Department of Finance administers the Act.
Resource Management glossary - proper use
Last updated: 13 January 2016
Showing posts with label FMAA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FMAA. Show all posts
2018/07/23
FMAA s44, now PGPA s 15, 'proper use':
The Financial Management and Accountability Act (FMAA) was replaced by the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act (PGPA)
Department of Finance administers the Act.
Resource Management glossary - proper use
Department of Finance administers the Act.
Resource Management glossary - proper use
2013/02/26
Unsolicited Advise to a classmate
I've never been a politician, managed a large budget or run even a moderate sized project, so why do I have the hubris to offer some unsolicited advice to a newly minted I.T. Minister, to whom by accident, I was once briefly a classmate?
Rejecting these thoughts "because nobody else is doing them" is an option, though not a great reason.
Rejecting them "because they're too expensive" is a judgement call, but has to be measured against "Compared to What?".
Doing nothing will cost you a whole bunch, you've already have the report on that.
The core arguments in support of my observations are:
Rejecting these thoughts "because nobody else is doing them" is an option, though not a great reason.
Rejecting them "because they're too expensive" is a judgement call, but has to be measured against "Compared to What?".
Doing nothing will cost you a whole bunch, you've already have the report on that.
The core arguments in support of my observations are:
- How important to the current and future BackOffice and FrontOffice operations of your Government is I.T.? I suggest that the machinery of Government cannot operate without it I.T. systems, not simply ineffectively, but like airlines, not at all.
- There is an internal consistency in what I propose, derived from one of the toughest businesses around. The challenge is not "will this work", but "how can it be made to work for us".
2010/09/12
Business Metrics and "I.T. Event Horizons"
Is there any reason the "Public Service", as we call paid Government Administration in Australia, isn't the benchmark for good Management and Governance??
Summary: This piece proposes 5 simple metrics that reflect, but are not in themselves pay or performance measures for, management effectiveness and competence:
Summary: This piece proposes 5 simple metrics that reflect, but are not in themselves pay or performance measures for, management effectiveness and competence:
- Meeting efficiency and effectiveness,
- Time Planning/Use and Task Prioritisation,
- Typing Speed,
- Tool/I.T. Competence: speed and skill in basic PC, Office Tools and Internet tools and tasks, and
- E-mail use (sent, read, completed, in-progress, pending, never resolved, personal, social, other).
2010/02/27
ICT Productivity and the Failure of Australian Management
Prior Related Posts:
Quantifying the Business Benefits of I.T. Operations
The Triple Whammy - the true cost of I.T. Waste
Force Multipliers - Tools as Physical and Cognitive Amplifiers
I.T. in context
Alan Kohler and Robert Gottleibsen have been writing in "Business Spectator" about the relationship between jobs and Economic Productivity.
They note that the USA has improved productivity in the last year while in Australia it has declined (+4% and -3% respectively). My take on this is: a gross Failure of Australian Management.
There is solid research/evidence that "ICT" is the single largest contributor to both partial and multi-factor Productivity, and is expected to be so for the next 20 years. This is an big issue.
Quantifying the Business Benefits of I.T. Operations
The Triple Whammy - the true cost of I.T. Waste
Force Multipliers - Tools as Physical and Cognitive Amplifiers
I.T. in context
Alan Kohler and Robert Gottleibsen have been writing in "Business Spectator" about the relationship between jobs and Economic Productivity.
They note that the USA has improved productivity in the last year while in Australia it has declined (+4% and -3% respectively). My take on this is: a gross Failure of Australian Management.
There is solid research/evidence that "ICT" is the single largest contributor to both partial and multi-factor Productivity, and is expected to be so for the next 20 years. This is an big issue.
2009/09/05
Why Yet Another ReOrganisation won't improve the Public Service
The Rt. Hon. Ken Rudd PM has suggested on the News that he'll be seeking to improve the Federal Public Service. There's talk of a special Centre at the ANU to train people up too.
Rudd might end up with a bunch of tests, metrics and new programs & processes, but I can guarantee it won't amount to a hill 'o beans. The one thing known about Bureaucracies is their ability to Resit Change.
Read C. N. Parkinson ("Parkinsons Law" etc) for a view from the 1950's and some definitive economic analysis of the ultimate Bureaucracy: The UK's Ministry of Defence. After WWI, ships and fighting men - the essence of the Navy - declined dramatically. The Bureaucracy 'running' them increased overwhelmingly...
Why? Because the primary purpose of Bureaucracies is themselves, not producing outcomes.
Rudd might end up with a bunch of tests, metrics and new programs & processes, but I can guarantee it won't amount to a hill 'o beans. The one thing known about Bureaucracies is their ability to Resit Change.
Read C. N. Parkinson ("Parkinsons Law" etc) for a view from the 1950's and some definitive economic analysis of the ultimate Bureaucracy: The UK's Ministry of Defence. After WWI, ships and fighting men - the essence of the Navy - declined dramatically. The Bureaucracy 'running' them increased overwhelmingly...
Why? Because the primary purpose of Bureaucracies is themselves, not producing outcomes.
2008/11/30
Finance, FMAA & ANAO and Good Management: Never any excuse for repeating known errors
In light of the Sir Peter Gershon's Review of the Australian Government’s use of Information and Communication Technology, here's an email I sent to Lindsay Tanner (Finance Minister) prior to the 24-Nov-07 election of the Rudd ALP government. Edited lightly, formatting only.
Here is something very powerful, but simple to implement & run, to amplify your proposed review of government operations and can be used to gain a real advantage over the conservative parties. On 8-Nov I wrote a version via the ALP website.
Headline:
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:02:40 +1100 From: steve jenkinTo: lindsay.tanner.mp@aph.gov.au Subject: Finance, FMAA & ANAO - Good Management: Never any excuse for repeating known errors
Here is something very powerful, but simple to implement & run, to amplify your proposed review of government operations and can be used to gain a real advantage over the conservative parties. On 8-Nov I wrote a version via the ALP website.
Headline:
The Libs talk about being Good Managers, but they have been asleep at the wheel for the last 10+ years.
It's not "efficient, effective or ethical" to allow public money to be wasted by repeating known mistakes.
Nothing new needs to be enacted - only the political will to demand Good Governance from bureaucrats and the 'ticker' to follow through.
2008/11/29
Gershon Report - Review of Australian FedGovt ICT
The Gershon Review is good solid stuff that doesn't rock the boat, doesn't challenge current methods & thinking, nor show deep understanding of the field.
It has a major omission - it addresses ICT inputs only.
ICT is useful only in what it enables others to do or improve - measuring & improving ICT outputs is completely missing from 'Gershon'.
It doesn't examine the fundamentals of ICT work:
Gershon doesn't address outstanding issues of the IT Profession:
Aviation is controlled by ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau, previously Bureau of Air Safety Investigation [BASI]) and CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority). The USA's FAI publishes hard data on all aspects of Aviation - and mostly they improve on every measure every year. This isn't just due to the march of technology - the figures for 'General Aviation' (as opposed to Regular Passenger Transport) plateaued decades ago... This is solid evidence that Aviation as a Profession takes itself seriously - and that commercial operators in one of the most competitive and cut-throat industries understand the commercial imperative of reducing Known Errors.
Aviation shows that profession wide attention to Learning and Improvement isn't just about Soft benefits, but translates into solid business fundamentals. You make more money if you don't repeat Know Errors/Mistakes.
ATSB investigates incidents and looks for Root Causes.
CASA takes these reports and turns them into enforceable guidelines - with direct penalties for individuals, groups and organisations. CASA is also responsible for the continual testing and certification of all licensed persons - pilots, Aircraft Engineers, ...
There are 4 specific areas Gershon could've included to cause real change in the IT Profession - to start the inculturation of Learning & Improvement and the flow-on business gains.
Federal Government accounts for 20% of total Australian IT expenditure. It is the single largest user and purchaser of IT - and uniquely positioned to redefine and change the entire IT profession in Australia.
The ACS describes Gerhon's recommendations as "all aimed at addressing the efficiency of ICT":
Nor does the idea of institutionalising the building/improving the Profession of IT and increasing the Capability/Performance of IT Professionals.
By the DCITA/DBCDE own reports, ICT contributes 75% of productivity improvements: ICT is still the single greatest point of leverage for organisations reducing costs and improving output.
Does getting IT right in Federal Government matter?
Absolutely.
Gershon delivers 'more of the same' and could conceivably achieve its targets of 5% & 10% cost improvement
It has a major omission - it addresses ICT inputs only.
ICT is useful only in what it enables others to do or improve - measuring & improving ICT outputs is completely missing from 'Gershon'.
It doesn't examine the fundamentals of ICT work:
- What is that we do?
How is Computing/IT special or different to anything else? - Why do we do it?
Who benefits from our outputs and How?
- Computing is a "Cognitive Amplifier" allowing tasks to be done {Cheaper, Better, Quicker, More/Bigger}.
- IT is done for a Business Benefit.
Like Marketing, defining how outputs & outcomes are measured and assessed - both in the macro and micro - is one of the most important initial tasks.
Gershon doesn't address outstanding issues of the IT Profession:
- improving individual, organisational and general professional competence and performance.
- Reducing preventable failures, incompetence/ignorance and under-performance.
- Deliberate, directed & focussed effort is required to institute and maintain real Improvement of the Profession. (vs 'profession-al improvement' of practitioners)
- Are there any new ways to stuff things up?
- Is it "efficient, effective, ethical" to allow known Errors, Mistakes, Failures to recur without consequences? [see FMAA s44]
Aviation is controlled by ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau, previously Bureau of Air Safety Investigation [BASI]) and CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority). The USA's FAI publishes hard data on all aspects of Aviation - and mostly they improve on every measure every year. This isn't just due to the march of technology - the figures for 'General Aviation' (as opposed to Regular Passenger Transport) plateaued decades ago... This is solid evidence that Aviation as a Profession takes itself seriously - and that commercial operators in one of the most competitive and cut-throat industries understand the commercial imperative of reducing Known Errors.
Aviation shows that profession wide attention to Learning and Improvement isn't just about Soft benefits, but translates into solid business fundamentals. You make more money if you don't repeat Know Errors/Mistakes.
ATSB investigates incidents and looks for Root Causes.
CASA takes these reports and turns them into enforceable guidelines - with direct penalties for individuals, groups and organisations. CASA is also responsible for the continual testing and certification of all licensed persons - pilots, Aircraft Engineers, ...
There are 4 specific areas Gershon could've included to cause real change in the IT Profession - to start the inculturation of Learning & Improvement and the flow-on business gains.
Federal Government accounts for 20% of total Australian IT expenditure. It is the single largest user and purchaser of IT - and uniquely positioned to redefine and change the entire IT profession in Australia.
- Lessons Learned - Root Cause Analysis of Failures/Problems
Dept. Finance 'Gateway Review Process' on Projects.
Needs equivalent of CASA - inspection and enforcement of standards plus penalties/sanctions - Not just reviews and suggested guidelines.
Not just ICT staff, not just FedGovt but their suppliers/vendors/contractors as well.
Without real & timely (personal and organisational) consequences, nothing changes. - Standish 'Chaos Report' equivalent - real stats on IT Projects.
Without solid numbers, nothing can change. - Operational Reviews.
How well does an IT organisation do its work?
Critical Self-assessment isn't possible - exactly the reason work needs to be cross-checked for errors/mistakes/omissions/defects.
C.f. Military Operational Readiness Reviews - done by specialist, impartial experts. - Individual Capability Assessment - equivalent of on-going Pilot etc recertification.
- Research: Quantifying & standardising metrics and models for "Effectiveness".
DCITA/DBCDE on macro-economic results.
The ACS describes Gerhon's recommendations as "all aimed at addressing the efficiency of ICT":
- governance,
- capability,
- ICT spending,
- skills,
- data centres
- sustainable ICT
Nor does the idea of institutionalising the building/improving the Profession of IT and increasing the Capability/Performance of IT Professionals.
By the DCITA/DBCDE own reports, ICT contributes 75% of productivity improvements: ICT is still the single greatest point of leverage for organisations reducing costs and improving output.
Does getting IT right in Federal Government matter?
Absolutely.
Gershon delivers 'more of the same' and could conceivably achieve its targets of 5% & 10% cost improvement
2007/03/19
Controlling Waste in Government I.T. - An Immodest Proposal
The Standish Group has researched and released the CHAOS report since 1994. What's special about Yet Another Expensive Industry Report?
The fact that nobody else does it, they have 50,000 detailed case studies of I.T. projects, and their results are consistent year to year (but they would make it that way, wouldn't they?).
Do we believe their claims the US spends $250Bn/year on IT applications development? That $81Bn of that is on cancelled projects and anothe $59Bn on over-runs? Or that only 16.2% of projects finish on time and within 130% of budget? That "For every 100 projects that start, there are 94 restarts"?
To scale that back to Australia, about one fifteenth the size, there'd be A$21Bn/year on just applications development. Which doesn't gel with estimates from the ABS that the I.T. sector here is about A$20Bn in total. (The ABS only reports accurately the ICT sector - grossly inflated by 'Communications' i.e. phone et al.) If the Australian I.T. sector is 5% of GDP, it would be around $50Bn and employ 500,000 people. Not unbelievable.
Either the US does a lot more AppDev that us, they pay a lot more, the survey is wrong - or the ABS survery figures are out.
To cut through the questions, all that's needed is a 'scale factor' - to convert the numbers from Standish into believable figures for Australia. Taking the ABS survey figure as a lower bound and guessing that half I.T. budgets go on AppsDev, or $10Bn, then that's a scale factor of 25:1.
So the Waste in Australia on cancelled AppDev projects is at least $3.25Bn/yr. The ABS also state that 40% of I.T. expenditure is by Government - half by the Federal Govt. The Government is wasting $1.5Bn - $3Bn of public monies yearly.
The only reliable figure for 'waste' is cancelled projects. Standish do say 52.7% of projects will cost 189% of their original estimates. But that could just be deliberate low estimates, optimisum or ineptitude of the IT areas - which after 50+ years of commercial I.T. you'd have thought management might have recognised and addressed.
It's over 10 years since Standish started their CHAOS reports - so why hasn't any section of the Australian Government looked at the problem here? Some possibilities:
There is a tried, proven model for controlling 'waste' - and the government knows it well:
Aviation.
Two independent bodies are needed: An investigator and an enforcement/compliance agency.
In Aviation, they are "BASI (Bureau of Air Safety Investigation)" and "CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority)".
CASA creates real 'consequences' for people and organisations - negligence and incompetence are cause for temporary or permanent disbarment from the industry.
BASI looks to find the causes of 'incidents', how to avoid them in future and promulgates the information to everyone that should know.
For about $30M/year, roughly the budget of the ANAO, the Federal Government could start to define and address the problem of I.T. waste. This is an area where the Government can lead the Private Sector - the same companies and people contract for the public and private sector. The Government can be seen to be impartial and transparent, and their is no legal impediment for a government "right to practice" list.
Spending $30M to save $3,250M - that sound like a good deal to me. Why not to the Government?
The fact that nobody else does it, they have 50,000 detailed case studies of I.T. projects, and their results are consistent year to year (but they would make it that way, wouldn't they?).
Do we believe their claims the US spends $250Bn/year on IT applications development? That $81Bn of that is on cancelled projects and anothe $59Bn on over-runs? Or that only 16.2% of projects finish on time and within 130% of budget? That "For every 100 projects that start, there are 94 restarts"?
To scale that back to Australia, about one fifteenth the size, there'd be A$21Bn/year on just applications development. Which doesn't gel with estimates from the ABS that the I.T. sector here is about A$20Bn in total. (The ABS only reports accurately the ICT sector - grossly inflated by 'Communications' i.e. phone et al.) If the Australian I.T. sector is 5% of GDP, it would be around $50Bn and employ 500,000 people. Not unbelievable.
Either the US does a lot more AppDev that us, they pay a lot more, the survey is wrong - or the ABS survery figures are out.
To cut through the questions, all that's needed is a 'scale factor' - to convert the numbers from Standish into believable figures for Australia. Taking the ABS survey figure as a lower bound and guessing that half I.T. budgets go on AppsDev, or $10Bn, then that's a scale factor of 25:1.
So the Waste in Australia on cancelled AppDev projects is at least $3.25Bn/yr. The ABS also state that 40% of I.T. expenditure is by Government - half by the Federal Govt. The Government is wasting $1.5Bn - $3Bn of public monies yearly.
The only reliable figure for 'waste' is cancelled projects. Standish do say 52.7% of projects will cost 189% of their original estimates. But that could just be deliberate low estimates, optimisum or ineptitude of the IT areas - which after 50+ years of commercial I.T. you'd have thought management might have recognised and addressed.
It's over 10 years since Standish started their CHAOS reports - so why hasn't any section of the Australian Government looked at the problem here? Some possibilities:
- There is no problem here. [Nope, glorious failures like ADCNET abound]
- We don't have figures, so nothing could be wrong.
- It's too trivial a figure
- Nobody here knows the Standish work. [That's either negligence or incompetence.]
- It's nobody's job? How about:
- Australian Audit Office?
- Senate Estimates Committee and Expenditure Review Board?
- AGIMO, NOIE, GOI, ...
- FMA Act & Finance - "Efficient, Effective, Ethical expenditure of public monies"
- Department Heads [see FMAA]
- I.T. Heads
There is a tried, proven model for controlling 'waste' - and the government knows it well:
Aviation.
Two independent bodies are needed: An investigator and an enforcement/compliance agency.
In Aviation, they are "BASI (Bureau of Air Safety Investigation)" and "CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority)".
CASA creates real 'consequences' for people and organisations - negligence and incompetence are cause for temporary or permanent disbarment from the industry.
BASI looks to find the causes of 'incidents', how to avoid them in future and promulgates the information to everyone that should know.
For about $30M/year, roughly the budget of the ANAO, the Federal Government could start to define and address the problem of I.T. waste. This is an area where the Government can lead the Private Sector - the same companies and people contract for the public and private sector. The Government can be seen to be impartial and transparent, and their is no legal impediment for a government "right to practice" list.
Spending $30M to save $3,250M - that sound like a good deal to me. Why not to the Government?
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