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Project Monitoring System II
Implementation Coordination Unit, Prime Minister’s Department
Malaysia

The Problem

Socio-economic development in Malaysia has been a planned process that is being carried out every five years. Malaysia has been adopting the Five Year Malaysia Plan since 1957 after it gained independence. Malaysia allocates billions of ringgit annually towards development programmes for the nation. To ensure that funds are effectively utilised for projects in line with the 5 Year Malaysia Plans’ objectives to develop the nation’s socio and economic status, a system has to be put in place to efficiently monitor the progress of various projects that are spread across the nation.
The Implementation Coordination Unit (or ICU JPM) is the lead agency tasked with national level project coordination and monitoring. ICU JPM ensures that all projects approved by the Government are successfully implemented by the respective Ministries and Agencies. It also monitors outcomes of national programmes and policies.
ICU JPM has developed a structural mechanism as well as IT based systems to assist all parties involved in project planning and implementation as well as its officers in carrying out their duties. Numerous project monitoring systems have been developed over the years - from manual to semi-automated and finally fully-automated system. The IT systems have been progressively improved over the years So far ICU has implemented four computer based application systems to cater the need of the users.

However, despite the improvements made over the years, there were still constraints and existing problems that needed to be addressed such as:
i. Data transmission in the form of diskettes via mail – delivery of diskettes was frequently not on time and the risk of the diskettes being misplaced or lost during delivery was high;
ii. Data was not up-to-date and timely – these cause inaccuracies in reporting project progress;
iii. Lack of intervention from top management due to unavailability of up-to-date information for fast decision making;
iv. No integration among the systems used by various agencies, thus resulting in data integrity and consistency issues;
v. No standardization of codes among the agencies involved resulting in the difficulty to consolidate information received;
vi. Inability to reallocate financial resources to other development projects; and
vii. Government has still to pay interests on the loans it has committed for unenergised or behind-scheduled projects.
The Government was acutely aware that improper monitoring will lead to projects being delayed and incurring huge cost overrun, the impact of which is not positive to the citizen at large. Delay of the implementation of projects also has an impact on the national economy, in terms of internal circulation of cash flow as well as the spill over effect expected from the projects.
The Project Monitoring System II, or Sistem Pemantauan Projek II (SPP II) was introduced in 1997 as one of the pilot projects under Electronic Government. This is an online monitoring system to cover the entire lifecycle of project management which includes planning, implementation and evaluation. SPP II was expected to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of project monitoring.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The achievement(s) implemented:
SPP II is the national project monitoring system used by Central Agencies, Ministries, State and District Offices. Its implementation cuts across the entire Government machinery that covers a series of inter agencies services required to ensure projects are delivered on time and within the stipulated costs. The system involved information update, information exchange across government agencies and close collaboration and communication with related agencies. ICU JPM is the lead agency for development and operation of SPP II.
The scope of the system covers business process from various central agencies namely EPU for project application, mid-term review and notice of change, Treasury for annual budget application, ICU JPM for project monitoring and evaluation and Accountant General Department (AG) for project payment.
SPP II maintains all records pertaining to development projects undertaken by the Malaysian Government for each 5 Year Plan. Amongst others it contains information on project profile, financial and cash flow, project progress, contract information as well as contractor performance, analysis and evaluation.
The immediate outcome from SPP II implementation is the ability of the Government to monitor progress of projects at the ground level and make fast decision and early intervention to avoid prolonged project delays and cost variations. Alerts from the system provide easy detection of problems faced by agencies and the capability of problem escalation within the system contributes to effective intervention. The implementation of SPP II has also enabled faster and more accurate exchange of data between key Government agencies in discharging their project monitoring duties.
The Government is also able to track performance of contractors as well as maintain financial and cash flow monitoring and disbursement. This allows for effective utilization of development funds and meeting its targeted objectives. Considering that the Government had to implement over 100,000 projects under the 8th Malaysia Plan and over 29,000 projects under the 9th Malaysia Plan, SPP II has provided an effective and efficient monitoring mechanism for project implementation.
SPP II has also recently introduced the Evaluation module which requires agencies to perform outcome analysis to ensure that projects implemented meet the initial objectives, are sustainable and provide value for money.
Successful and timely implementation of projects under the 5 Year Malaysia Plan will benefit the citizen at large, from the perspective of quality of life as well as economic returns. It also helps to boost and re-energise the national economy through sustainable growth and development.
The Government of Malaysia has benefited remarkably from the implementation of SPP II. For the 8th. Malaysia Plan, the country achieved an unprecedented 99% expenditure performance with over 96,000 projects completed. The performance for the 9th. Malaysia Plan is also expected to be the same, with the existing expenditure already touching 45.9% at the mid-term. A big part of these successes can be attributed to a more comprehensive and effective project monitoring.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
SPP II was initiated by the GOM under the Electronic Government Flagship of the Multimedia Super Corridor initiatives. Its objective is to support and monitor the entire lifecycle of Malaysia's 5-Year development program, focusing on the importance of project monitoring to ensure projects are completed as scheduled, within budget allocated and meeting their intended objectives.
The Ministries and Agencies involved in the planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of the projects are described below.
i) Economic Planning Unit (EPU)
EPU is responsible to:-
(a) Formulate policies and strategies for socio-economic development;
(b) Prepare medium and long term plans and the budget for the Five-Year development programmers and projects; and
(c) Advise Government on economic issues.

ii) Treasury
Treasury is responsible for:-
(a) Budget examination;
(b) Disbursement of annual allocations;
(c) Budget controls; and
(d) Budget information management.

iii) Implementation Coordination Unit (ICU JPM)
The responsibilities of ICU JPM are to ensure:-
(a) The effective implementation of national development programmes and policies nation-wide and at state level respectively;
(b) That development projects are implemented according to schedules, available resources and stated objectives nation-wide and at state level respectively; and
(c) The successful implementation of programmes, projects and special directives of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

iv) Accountant General’s Department (AG)
The roles of the AG Department are:-
(a) Payment to the contractors and consultants on completion of the payment milestones; and
(b) Provide quality and timely accounting and financial information.

v) Ministries and Agencies
There are 27 Ministries in Malaysia. The roles of the Ministries, from the perspective of development, are to propose and implement the projects under the 5 Year Malaysia Plan and to fulfill the policies and strategies formulated by EPU for socio-economic development. Under the Ministries are 1,648 agencies, distributed nationwide.
Previously, Central Agencies involved in implementation and monitoring process have their own system to cater for their individual needs while some Ministries also have their own system to report the physical and financial progress of projects. There were no standardisation among the systems and therefore data is not easily consolidated. As a result, it was very difficult to compile and consolidate reports to be tabled in various development committees either at federal or state level.
ICU JPM is the lead agency responsible in the implementation of the initiative while the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) is the coordinator of Electronic Government (EG) projects.
The stakeholders of SPP II are the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers of Malaysia and Chief Secretary to the Government.
SPP II is owned by the GOM and was developed in collaboration with a nominated Responding Organisation (RO), comprising of a consortium of renowned, private sector companies. The project was also assisted by MAMPU, as Secretariat of the EG projects.
The successful RO involved in the development of SPP II comprise of the following :-
a) Collaborative Technology Sdn. Bhd.;
b) Fujitsu(M) Sdn. Bhd.;
c) AIT Work Group Technology Sdn. Bhd.; and
d) DapanNET Sdn. Bhd.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The three main objectives of SPP ll are:
i) To establish a richer collaborative system environment among government agencies and to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of project monitoring and communication processes;
ii) To provide an open and flexible system that provides information transparency and fulfills and improves operational and managerial processes on all levels within government agencies; and
iii) To provide paperless project monitoring capabilities for government agencies to monitor project under their supervision.

To realize these objectives, SPP ll was developed based on a centralised approach, allocating key IT resources to a particular business unit, which is the Data Centre at ICU JPM. The Data Centre provides IT services and technical support nationwide and ICU JPM is responsible to ensure the accessibility and availability of the system at all levels, from the federal, state as well as the district level.
The implementation of a centralised system that connects all Government ministries and agencies online, allows the effective sharing of information, resulting in an easier and simplified project monitoring process and a smooth inter-agencies communication. In developing the system, user requirements as well as the variety of tasks performed by various users at different levels, have been taken into consideration.
The SPP II network infrastructure also links all SPP II users throughout the nation. Data entry, where relevant, is done at source and the updated information is easily accessible by users.
The modules developed in SPP II comprise of three main functionalities, namely Operational, Management and Knowledge Repository. The Operational module consists of project profile information as well as micro level report generation. It caters for the daily operation of project monitoring. The Management module is designed specifically for the senior and top level management of the Ministries or Agencies, focusing on macro level report generation, project evaluation and Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities which can help the managers in strategic decision making.
Knowledge Repository is a data warehouse which contains an e-Library consisting of relevant documents and information on project management including of Best Practices, a Speakers Corner and an Online Bulletin Board. These additional features encourage knowledge sharing and interaction between SPP II users. Here the knowledge acquired by those involved in projects, be it experiences, observations or visible item like documents, papers or manuals are kept in the Repository and are shared by all the users.
To provide a paperless project monitoring capability, SPP II adopts a workflow system environment, from the initial project application stage right up to the final approval stage, which cuts across horizontally, involving all the relevant Ministries and Agencies, at the various levels. As information is accessible online, usage and movement of papers are also greatly reduced.
SPP II encourages and maintains a conducive cooperative and information sharing environment throughout the whole project management spectrum.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Some of the key development and implementation steps undertaken were :
i) Selection Process for Technology Partners
A Concept Request For Proposal (CRFP) was prepared by the Government and tendered out. A number of proposals from various RO were received and a comprehensive evaluation exercise was carried out to select the best and most cost effective proposal. The contract was subsequently awarded to the successful RO.

ii) Project Implementation Team
Project Team from the Consortium was set up to carry out the development and the implementation of the project. The Government also set up a full time Project Team mirroring the Project Team of the Consortium. It consisted of Subject Matter Experts (SME) from ICU JPM, EPU, Treasury, AG, Public Works Department and selected Ministries.
iii) Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
A series of discussions with users was carried out to study the processes involved and to find ways and means to improve the current business process with IT adaptation in mind.
iv) Technical Specification and Development
Upon completion of BPR, System Requirement Specification (SRS) was developed followed by the System Design Specification (SDS) which was duly verified by the Government Team before system development proceeded.
v) Pilot Implementation
The SPP II was fully tested by the Government Project Team as well as user representatives before it was put into production. ICU JPM also adopted the approach of pilot implementation at selected Ministries and Agencies, before finally rolling out nationwide.


vi) Change Management
Change Management programs were planned and implemented during and after the development of the project. This was aimed to create awareness and acceptance of SPP II amongst users which proved essential to ensure the successful implementation of SPP II.
Continuous improvements to SPP II were done to cater to the need of users as well as the changes in policies and technology. SPP II was successfully migrated from client-server environment (2001 – 2006) to web-based environment in July 2007.
Chronology of events SPP II Client Server Approach
1. Awarded to the RO – 22/10/98
2. Development of Phase I - 15 months (Nov. 1988 - Jan. 2000)
Provisional Acceptance Test (PAT) – 4 months
(Feb 2000 – Mei. 2000)
Final Acceptance Test (FAT) - 4 months (Jun 2000 – Sep.2000)
Pilot Implementation - 3 months (Oct. 2000 – Jan 2001)
Nationwide Rollout - Feb 2001
3. Development of Phase 2 - 13 months (May 2000 - May 2001)
PAT - 4 months (Jun. 2001 – Sep. 2001)
FAT - 3 months (Jan 2002 – Mac.2002)
Rollout - Apr. 2002


4. Development of Phase 3 - 7.5 months
(Apr. 2001 – Mid Nov. 2001)
PAT - 1.5 months (Mid Nov. 2001– Dec. 2001)
FAT - 3 months (Jan 2002 – Mac.2002)
Rollout – Apr. 2002

Chronology of SPP II WEB Based
1. Letter of Intend (LOI) awarded to the successful contractor.
(16 Ogos 2006)
2. System Requirement, System Design, System Development.
6 months (Sep 2006 – Feb. 2007)
3. PATPAT - 1 month (Mac 2007)
4. Government Testing – 1 Month (April 2007)
5. Data Migration (May 2007 – Oct. 2007)
6. Pilot Implementation (Jun 2007)
7. Nationwide Rollout (Nov. 2007)

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
There were three major obstacles faced:
• Network Infrastructure Readiness;
• High Turn Over Rate; and
• Changes of Policy and Procedure.

i) Network Infrastructure Readiness
The availability of a reliable and high performance communication network throughout Malaysia is very critical to the success of SPP II implementation. This is especially so in the rural or remote areas where the accessibility of the network is unreliable due to geographical limitation.
The Government has recently approved the implementation of the National Broadband project, that focuses on upgrading the network infrastructure and bandwidth nationwide. This project is crucial to the success of IT industry.
While waiting for the National Broadband project to take off, ICU JPM has also initiated its own network upgrading exercise in collaboration with MAMPU. Network bandwidth for key SPP II sites across the nation has been upgraded from 64 kbps to a minimum of 256 kbps.

ii) High Turn-over Rate
The turn-over rate among officers involved in project implementation is very high. Among the main reasons was promotion, relocation or retirement.
Some Ministries and Agencies have back-up officers to take over or carry out duties in the event the responsible officer is unavailable. Continuous Change Management and training programmes need also to be carried out to ensure continuity. Another approach adopted is the ‘Training for Trainer’ concept. By doing so, the trainers can act as first level support within the Ministries or Agencies.
Workstations/SPP II Corners have also been set up at ICU JPM and also at the State Development Offices of ICU JPM throughout the country, with the aim of assisting SPP II users in using and updating SPP II. Walk-in training can also be conducted upon request.
As part of the scope of the SPP II project, a Computer-based Training material in form of CDs was also produced. It serves as a self training kit that can be referred to, at the users’ convenience. The CDs had been distributed to all Ministries, States and relevant Agencies.

iii) Changes of Policy and Procedure
Every Five Year Malaysia Plan, there have been frequent changes in policy. This is unavoidable because situation changes and Malaysia needs to react fast in order to remain competitive globally, hence the need to be dynamic and constantly realign its strategies and directions. Changes in development policy will normally have a direct impact on SPP II in terms of its processes as well as its data structures.
As the number and diversity of projects increases, the techniques of project monitoring also need to be improved in order to address new challenges and demands. In order to accommodate these demands, some policies or procedures may also need to be changed. This is especially so when new technologies are being put into place.
In order to address the issue of frequent changes required to the system, a permanent team has been set up at ICU JPM, to operate, maintain and study the impact of any policy changes to SPP II.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The main resources used to implement SPP II are:

i) Financial
RM50 million was allocated during the 8th MP for the development of SPP II, covering application development, hardware and setting of Data Centre as well as distribution of 1168 desktops to 27 ministries agencies all over the country. The architecture was based on a distributed client-server technology.
An additional cost of RM25 million was allocated for the migration of SPP II to a centralised web-based system under the 9thMP.


ii) Technical Resources
The main engine and knowledge management system of the SPP II was developed using distributed client-server technology namely Lotus Notes. Crystal Reports was used for reporting whilst Oracle Database and Seagate Holos were the resources used for the macro analysis and data warehousing. The SPP II also used workflow engine offered by TeamWareflow System.
Upon migration to a centralised web-based system, all products have been consolidated to one single solution provided by IBM Family products. The main engine of the system was developed and run on IBM® Rational® Application Developer, IBM® Web Sphere Application Server and Hibernate Application (Free Open Source Software). The database used is IBM DB2 and reports are generated by IBM Aphablox software.

iii) Human Resources
The project teams for the development and implementation of the initial SPP II consist of 50 personnel from the appointed Local Solutions Provider (LSP) and 36 Government officers.
The migration exercise to the new web-based system involved 20 personnel from LSP and 20 Government officers. Both parties had been working together to accomplish the development of the project within the stipulated timeframe.
The mobilizations of the resources are as follows:
People
36 people from the government were involved in the implementation of SPP II client server base. Headed by a project director and assisted by a project manager. The distributions are as follows:
i) Project Support Team (3 people);
ii) Technology Team (3 people);
iii) System Design and Analysis Team (6 people);
iv) Development and Testing Team (4 people);
v) Training, Change Management and Transfer of Technology(TOT) Team (4 people);
vi) Roll-out Team (8 people); and
vii) Operational Team (6 people).

While for the development of SPP II Web, there are 20 people involved. The overall coordinator is the project director. The teams are divided as follows:
i) Technical Team (5 people);
ii) Application Team headed by a project manager and assisted by 3 sub teams. They are:
iii) Documentation and Administrative Matter (2 people);
iv) Development and Testing (8 people); and
v) Business Process and Quality Assurance (3 people)

Finance
The distribution of the expenditure is as follows:
a) For the SPP II Client Server:
Hardware (RM) 15,789,800
Software (RM) 29,911,991
Services (RM) 4,298,209
Total (RM) 50,000,000

b) SPP II Web Based:
Only the monitoring module was developed using the service of the RO costing RM4,515,000.00 while RM20,485,000.00 for the purchasing/upgrading of the hardware.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The initiative has become increasingly reliable and its presence is very beneficial and required by the users since the migration from the client-server version implemented in 8thMP to the current web-based version.
The government, through the National Action Council, has institutionalized a mechanism of coordinating, controlling and monitoring the development of programmes and projects. The Directive No. 1 was issued by the Prime Minister of Malaysia whereupon all the machineries at federal, state levels had to adhere to.
All Ministries and Agencies are required to monitor and report the progress of their respective programmes and projects through the SPP II system. Reports generated by SPP II are presented at various forum of the highest level, namely:

a) National Level
i. Monthly Cabinet Report (in the form of bulletins);
ii. National Action Council; chaired by Prime Minister of Malaysia
iii. National Action Working Committee; chaired by Chief Secretary to the Government of Malaysia
iv. Chief Secretary and Director General of Public Service Forum; chaired by Chief Secretary to the Government of Malaysia
v. Federal Development Project Committee; chaired by Director General of Implementation Coordination Unit, Prime Minister’s Department.

b) Ministry Level
i. Ministerial Level Action Committee; chaired by the Secretary General of the Ministry

c) State and District Level
i. State Development Action Council; chaired by Chief Minister to the State
ii. State Action Working Committee; chaired by State Secretary of the State
iii. District Action Committee; chaired by the District Officer.

Change Management programmes such as Project Champions Seminar, awareness briefing and training sessions. have also been carried out to promote SPP II. The positive outcome of these sessions can be seen through the increasing number of users accessing the system. The updating of key information in SPP II has also improved dramatically in the 9th MP, achieving currently a status of 94%.
The implementation of SPP II Web, a central databank on development projects funded by the Federal Government, has abolished redundancies and data duplication within Government agencies and hence streamlining the processes and reporting mechanism at various levels.
If an agency has already developed an in-house system, these agencies are allowed to scheduled uploads to SPP II, to avoid waste of investment and duplication of work.
At present, the initiative has successfully been integrated with the Payment System or eSPKB, developed by AG and Contract Management System known as SKALA of the Public Works Department.
The initiative has indeed proven to be sustainable since it was first launched in 2001. Continuous improvements have been made to further enhance its capabilities and functionalities so as to meet current demands and expectations. Usage of the initiative has improved and reports from the initiative are tabled to the highest level forum in the country that is the Cabinet, on a regular basis.
Having proven its benefits, SPP II can also be replicated to other countries having similar administrative structure as Malaysia. The new version, the SPP II Web, was designed to be ‘open’ and flexible, for future customisation or enhancement.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The success of SPP II was not gained over night. There were many challenges faced during the course of its development, operation and maintenance. Some were critical success factors that were not identified and managed early, which resulted in many implementation problems along the way. Among the lessons learned are:
a) Top Management and User Commitment
The success of SPP II depends upon the commitment and involvement of a cross-section of individuals throughout the Ministries and Agencies, including project managers, implementers and administrators. Leadership from within the Project Team is also crucial as well as sponsorship and support from the Top Management to ensure all parties concerned use the initiative.
b) Network Infrastructure Readiness
The availability of a nationwide, reliable and high performance communication network infrastructure is also a critical success factor for the initiative. This is especially so in the rural or remote areas where the accessibility of the network is unreliable due to geographical limitation. Slow network performance deters users from using the initiative.
c) Continuous Promotion and Change Management Programme
These activities have to be carried out continuously to ensure the sustainability of the system. The introduction of SPP II involves the process of readying the staff of the Ministries and Agencies for the changes that comes along with it. A transition plan must first be put in place, in order to get the necessary ‘buy in’ from users at all levels.
d) Training
Appropriate training for the Ministries and Agencies’ staff is an essential component to ensure project success. Acquiring SPP II solution will be of no value unless Ministries and Agencies’ staffs use the system in monitoring of projects. Trained staffs are more likely to use the initiative than those who do not receive adequate or timely training. The issue of training has always been brought up as a key reason for not using SPP II.
Training is provided on scheduled basis. However training can also be arranged upon request by the Ministries or Agencies. Workstation is also provided whereby the users can have walk-in training if required.
e) After Sales Service
It is of utmost importance that the initiative has a good after sales service in order to ensure continous support from users. In this respect, ICU JPM has provided facilities such as the MedICT Counter, which acts as a One Stop Centre to resolve any IT issues faced by users. Problems can also be reported and tracked online through the Call Centre System.
By having this feedback mechanism ICU JPM is able to respond fast to any problems on SPP II, faced by the users.
A customer satisfaction survey to determine the Satisfaction and Understanding level of SPP II has also been conducted amongst SPP II users. Based on the findings, corrective actions are taken to ensure that SPP II remains relevant and beneficial to the users. Apart from the survey, technical audit was also carried out to determine the level of reliability and availability of the system and infrastructure.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Implementation Coordination Unit, Prime Minister’s Department
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Rosni Abdul Malek
Title:   Director, Information Technology Division  
Telephone/ Fax:   603-88883675
Institution's / Project's Website:   603-88883702
E-mail:   rosni@icu.gov.my  
Address:   Bahagian Teknologi Maklumat, Aras G, Timur,
Postal Code:   62502
City:   Putrajaya
State/Province:   Wilayah Persekutuan
Country:   Malaysia

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