Excessive quality assurance was applied to documents produced for internal use

2.29  Delays to the approval of documents were not limited to decisions taken by senior management. The way the Agency applied aspects of the project management methodology known as PRINCE (Projects IN a Controlled Environment) was also a source of delay. The Agency were keen to improve their previous history of project management by adhering to this methodology. PRINCE, which CCTA own, is a structured set of components, techniques and processes designed for managing any type or size of project and is widely used in the public sector. The Agency's application of processes for appraising the quality of documents failed to distinguish between the quality required for documentation that would be issued to potential bidders and the quality of management documents prepared for internal use. Figure 5 lists some of these latter documents and shows in three extreme cases when the first versions were submitted for review and when the Project Board approved the documents.

2.30  We consider that the application of high quality standards to the documents listed in Figure 5 was costly and represented an inefficient use of resources. The Agency's requirement that the production of these documents met exacting standards resulted in them being of a sufficient standard that progress with the procurement continued, but with the procurement team, nevertheless, having to deploy resources to address quality related issues. Each time such a document was returned to the procurement team following a quality review, the quality assurance requirements demanded that the team registered and formally responded to each comment, a process that was labour intensive. The need to apply project management methodologies pragmatically, which includes the application of quality standards, has been mentioned in the report entitled, "Review of Major Government IT Projects, Successful IT: Modernising Government in Action" published by the Cabinet Office in May 2000.