Report 2010-102 Recommendation 5 Responses

Report 2010-102: Administrative Office of the Courts: The Statewide Case Management Project Faces Significant Challenges Due to Poor Project Management (Release Date: February 2011)

Recommendation #5 To: Administrative Office of the Courts

To better manage costs of future IT projects, the AOC should update cost estimates on a regular basis and when significant assumptions change.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2012

The AOC has two artifacts for ensuring that cost estimates are updated when significant assumptions change, the business case and the project assessment form, both of which have been developed as part of the Enterprise Methodology and Process (EMP) program. A key component of the EMP program is development and implementation of a standard solution development life cycle (SDLC) that describes a phase-by-phase methodology for projects categorized as medium or large, including standards, processes, and artifacts. While no new projects in either category are currently envisioned in the current budget environment, upcoming applicable maintenance and operations (M&O) efforts and future projects will be required to adhere to the SDLC.

The Business Case and Project Assessment Form templates are embedded below.

The SDLC calls for revisiting the business case, development of which supports Judicial Council-approved recommendations for AOC realignment following project inception, to validate and update accuracy of initial estimates. Likewise, the AOC makes use of a project portfolio management (PPM) tool for weekly project reporting, one element of which includes budget health, ensuring that significant variances from initial cost estimates are identified and addressed. Formal criteria for the budget health indicator have been established, and are as follows: green, the project is tracking to the approved budget,; yellow, a budgetary risk has been identified for which a mitigation strategy is in place; red, a budgetary risk has been identified for which there is no mitigation strategy in place. An explanation of any yellow or red budget indicators must be provided in writing, and a justification for any indicators that were previously yellow or red but have been reset to green must also be noted.

The annual budget process also provides an opportunity to adjust budget projections to reflect changes in program strategy and assumptions. Specifically, Information and Technology Services prepares a five-year budget for each Information and Technology Services program. Each program budget is shared with the Fiscal Services Office (formerly Finance Division) and other business partners before being used as a basis for the Information and Technology Services' annual budget allocation. The core purpose of this process is to identify key needs for each project going forward while providing sufficient funding for baseline activities. The other purpose is to provide a budget monitoring tool for project managers throughout the fiscal year. The budget projections produced through this process are also used to inform the Judicial Council, related working groups and advisory committees. To develop, track and monitor their budgets, each program uses information provided by the Oracle Financial system which captures all AOC allocations, encumbrances and expenditures for Information and Technology Services programs. As the program strategy and assumptions change, Oracle is updated accordingly, to reflect the status of the project.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2010-102

Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.