| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), in collaboration with a local consultant, SIE Services Limited, designed and implemented the IPMS. The distinct phases followed by the OPM and SIE Services Ltd are detailed hereunder for the establishment of IPMS:
Step 1-Initiation Phase
A Strategic Oversight Committee, chaired by the Director, Strategic Services with support from the Office of the Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister was established to have direct control throughout the life of the project. The Committee undertook a comprehensive feasibility study to examine the current environment, the requirements of the Administration, international best practices and standards, and review global enterprise-wide ICT systems. This ensured that the system would be revolutionary, modular and customizable to the end-users’ needs, and to mitigate the: (i) duplication of reporting activities of other Ministries and Agencies; and (ii) potential obstacles during the implementation of the project.
Step 2-Planning Phase
The Committee engaged relevant stakeholders (Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Public Technical Officers and the Management of Government Agencies) to solicit pertinent information, identify necessary work flows and eliminate points of inefficiencies so that the adaptation of technology would result in an enhanced system for effective public service management. The actions of the Committee: (i) ensured stakeholders buy-in through constant communication, dialogue and feedback; (ii) defined project component requirements through a comprehensive review of existing work flows; and (iii) re-engineered existing business processes. Accordingly, a detailed Work Breakdown Structure was developed according to the agreed Project Scope.
Step 3-Execution Phase
SIE Services Ltd was engaged to work with the Policy, Strategy & Government Performance Management Division develop the IPMS under the following general scope of work:
Designing, developing and implementing of interactive portal for polling and feedback;
Facilitate performance appraisal of Ministries, State Board, Local Government, etc.;
Interactive and drill down reporting and Management Dashboards; and
Integration with existing systems and modifications.
During this Phase the consultant developed: (i) software with enhanced multi-financial year capabilities; (ii) advanced reporting and analytical evaluation capabilities to support fiscal years across Project, Cabinet and Human Resources arenas; (iii) project management systems with milestones and appraisal measurement ability; and (iv) requirements for hosting services.
In addition, modules were developed for pilot testing (Model Office Testing) through rigorous and robust User Acceptance Testing (UAT). The staff was trained in front and back end user modules, procurement and installation of the infrastructure and explicit cost, schedule and scope of the project were monitored and controlled.
Step 4-Deployment Phase
The IPMS was deployed through formal requests to all necessary stakeholders for the required information and data to populate the database. The IPMS took more than one (1) year from conceptualization to the implementation phase. The OPM has established a support sub-unit within the Division to provide a help-desk service to all data providers and end-users. The individuals of the sub-division have undergone extensive training on the administration of the IPMS to train identified persons in all Government Ministries.
Further Expansion of the IPMS
The scalability and robust nature of the system has allowed the Government to approve a new phase to encompass Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present various types of geographical data for the projects. The geographical view of Trinidad and Tobago through GIS mapping will plot projects, finance, actions and development related information throughout different districts. It has enabled policy makers to drill down from a country, to a region, to electoral district, to street view and finally to view projects. The GIS mapping encompasses the under mentioned components:
Demographic and Environment Analysis;
Engineering, Financial and Projects Logistics;
Land Management and Compliance;
Citizen Services;
Emergency Preparedness; and
Asset Management.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The OPM developed the preliminary architecture and design of the System. The System architecture and interface were revised based on comments and suggestions received from subsequent consultation with stakeholders in key Government Ministries, Chairmen of Boards of State Agencies and Members of the General Public. A proposal was developed by the OPM, and the Cabinet of the GoRTT considered and approved the recommendation for the development and implementation of the IPMS in collaboration with SIE Services Limited.
During the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) process, the OPM held further stakeholder sessions with key technical staff in selected Ministries for the customization of the system prior to finalization. Moreover, additional meetings were held post finalization to assist in the preparation of a proposal for deployment of a pilot implementation project.
The OPM, in collaboration with SIE Services Limited implemented the roll-out of the IPMS to all Government Ministries through one-on-one training sessions. The sessions were interactive to provide an: (i) overview of the System; (ii) outline the requirements for timely and accurate entry of data; (iii) review of existing data to ensure completion of existing entry records; and (iv) evaluation of the current hardware infrastructure to ensure compliance with minimum requirements.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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The investment in the IPMS is approximately TT$ 6.4 million (US$ 1 million) and was met entirely by the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (GoRTT) as it was seen as a critical foundation for national performance management. Given that most of the design of the System was undertaken by the OPM technical team, this resulted in the prudent containment of the financial cost for development of the IPMS. Accordingly, the required financial payments were derived from the normal budgetary cycle in Trinidad and Tobago.
In addition to the financial resources, the technical and human resource inputs came from several core domains. In particular, operational and institutional expertise was provided by Directors and Technical Staff from the various Ministries through one-on-one meetings with the members of the Strategic Oversight Committee. These productive meetings were convened to understand process flows and assist in identifying and re-engineering business processes for new policy applications that were to be incorporated in the IPMS.
Additionally, in order to ensure effective management of scarce resources, the conceptualisation, development and establishment of the IPMS utilized a clearly defined risk management process. It is envisioned that this process will continue throughout the lifespan of the database. Accordingly, during the development and execution of the system, the Strategic Oversight Committee ensured that vulnerabilities and threats were identified through exhaustive consultation with all stakeholders in the planning phase and countermeasures developed to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The IPMS is a total enterprise solution for tracking, managing and reporting on Government’s performance through the seamless integration of measuring and reporting on all public initiative’s output and outcomes within established performance parameters. The following are five (5) of the most successful and concrete outputs:
(i) The System’s integrated database provides a consolidated repository on the status of present and past national projects undertaken by all Ministries, State Boards and Regional Corporations. This allows comprehensive and detailed reports to be prepared for the Prime Minster, Ministers and Policy Makers to review, analyze and forecast trends for policy generation and implementation within the national mandate of accountability, transparency and consultative governance.
(ii) The System has eliminated the need for multiple submission of data and information to all Ministerial Oversight Authorities and has also streamlined the overall data gathering process as all data and information is now in a standardized format;
(iii) The System has provided an integral process and procedure for validation and authentication of data through the routine requirement for all identified authorities to input information. This resulted in improved quantity and quality of data and reports generated by the System Data;
(iv) The IPMS displays a series of standard dashboards that provide the user with graphically rich visual output detailing the real-time management of projects. Accordingly, this intelligence now allows the Prime Minster, Ministers and Permanent Sectaries to practice management by exceptions to resolve and handle issues for the effective and efficient delivery of government services to the citizens.
(v) The IPMS produces real time reports for review and consideration of Policy Makers. In this regard, the speed and accuracy of these reports now provide updated and accurate financial information allowing transparency and accountability, in particular, to Ministerial expenditure requests and the release of funds from the Central Authority.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The Office of the Prime Minister and by extension the Government of Trinidad and Tobago is cognizant that monitoring and evaluation of implementation of all public projects is an important component for the management of scarce resources and delivery of public services. To achieve this goal, the Strategic Oversight Committee was mindful during the initiation and planning stages to ensure that the following systems of monitoring and evaluation were integral components of a project cycle for the IPMS:
The Strategic Oversight Committee established a Governance Framework outlining reporting requirements for key members (steering committee and executive management) and sub-committees (risk review and quality management review) to monitor and recommend necessary actions. The Committee met in a timely manner (weekly, monthly or quarterly) or as needed to ensure completion of the project.
The OPM implemented a self-evaluating monitoring and evaluation mechanism during the development of the IPMS to: (i) ensure that identified milestones were being achieved; (ii) act as an early warning system in cases where final targets may not be achieved; (iii) provided information to project administrators and other stakeholder on the progress of the project; and (iv) undertake any necessary action for adjusting strategies and mobilization of appropriate interventions.
The OPM complied with national requirements for monitoring and evaluation of projects in the Public Service. In particular, the reporting of annual work programmes to the Parliament and accounting to the relevant central agency for planned and incurred expenditure. The Government has noted that at present, the monitoring and evaluation process for national projects is fragmented since several agencies have specific monitoring functions including: Parliament, Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Planning and Development, Ministry of Finance and Auditor General. However there is an expectation that all Ministries and Departments will monitor the progress of all projects aimed at achieving the identified national objectives.
The OPM sought the Government’s approval and where necessary, submitted regular reports for the information of the Cabinet throughout all stages of the development and implementation of the IPMS.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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The following obstacles were encountered by the OPM:
The vision and objective of the IPMS was conceptualized by the OPM and the development and articulation of the system architecture posed the greatest challenge to the technical staff. These issues were solved by the OPM’s staff analysing the current environment and aligning the requirements of the end user to the desired outputs; while keeping the architecture design fluid to adapt to any new developments. Furthermore, development of graphical mock-ups of the system logic assisted in discussions with the consultant during the system design phase.
Limited financial resources were allocated to the development of the IPMS as it was not budgeted in the fiscal year. To overcome this issue, internal resources were utilized, both technical and hardware to develop the concept and design thereby reducing the overall cost. Furthermore, an agreement was reached between the OPM and the consultant that this project can be deemed a signature project for both parties and assisted in containing the overall cost of the project.
The process of change management within the Public Service posed hindrance to the implementation of the IPMS. Ministries were initially sceptical to provide information for fear of loss of autonomy and management of the respective portfolios and expressed concerns on the integrity of data storage, management and security in regard to the possibility of exposure of sensitive data to unwanted third parties.
To mitigate the above, the OPM firstly obtained the necessary co-operation from Cabinet Ministers and their respective Permanent Secretaries during the initiation stage. Furthermore, numerous meetings were convened with key stakeholders to ensure not only buy-in during the planning stage for amicable solutions on the restructuring of the system architecture, but also harmonization of the rules and procedures for management of projects and initiatives within the Public Sector.
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