Case Study: Business Process Management in Health and Human Services

This presentation discusses a case study on the implementation of an information system project in the Health and Human Services department. It reviews the challenges faced, such as improper planning, insufficient funding, and understaffing, and recommends strategies for future government projects, including the use of qualified professionals, contingency plans, and oversight committees.

Business Process Management

Outline
• Describing the context of the case study.
• Reviewing the details of the organization.
• Describing the particulars of the case study.
• Reviewing the scenario after the case.
• Discussing the problems/challenges.
• Recommending possible solutions.
• Conclusion.

Introduction
• Information systems are essential for the
efficiency of business processes (Kerzner 2017, p
47).
• Unfortunately, most IS projects fail due to lack of
proper implementation.
• Others are cancelled even before completing
their implementation.
• One case study was done in DTA, an executive
division of Health and Human Services in USA.

Introduction
• The health and Human Services is a branch that
caters to the welfare of the people’s social
welfare (Kuilboer, J.P. & Ashrafi 2006, p 123).
• This branch is under the Federal Government,
which also funds its activities.
• This branch has decreased its productivity due to
policies.
• They change too frequently, which makes its
difficult to meet targets.

Organization Background
• The department has four main units. They are
field work, procedure and program,
Information systems and finance.
• Human and Health services has 40 offices in
the nation (Kuilboer, J.P. & Ashrafi 2006, p 125).
• The branch has hundreds of thousands
projects, thousands of case workers and almost
one thousand administrative staffs.

Background
• The commissioner is the highest officer in the
Health and Human Services.
• He or she is appointed by the state’s governor.
• During this case study, the government had laid
of civil servant and replaced them with
automated services.
• Information systems were expected to increase
effectiveness as well as cut operation costs.

Problems
• Executing information system in this branch failed
due to several challenges.
• The first mistake was improper planning (Kerzner
2017, p53 ). The IS project lacked a comprehensive
plan that was supposed to guide it.
• Also, insufficient funding contributed to its failure.
• The staff were not enough as well as
underestimating the time required for that project.

Problem
• All projects should have contingency plans
(Kerzner 2017, p 68).
• This one lacked one and it halted when the first
contractor left.
• Time was wasted trying to find another
contractor to continue with the project.
• After the new contractors embarked on the
project, they proceeded without knowledge of
the previous work.

Part 1
• The vision of this IS project was to deliver quality
services to the people.
• It was also about achieving independence by not
relying on the state’s mainframe computers.
• In particular, the project was a multititier server
architecture (Kuilboer, J.P. & Ashrafi 2006, 127).
• Generally, this project was anticipated to
enhance service in the Health and Human
Service Branch.

Part 1
• Some of the specific expectations were:
• Calculating benefits using departmental policies.
• Enhance correspondence and centralize social
workers; contact.
• Information sharing and access throughout the
department.
• Increase financial accountabilities and operations
such as directly depositing benefits electronically.

Part 2
• This phase mainly involved issues associated with
understaffing.
• Due to lack of sufficient human power, the
project delayed and a lot of time was wasted.
• Lack of organization was also evident, mainly in
how staffs were being employed.
• The chief commission and his assistant were
unable to avail some of the tools needed to
work.

Part 2
• During the designing phase, no encyclcopedias
were utilized (Kuilboer, J.P. & Ashrafi 2006, p
131).
• Also, preparation of the design phase was
overwhelming and slow.
• Too bulky documents were problematic to use
due to their complexity.
• After the design documents were completed,
they did not get enough time for printing.

Part 3
• Such a project requires request for proposals from
contractors (Kerzner 2017, p 111).
• In addition, a pilot project was required to evaluate
the feasibility of this entire exercise.
• The executive staff failed to follow MIS advice and
chose a proposal that could not prove feasibility of
this project.
• Eventually, the contract was awarded to an IT vendor
who agreed to a performance based contract.

Part 3
• In addition to the IT vendor, the commission
leased an office particularly for this project.
• The contractor experienced challenges soon
after beginning this project.
• For instance, he realized that data model was
changed and not reflected in the process model.
• The staffs in this project were also
uncoordinated and conflict often.

Part 4
• After the first contractor failing to deliver, the
overseers of this project had to hire another one.
• The new one designed an object-oriented
application that will replaced the old mainframe
computers.
• The aim was to have a system that would
respond to policy changes (Kuilboer, J.P. & Ashrafi
2006, p130).
• This objective was not entirely achieved.

Part 4
• Other issues compounding this project were lack
of preparation after the project was over (Kerzner
2017, p 121).
• New systems and designs require personnel to use
them and maintain.
• The department was assuming many risks within
this project.
• It lacked to train employees on the utilization and
maintenance of the new MIS systems and designs.

Conclusion
• This project was about modernizing the state’s social
services using MIS.
• Despite this good idea, poor planning and
implementation of the project failed it (Kerzner 2017,
p 84).
• The government lost a lot of money due to project
management issues.
• Factors that affected this project included, lacking a
feasible study. It led to inaccurate budgeting, staffing
and scheduling.

Conclusion
• Any project ought to have risk management
strategies such as contingency plans.
• This project failed to observe these fundamental
requirements.
• Employee retention was also a major problem
and delayed employment of the right personnel.
• Generally poor evaluation criteria misguided the
entire project and brought it to its failure.

Recommendation
• Government projects require a manager who will
oversee every phase from the beginning.
• Qualified professionals ought to be involved in
planning and implementing every phase.
• Using the right personnel will not compromise
the well being and success of future projects.
• Government projects should also focus on
development and serving the people as opposed
to politics.

Recommendation
• Possible risks and other challenges are common
in all projects (Kerzner 2017, p 34).
• Contingency plans are necessary in mitigating
these issues.
• Government projects also require oversight
committees that will guarantee accountability
and transparency.
• Oversight will generally influence the project
towards its success.

Discussion Question
• What are the common challenges facing
government projects?
• How are these challenges going to be
resolved?
• What are some of the strategies that can be
used to increase project rate success.

References
• Kuilboer, J.P. & Ashrafi, N. 2006. Information
systems redesign in a state social service
agency: a case study. New York: Idea Group
Inc.
• Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management: A
systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. New Jersey : Wiley.