Business Process Management Essay: DTA Case Study Analysis And Findings.

Organizational background

Describe about the Business Process Management for Case Study of DTA.

This study will mainly focus on a case study of DTA which is known as The Department of Transitional Assistance. The goal of DTA is to assist low-income personnel and families to meet their regular needs by increasing their incomes and enhancing their quality of life. DTA is situated within the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. This department mostly makes sure that the emergency and intermediary needs of the individuals and families of Commonwealth are met through an amalgamation of national and state funded programs. This department is divided into four areas which are field operations, change management, research-planning and evaluation and administration & finance (Kerzner 2013). Therefore, it is evident that this organization regularly handles a huge amount of data of their customers. In order to maintain their operations more frequently and flawlessly, DTA was planning to improve their information technology system. The provided case study deeply sheds light on this process of the organization. However, through the case study, it was seen that the organization mostly took some worst decisions during the project. It not only hampered the progress of the project but also hurt the organization as most of the employees quit their jobs. Primary objective of this study is to analyze the case study and to find out in which areas the department took the right decisions and in which paths they took wrong decisions (Schwalbe 2015). Besides, the entire information about the project will also be mentioned in this study.

The Department of Transitional Assistance or DTA is known as an Executive Branch agency that operates from the state’s Health and Human Service branch. This organization is located in the US in the North East region. Employees of this organization are responsible for developing procedure applications for welfare benefits, track beneficiary, inquiry policy rules, issuing cards for electronic benefits and scanning finger prints. With time, understanding federal social services and rules and regulations related to it have become extremely complex. Several policy changes are introduced by the federal government at least four times a year. These changes in turn affect most of the existing rules and regulations. In order to make possible the methods of eligibility determinations, social workers concentrate in some federal and state service programs administered by the organization. Those programs are aid to families with dependent children, child care, emergency shelter and services to homeless individuals, employment services program and supplemental security income (Grefen, Pernici and Sánchez 2012).

Functional units and processes

DTA mainly includes four important units that are Field and eligibility Operations, Administration and Finance, Management related to policy, procedure and programs and Management Information System (MIS). DTA also has forty domestic offices across the state (Chia 2013). Support is also provided through one or more than one programs to more than 500,000 state residents.  Functions of each unit is hereby mentioned below,

Field Operations and eligibility: This unit of the organization operates within the local offices and monitors services that are centralized and directly supports domestic operations. Those domestic offices are responsible to providing reimbursement and services to eligible families and persons (Binder 2016).

Policy, procurement and program management: This division of the organization is responsible for interpreting, establishing and writing requests to Central Administrative agencies.

Administrative and Finance: This unit of the company oversees all fiscal and managerial functions within the organization (Meng 2012).

MIS: This unit monitors all computerized functions within the department that includes essential technical infrastructure that can support those functions. MIS unit of DTA is also divided in five groups including team of analysts, team for development, team of telecommunication, team for providing support in production and the project (Teller, Kock and Gemünden 2014).

In this structure, the analysis team is responsible for responding to requests that are generated by the business groups within that department. This team also translates requirements of the business into technical specifications for the team of development (Braglia and Frosolini 2014).

The team of development mainly develops, maintains and designs applications. These applications contain a total of 27 mainframe systems and 35 personal computer systems. In order to maintain all the hardware and software communications the department mainly spends just about $1 million (Too and Weaver 2014).

Production assistance unit includes control of manufacture, help desk of MIS, center for consumer support and unit of security services. This unit also oversees the processing of the department’s nightly production of 275 jobs and the jobs that are processed off-site at the state data processing center. On the other hand, help desk of MSI supports all systems users by providing technical solutions. According to Svejvig and Andersen (2015), in the year of 1995, MIS help desk was responsible for responding to more than 8,000 telephone calls and nearly 500 in store requests. Consumer support centers mainly give away training and support related to personal computers to all departmental employees. Unit of security services provides safety clearance to the departments WAN and LAN (Menzies et al. 2013).

Organizational structure and design

The department works under the supervision of the commissioner who is appointed by the state governor. When a project begins, deputy commissioner reports to the commissioner who also belongs from the field of Eligibility Operations just like the commissioner. All other four divisions of the department that are mentioned above are the responsibility of assistance commissioners. Assistance Commissioners report to deputy commissioner. However, some times, assistant commissioners also report to the commissioner directly. Commissioners and deputy commissioners are normally appointed within the organization itself. However, assistant commissioners are appointed from outside of the organization and have no previous experience in social services (Pitsis et al. 2014).

In the year of 1993, the organization recruited a tiny group of contractors to help plan the project. In case of the department side, the group that was responsible for the planning for planning included senior managers and project managers. The CASE tool was utilized in order to capture the goal of the project, critical factors for achievement and organization-wide data and process model.  The scope of the project was described; however, it did not take into account any projected costs or comparisons with the approved budget. On the other hand, the Assistant Commissioner did not even hire software architects and data architects and for this reason the preliminary data model was never tested properly or never undergoes any quality assurance process (Unger et al. 2012).

With the initial structure the social workers faced tremendous dilemmas in their operational activities. The major issues that have been identified are the repeated cultivation of the ever changing policies so that they can efficiently identify the eligibility of any individual in terms of receiving benefit. Therefore, it can be observed that the initial structure was immensely time consuming as well as tiring for the social workers (Bowers and Khorakian 2014). The case study effectively identifies that the initial problems with the structure critically limited the ability of the social workers with regards to service provision to general populace. With the ever rising complexities of the policies, the significance of the initial structure gradually became obsolete. In this context, the service providers exclusively needed a certain degree of automation.

Considering this particular facet the division required to make the system more capable. This particular stress-free environment would be highly helpful for them as they would be able to track client contacts with more easily. In addition to that, the system needed to be able to calculate the financial benefit with less support and greater efficiency. Although the effort of the division came fruitful as they got access of bridging networks of systems, the systems were highly backdated and difficult (Teller and Kock 2013). The basic programs of the system was designed and documented in a very poor fashion. Therefore, the social worker came to face similar problems with the existing system. In addition to that, the updating activity with the simple policy change along with the continuous maintenance became another major issue of the social workers. Therefore, it is evident that the division was in dire need of redesigning of the structure.

Need for redesign

Project vision

The main vision of the project was to put into practice a multilevel client-server architecture that would not depend on the mainframe computers of the state. The organization wanted to develop multi level client-server architecture in order to develop an approach that includes a client and a number of servers that are connected with each other through a single network and special software. As this architecture is extremely helpful in developing a communication between client and server, the organization expected that it would provide the most flexible framework for using technologies. In figure 3, an example of multi level server where the server includes Database Management System (DBMS) sever and application server (Zeng et al. 2015).

The project was executed to meet some requirements of the organization. Those requirements or goals are hereby mentioned below,

It was expected that after the successful completion of the project, all beneficial calculations related to the department’s policies and procedures will be done. DTA also expected that it would minimize or eliminate the risk of errors substantiality (Reich, Gemino and Sauer 2012).

The project was also expected to allow the social workers to provide single point of contact to clients. Social workers would be able to do that as they would be able figure out eligibility of all programs.

It was also expected that reporting would be enhanced by allowing the department to access important information that could implement cost savings and maximization of revenue. After the project, the department was expected to provide a better financial accountability along with improved knowledge in response to advocate challenges and court reviews.

Through the project, the organization wanted to have an improved and enhanced boundary with the state’s Medical Agency’s knowledge system along with the state’s Revenue Department’s Child Support System (Chih and Zwikael 2015).

Another foremost goal of the project was to make possible direct deposits and electronic advantage relocate.

The project scope was to automate more than 60% o the department’s processes and implementing an upgraded database that can include more than 70% of the department’s data. Another scope of the project was to deliver an incorporated process and data model that can become handy for issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the purpose of design and establishment of the project within a certain period which is eleven months (Pritchard and PMP 2014).

The project structure was developed in a way that before Broad Agency Announcement all the project members can be trained in the information method by using ADW (Active Data Warehousing) CASE tool. However, the structure of the project had some flaws and as a result the project did not have required staffing. It was required to have an encyclopedia manager to monitor and manage the nine BAA CASE tool encyclopedias and to establish an organization wide encyclopedia. Later in the year of 1993, first encyclopedia manager was hired. However, until 1994, data architect was not hired (Valitov and Sirazetdinova 2014).

Project vision

The organization made sure that the data architect who was hired had ample amount of experience in data modeling. However, it was required to hire another second data architect. Thus, the organization recruited another data architect who had MBA in MIS and worked for the department in the past. This second data architect was trained about data modeling in a very short period of time. Later in November of 1994, an application architect was hired. However, just like the other applicant, he also realized that the process model was a muddle. The project was such a mess that contractors who were hired as facilitators ran the BAAs. Only the facilitator got the opportunity to work on a project that was somehow similar near the scale of the project (Fernández-Diego 2013).

People who were working to monitor the BAAs were expected to deliver CASE tool encyclopedias that included an integrated process and data model. Besides, a number of sub-phases were also expected to publish as formal documents. The organization added lots of documents such as pre-scope document, document related to data model, document for final evaluation, an introduction design capacity document and a preliminary design document. Documentation amenities related to the CASE tool were extremely cumbersome and slow. Normal documents were from about 50 pages to 100 pages which were evidently quite big. However, some other documents were even bigger and as a result; users were unable to read them properly. In spite of being lengthy and big, the staff was pressured to develop all the documents within the time which was only 1 day for each document. As a result, contractors had to extra 10-20 hours a week in order to develop all the models and documents. On the other hand, the assistant commissioner absolutely refused to provide any overtime for extra payment for during the project (Hillson and Simon 2012).

Encyclopedias inspected and revealed documents that included the models according to their quality. Those models were mainly ranged from completely unusable to partially usable for design. Technical director of the organization asked that the models must be fixed between a certain times which was another hectic job to do. On the other hand, BAA02 which was the Eligibility Determination business area constantly made a poor progress. As a result, the project management team became concerned as this part of the business was the root of the project. The project management team thought that as the main portion of the project is going slow, the entire project will be affected (Marcelino-Sádaba et al. 2014).

When the project progressed it became evident that the estimations that were taken were actually far from reality. However, when the schedules were offered to the executive staff it exhibited that all the tasks except BAA02 was completed within the schedule. Besides, on the other hand, the quality of the models and impractical estimations started to impact negatively on most of the project staff. Motivation of the employees started to fall down. In the end, it was seen that the organization lost almost 30% of its staff within one and half year. These challenges and problems of the project mostly affected the newer project members. These newer project members were comparatively new and most of them had a normal and formal education in system development process (Teller, Kock and Gemünden 2014).

Request for proposal (RFP) was released in 1994 with a purpose of choosing a vendor who will sign a contract in order to provide a pilot application by November 1996. In the RFP, it was mentioned that a fixed-price contract will be signed by the winning vendor. However, later it was revealed that this fixed-price contract was only the two third portion of the total procedure.  The winner had to undergo a scoring mechanism. This scoring mechanism was mostly based on whether the contractor had any previous FAMIS development experience or not. This system was also implemented to understand whether this vendor have done this type of architecture in the past or not (Karlsen et al. 2015).

On January 31, 1995, the organization received two proposals, where both of the vendors were two of the largest IT consulting firms in the world. Both those farms had the experience of delivering FAMIS system recently. On the other hand, one of those vendors suggested absolutely same solution that the organization was looking for. However, the other vendor suggested that changes must be done in mainframe system. Both the departments knew that the organization will spend a fix amount of $32 million for the project. Vendor who had a slightly lower bid won the contract. However, during official communication with the winning vendor, the project management team of the organization decided to hide that the analysis models were being changed for that the vendors bid for. As result, the winning vendors lost their room for interpretation. The project management team also made sure that no project personnel can communicate with the winning vendor in order to keep the information secret (Teller and Kock 2013).

As a first step of the project, a project office was leased near the main office of the department. Design process was started to develop in August 1995. Right after the beginning of process design, contractor of information technology realized that he is working on a changed data model and a poor quality method model. Therefore, the project manager of the department and technical director asked the application architect of the department to figure out a fix for the process model. It was estimated that to fix the current model it would take nearly thousand hours. However, all the senior management personnel of the department expected that the winning vendor will use their own analysts in the fixing method (Cagliano, Grimaldi and Rafele 2015).

The entire project has been conducted through lots of ups and downs as well as several major phases. The entire progression of the project has marked several benchmarks, which are most crucial for the success of the project. First of all the initial step was the declaration of Federal Government to be spending a prestigious amount of funding on FAMIS system in the year of 1992. The next major step was employing small group of contractors to facilitate a robust planning of the project including significant set of goals, assumptions as well as scope of the project (Pekkinen and Aaltonen 2015). After that, the project has been staffed with trained employees including encyclopedia manger, data architect as well as application architect.

The next step was the analysis step which included developing numerous sub-phase oriented lengthy documents such as pre-scope document, pre-design scope document, as well as pre-design document. The final step of the analysis phase was entailed with the submitting a request for proposal (Dey 2012). The contractor has been employed to provide a FAMIS certified certificate in 20 million dollars.  However, due to misleading activities of department the working relationship between the vendor and the department got poisonous. As a result, the vendor nullified the contract after a long negotiation as well as bitterness. After nullification of these contracts the department made a second contract with new contractors in the year of 1996. The core application of the department is being developed by Forte at the current date.

Dealing with failure and external IT firms

It has been effectively identified from the case study that the department had no contingency plan in case of dealing with the external IT firms. The department had no prior experiment to work with the external solution firm. In addition to that, it has been also identified that the management of the project has been downright misleading from the very beginning of the contract with the external IT vendor. As the project development process had no transparency the confusion as well as bitterness started to rise from very early period. The long period of working eventually reduced the employee strength up to 30% of the initial strength. In response to the departments misleading activities, the vendors also stopped to cooperate with the department. As an end result, the entire project developing activity turned out to be a battlefield of ego between the departments and vendors. Both the parties are least interested to resolve the issues. In addition to that, the department intentionally did not cooperate to produce an effective communication channel (Hopkinson 2012). Therefore, after long bitterness the contract development project had been nullified and the department faced severe challenges of low morality.

In this context, the department has wasted a long time to employ second contractors. In addition to that, they were not also interested to stay on their previous goal. They did not identify the major problem which was lack of transparency as well as the communication channel (Kendrick 2015). They attempted to initiate their system issue with second graded reusable solution. It can be easily observed that the activities considering the interaction with external firms as well as crucial challenges were immensely unprofessional and irrelevant.

It was expected that, when the system would be fully developed, it will automatically shut down the old mainframe computers and will be able to use the system to respond to the changes of the policy. However, the main barriers of this project management system will be seen when staffs will be unable to use this new system as they have no training related to it. Therefore, it is important that the contractors should deliver a recognized and maintainable design and accomplishment. However, it is also true that it will not be easy to maintain the system unless MIS staff is not trained in object-oriented designs with the help from outsourcing organization. Therefore, the risk is high that the organization is going to replace an old maintainable system with an unmentionable new system (Bowers and Khorakian 2014).

From the entire project which is learnt through the case study, it is evident that the organization had no contingency plans for enduring the project after division of the relationship with the first contractor (Hopkinson 2012). All the project work was stopped while the department’s management pondered the next step. The situation was extremely critical; however, the organization continued to give pressure to resume the project growth.  In the end of the project, a lot of information was found from where the organization can learn a lot of things and can clear their path for future project (Zhao, Hwang and Phng 2014).  Those things are hereby mentioned below.

It was found that the process that was used for the project was extremely undependable. The project was committing to a budget based only on superficial look atadditional state systems. On the other hand, most of the budget was exhausted in the early stage of the project and there was no plan B to deal with such troubles. In the future, if the organization wants to redevelop this project, then they will have to establish a risk management plan initially to deal with unexpected problems. It will not only allow the company to save time and money but will also help the project management team to execute the project without any worry (Dey 2012).

On the other hand, the eleven months schedule was extremely unrealistic. The MIS group was true forced to complete a task under an extremely aggressive schedule where they had no experience at all about how to use information engineering methodology. If the organization could implement an independent assessment of the schedule then they could identify many tasks that were not possible to complete within the given schedule (Tysiak 2014).

Besides, it was also seen that the department had serious problems while retaining qualified technical people. However, it is known that this type of situation is extremely common in the Government. However, the department took several actions to deal with this situation that exacerbated the retention problem (Manotas-Niño et al. 2015). On the other hand, department stopped to recruit system architect and data architect that caused more issues in the project. In order to make the project a successful one in the future, the department will have to upgrade their recruitment system so that qualified and experienced people can join the organization for the purpose of the project (Alhawari et al. 2012).

For any project the most important method is risk management process. Through the case study, it is seen that the department absolutely had no risk management plan in their project management. On the other hand, the users received no warnings about any potential downfall (Kendrick 2015). 

In the project, problems related to RFP evaluation criteria also existed. RFP tried their best to gather past information o the vendors’ whoever, this principle was not enough to achieve the goals. The goal was to figure out whether the key personnel were actively connected to the similar project or not and whether those projects were a success or not. However, they could only figure out the participation and could not figure out whether it was a success or not. This must be changed in the future by collecting more information about the vendors. The department will have to find out that participating vendors have worked under a successful project or not (Pekkinen and Aaltonen 2015).

The project was never given an administrator permission to put an industry reengineering course in place. In place of that, the project actually got “do what you can do” type of orders from the commissioner. The most negative factor in the process was its informality. No one was there to monitor the enterprise-wide level of business methods that were paramount for an optimal reengineering effort. As a result, a lot of time was lost while doing negotiations between different business functions (Rabechini Junior and Monteiro de Carvalho 2013).

Conclusion

In the end, it can be concluded that the organization while doing the project took everything for granted and did not implement proper strategies. The organization did not hire qualified and experienced employees and architects in the company for managing the project. They hired vendors for managing the projects also; however they decided not to reveal system problems that existed in the organization. Their systems were flawed and they changed the system without telling anything about it to the vendors and this created more  problems. On the other hand, the schedules that were created as estimated time for completing each work in a project were too narrow to complete. It was impossible for the project team to complete the tasks within that time frame. Besides, the management of the organization never thought that the new system will be a headache for the employees as they had no idea about this new system. The management did not implement any training session in the organization to educate the staffs about the new system. They also did not ask any external organization to do the same for them. Therefore, it was inevitable that the employees will not be able to maintain the system in the initial stages and in turn the management will face several issues related to it. Therefore it can be said that DTA could not implement proper strategies and support to its vendors to complete the project in a successful manner.

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