"National Automated Fingerprint Identification System"

Event Report

[Report by John Cook, an Executive Consultant with Capgemini]

On 15 June 2004 in a Department of Computer Science lecture room at the University College London, Stephen Dines, a project manager working in the public sector, gave an illuminating talk on how we can all improve the success rate of projects we work on by learning from experience. The key point being made was that in most organisations individual project managers will learn from their own experience but, regrettably, it is far less common for organisations to create an environment whereby all of it's project managers learn from events that occurred in projects in which they had not been involved personally.

Stephen described how the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO), in which he is now employed, had conducted studies into past projects to understand why they had not delivered the benefits forecast or, if they had, what factors had contributed to their success. The results of the studies had helped formulate a 'Road Map' that provides guidance to PITO's project managers on the actions they should be considering at various stages in all projects.

Presentations to the project management community and the issue of 'lesson notices' containing short reminders or tips on good project management practice were identified as important vehicles for spreading the guidance.

Stephen concluded his presentation by describing the benefits review process that he had performed on the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System, emphasising the need for project managers not to lose sight of the real objectives of any project, that is to deliver the benefits on which the project's business case was founded.

[Report by Malcolm Bailey, Business Analyst, Management Systems, UCL]

Stephen Dines gave a thought provoking talk to group members gathered at UCL's computer centre on June 15 2004. Stephens talk pulled together the related themes of learning from experience and a project benefits review.

To do this he recounted his experiences working for the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) and in particular the lessons identified subsequent to the completion of the large scale project which delivered the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS).

Having conducted a fact finding and research study at the end of the project, prior to the team being dispersed, Stephen commented on the confessional nature of the contributions and how willing people were to share their thoughts. Having sifted, analysed and filed the lessons learnt the issue then became to how to ensure the knowledge is utilized, particularly by project managers who by their nature tend to look forwards rather than backwards.

The second half of the presentation discussed the Benefits Realization exercise undertaken 6 months after the NAFIS project go live date. More than just a PIR, this review undertaken with the system users found, amongst other things, areas of system functionality with very low usage. Thus the benefits review illustrated how resources used to deliver requirements can be wasted if the requirements are not matched to benefits prior to the system specification stage.

Stephen and the PITO are learning lessons and benefiting from hindsight. It was indeed generous of them to share their lessons with the other PROMS-G members.

The slides from this presentation are now available.