Waterloo regional police services case study

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 8

Title: PROJECT MANAGEMENT

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INTRODUCTION

The project is to reassess the existing Common Information Management Systems (CIMS) that had come to a lapse. This CIMS project began in 1997. It was necessitated by combined effort between waterloo police services and other organizations. In September 2005 Larry had observed that the relationship with the current vendor was deteriorating. The existing unsuitable CIMS Computer Aided Dispatch and Record Management System components were to be replaced with suitable components” (GRESKO, 2018).

After two years of advertising for the tender of software installation by the stakeholders, TIG was awarded in the year 1999 with the job to install the RMS and CAD systems; but the relationship between the TIG and the stakeholders did not last for a long period. All the suggested changes were becoming too much expensive. The proposed solution to long lasting problem was to access the acceptance of dropping the software improvement and start afresh.

ANALYSIS

Agile project management methodology has been applied in this case study. This has been deduced by the following characteristics; this is an interaction between waterloo regional police service (WRPC), there is an interaction between the common information management systems (CIMS) and other stakeholders, according to the case study there is a software development. This is because they are trying to develop the CIMS software for a better working of the community involved. The CIMS software contained the five modules which were CAD module, RMS module, mapping module, mobile workstation module and the CPIC module. There is a collaboration of different stakeholders’ i.e. integrated technologies group, Canadian police information group, smart global communities and also the intelligent community forum (ICF). Pilot stage only, different stakeholders such as Larry Gravill, has collaborated with the common information management systems over the negotiation to better CIMS software.

After the case was filled, documents were presented to be used as exhibit. Exhibit 1 contained a list of all observation and acronyms used in that case. The federal government offered to fund police service through means of grants available. The project that was being investigated finally bears fruits, this helped stakeholders to realize that there is importance of implementing this software technology to help in easy sharing of information or gathering information from vendors. The two RMS solution providers had developed and matured in Canada since when the signing of the contract with ITG was done” (Huc, 2018).

There are different stakeholders that are involved in this case study. Some of them are key and others are remarking stakeholders. The stakeholders involved in this case include the following; Larry Gravill, the waterloo regional police service, the common information management systems, Integrated Technologies Group, Canadian Police Information Centre, or CPIC, smart global communities, intelligent community forum, business owners, elected representatives, social service and agencies, Ontario association of chief of police community policing and niche technology. The key major stakeholders included the following; Larry Gravill, the waterloo regional police service, the common information management systems (CIMS), Integrated Technologies Group (ITG), Canadian Police Information Centre, or CPIC, smart global communities , intelligent community forum.

There was sending of mails from higher stakeholders to both key and other stakeholders. The major key stakeholder is the waterloo regional police service and can only channel the information from the head departments to all other stakeholders through mails hence effective communication will be achieved. Face to face meetings. This is evidenced by the interaction meetings that are held by the common information management systems and the waterloo regional police systems. The project manager can use post cards to channel information from the key stakeholders to other stakeholders. Post cards will apply in the cases of extensive stakeholders that won’t meet a face to face interaction. It’s more convenient when working with a large number of stakeholders in a given field of study. The manager also used newsletters to address different information to both key and remaining stakeholders. The project manager may use a web portal for channeling information within the departments of the working territory. This can be more effective if only one stakeholder is involved at a time. The manager may also use selected committee members to discuss with them and later the information may be channeled to other small stakeholders” (Mustapha, 2018).

Key stakeholders refer to those stakeholders who are contributing a major portion of the work in the given case study i.e. Waterloo regional police service together with the common information management systems are taking a major role in reassessing the CIMS project. On the other hand, remaining stakeholders channel are those stakeholders that help in the improving the channel of information from one stakeholder to another. These remaining stakeholders normally contribute a small portion of a given work. They only appear in a given case twice or once. Examples of remaining stakeholders include the business owners and the selected representatives of chiefs, social service and agencies, chief of police community policing and the Ontario association of chiefs.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE (PMI)

There are ten PMI knowledge areas applied in this project. These are; project stakeholder, project interaction, scope of the project, time management, risk management, procurement of the project, cost of the project, project communication management and lastly human resource management in the project. These knowledge areas have been depicted in different stages of the project. Stakeholders like Gravil and waterloo police service are named in this project. Schedule of the project has been given whereby it started in 1997 and in different timelines for various activities has been given. There is also interaction of stakeholders in this case as far as project interaction is concerned. Channeling of information has been depicted through the use of mails and meetings.

Most leaders tend to give orders to the lowers stakeholders and are not involved in actual deeds of the work. This brings organization communication chaos in a given organization. Secondly, I will define clear working policies and schemes of work. This is to show the flow of work, the major impacts to the community, potential challenges that are going to be deduced from the project, major materials needed in the work and all other prerequisites that are mandatory in fulfillment of that project. This has been evidenced from the challenges that are experienced in the case study.

At the initiation process, Gravill had to determine the best way forward for WRPS to begin to achieve the benefits of an integrated and automated information system within the police service. This was to assist to acquire information and other required documents during the project. Planning was done prior before the commencement of the project i.e. the federal government had planned to offer funding to the police officers in charge to enable them to run the exercise well. During the execution of the project, different actions were taken i.e. The software that was currently used was replaced for the reporting of the CIPC. The WRPS and other stakeholders kept in track the monitoring and controlling of the CIMS project up to the end where the technology was adopted. Lastly, the project was adopted and the software was installed where it included over 50000 users in the world.

Despite that CIMS project was executed, a small company known as Niche established in Canada did a large installation thus overtaking the CIMS project. This approach was not successful because the expectations were that the CIMS could take a large number of users as compared to the Niche Company. Also, the field reports were newly formed and were not proven in the field. It was done only at piloting stage. The CIMS project that seemed to be perfect failed to work on their own and this led them to be incorporated with the Niche technology for maximum performance” (Rosero, 2018).

RECOMMENDATIONS

I would have used scum methodology since it gives an improvement of communication in given structure and speeds up the development of the project. This is because the CIMS project had taken a long period of time to be reassessed instead the WRPS should have empowered the project hence more development for the community.

I would have advocated for the following improvements in the case study; stakeholder and sponsor facilitation, being a manager of the CIMS project I could have made facilitation with the WRPS and other minor stakeholder such as the Canadian Police Service to increase the success of the project. I would have set ground rules and regulations to govern the users and the involved stakeholders like the WRPS. This could have included the patent rights of the project. Being a manager I could have advocated for testing and experimentation of these projects before they are being introduced to the end users. I could have advocated for bettering the CIMS software rather than having a mere competition from small companies like the Niche Company” (Regnier, 2018)

References

GRESKO, A. A., LAVRENYUK, K. I., SOLODUKHIN, K. S., & CHEN, A. Y. Fuzzy Multi-Period Model for Selecting Mixed Types of Stakeholder Engagement Strategies of the Company Taking into Account the Interrelations of Stakeholders. Editorial Board, 9.

Huc, F. (2018). How can managing change in construction projects improve productivity?.

Mustapha, Z., Aigbavboa, C., & Thwala, W. D. (2018). Contractors’ Organisational Culture Towards Health and Safety Compliance in Ghana. In Proceedings of the 21st International Symposium on Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate (pp. 535-542). Springer, Singapore.

Rosero, R. H., Alonso, I. A., Procel, M. A., & Gómez, O. S. (2018). Best Practices and Methodologies for IT Project Portfolio Management. KnE Engineering, 1(2), 125-140.

Regnier, A. (2018). AGILE Projects and internal contracts: a contradiction?.