe, and budget.

The same techniques will be performed until the testing phase for every component of the CIMS is complete.

Plan B

In the case the plan did not work out in its first steps, an independent group of consultants and mediators will be assigned, in which the penalty of not following the contract will be discussed with the option of selling the project as-is. In this regard, the alternative will consist of transferring the project’s unfinished rights and submitting a new bid based on continuing the project’s development, as opposed to creating a new project from scratch.

References

MONOCHRISTOU, V., VLACHOPOULOU, M., & MANTHOU, V. (2005). Methodologies for AGILE SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT. PROSPECTS OF THE GREEK IT MARKET. Web.

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