行家小檔案 — 龍舟競渡

EOs in IT Work – Mission NOT Impossible

VALID – A Valid Uphill Task!

In February 2006, Mrs Margaret Chan was posted to fill a PEO post in the Transport Department (TD). Her major task was to get the 4th generation of VALID off the ground. VALID is short for the Vehicles and Drivers Licensing Integrated Data System which supports the TD's registration and licensing services for vehicles and drivers. VALID was first developed in 1974, and was upgraded to 2nd and 3rd generation in 1976 and 1991 respectively. It was targeted to be upgraded to 4th generation (VALID IV) by end 2004 at a cost of $110m but then, because of the complexity and size of the upgrade, plus the emergence of many new issues, hit a series of problems that cascaded into seemingly never-ending delays.

Staff were working late to iron out user requirements to meet operational needs while many rounds of discussion were held with contractors/technical staff to revise and modify the system design and development. So when Margaret inherited this "hot potato" in 2006 to take over the implementation of VALID IV, it seemed in many ways a "mission impossible".

Consider these awesome details: VALID is truly mega – high scalability and 7x24 operation, including inter alia the provision of 17 functional modules, 31 system interfaces, 30,000 application programs and two computer centres, with more than 440 terminals (with over 2,000 registered users) for use by nine departments, i.e. TD, HKPF, HD, C&ED, EPD, ICAC, IRD, Treasury and Judiciary.

All Government IT system development work follows the PRINCE (PRoject IN Controlled Environment) methodology. Margaret immediately arranged urgent meetings with the Project Assurance Team (PAT) comprising representatives from user departments, contractors, technical teams and relevant parties, as well as many sub-groups, to closely monitor and steer progress, and devise solutions. The PAT was tasked to oversee project progress, align project development with operational requirements, manage quality assurance activities, approve change requests, and track costs and milestones against budget and timeline.

Margaret recognised that her main role was (i) to strike a balance between competing demands and project progress in terms of its scope, time, cost, risk and quality; (ii) to produce a reliable system with functions that could meet the operational needs of the nine different departmental stakeholders, and (iii) develop and make the best use of the system capability, with due regard to its constraints.

Given the huge size of the VALID project, Margaret realised that her top priority was to control the project scope.  The EOs in her team were each tasked as owner(s) of one to two functional modules, and busily began drawing up user requirements, operational flow, testing scenarios and conducting test/trials of their respective module(s). Rounds and rounds of testing cum modifications were carried out on the functional applications developed by the project contractor to cope with changes in operational needs, but despite all these efforts nobody could yet see the light at the end of the tunnel.

	Margaret (front row, second from left) with some EOs of "VALID" team during TD's farewell luncheon

Margaret concentrated on all aspects of the project including the operational requirements and the system development's progress. She helped fellow EOs focus on the provision of core-functions for their module(s) which were essential for implementing the operation. All nice-to-have but non-essential functions were shelved for future development. With sustained efforts by all concerned, Margaret and her team were finally able to control the scope of work to a level which could be managed by both users and the contractor, and a plan for implementation with realistic timelines was finally devised.

At times it seemed that the problems were insurmountable. For example, Margaret found it hard to believe that there were some 6,000 error logs during the testing of 30,000 programs for VALID IV. Rounds of modification and system tests/trials continued unremittingly for about one year until VALID III was eventually migrated to VALID IV on the eve of Chinese New Year in February 2007 – a task that took four days to complete. Of course some work remained to be done and it was not until seven months later, in September, that the system was fully implemented.

Looking back on what seemed at times a nightmare assignment, Margaret says with a smile, "Project management is a challenge." She believes the project provided good opportunities for her to practise and strengthen her management skills. She cited Walt Disney's famous quotation which is highly relevant to her work on VALID: "Of all the things I've done, the most vital is co-ordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them towards a certain goal."

When Margaret went to TD, the VALID IV project was hopelessly mired down. Thanks to her decisive action and effective leadership, and with support and hard work by all parties concerned, the project finally assumed a clear direction and ended in successful delivery, proving to be a mission that was indeed very difficult but, as usual, not impossible for our EO Grade.

Asked if she believed that possession of IT knowledge and proficiency was necessary to take up IT-related work, Margaret answered in the negative. She thinks the key is management skills coupled with a lot of common sense.

She cited as an important milestone during the VALID IV project the new scheme of Personalised Vehicle Registration Marks (PVRM)(自訂車輛登記號碼計劃) as an example to illustrate the importance of managing time, resources, risks and quality in the course of project management. The PVRM scheme required additional functions from VALID IV for its implementation, which were not included in the original scope of the project. This entailed additional cost and time, and carried the risk of further project delay, with a knock-on effect on the quality of development work.

Margaret worked closely with the contractor and technical team to re-prioritise the tasks and resources, identify critical factors, and monitor the deliverables. The scheme was smoothly introduced in April 2006 with the efficient support of VALID system, causing the fewest hiccups to the main task, implementation of VALID IV.

Margaret kindly shared with us the following key elements in the project management of VALID IV: