Queensland Health Payroll System Failure: Frameworks and SDLC Analysis

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Queensland Health payroll system failure, examining the reasons behind the project's shortcomings and the application of relevant frameworks. The report focuses on the implementation failure of the payroll system, highlighting internal and external factors that contributed to the project's downfall. It evaluates the COBIT and COSO frameworks and their potential implementation within the Queensland Health project. The study also delves into the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), specifically the planning and system analysis stages, to identify gaps and areas for improvement. The report offers a comprehensive overview of the project's failure, providing recommendations for future projects. The findings emphasize the importance of project requirement analysis, time management, experienced project leadership, and the selection of appropriate stakeholders to ensure successful project outcomes. The report concludes by suggesting improvements for future research and project implementations within Queensland Health.

Running head: ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEM
Accounting Information System
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to shed lights on the Queensland Health implementation project
failure where Payroll system was failed due to internal and external reasons. The report discusses
the project failure reasons and strategies to counterattack this type of failure in future researches.
The report evaluates COBIT and COSO frameworks along with its implementations in the
Queensland Health. The further investigations are also done to improve the future projects.
Finally the outcome of this report is to provide an outlook for improving future researches.
Table of Contents

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Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review............................................................................................................................3
COBIT Framework......................................................................................................................3
COSO Framework.......................................................................................................................4
Frameworks Implementation in the Queensland Health Project.....................................................5
Analysis...........................................................................................................................................6
System Development Life Cycle.................................................................................................6
Planning Stage.........................................................................................................................6
System Analysis and Requirement Stage................................................................................7
Summary of Findings......................................................................................................................8
Recommendations............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The Accounting Information System is described as a computer based system which
helps to collect, evaluate, store and process the organization’s accounting and financial
information (Islam et al. 2017). The Queensland Health Department is the chosen company
which is being review in this report. The purpose of this report is to analyse the information
given in the Queensland Health study and Payroll System implementation failure. The report
focuses on COBIT and COSO frameworks to analyse its implementation in Payroll System
project in Queensland Health study. The first two phases, planning and systems analysis, of
system development life cycle are discussed in this report with reference to the Queensland
Health study.
The outline of the report is literature review of COBIT and COSO frameworks, their
application towards the case study and analysis of situation using SDLC. The report at the end
includes summary of finding and recommendations.
Literature Review
COBIT Framework
According to Mangalaraj, Singh and Taneja 2014, COBIT framework is a comprehensive
framework for Information Technology governance. The COBIT framework assists enterprises
to achieve their goals and objectives for the governance and management of IT enterprise. This
framework helps enterprise to create optimal values from Information Technology enterprise.
The optimal values achieved through maintaining a balance between resource use and, realized
benefits and optimized risk levels. The COBIT 5 framework provides five category procedures in
two different domains, management and control, for achieving successful business process

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(Mutiara, Prasetyo and Widya 2017). The frameworks has also been selected in finance and
banking sectors. This can be illustrated through a case study on COBIT 5 framework use in
banking and insurance sector. The case study results show significant differences of adoption of
COBIT frameworks in banks and finances (Vugec, Spremić and Bach 2017). The maturity levels
of COBIT and business opportunities were increased in the selected banks and finances. Hence,
the COBIT 5 framework should be implemented for the successful running of the Queensland
Health Payroll system. The COBIT 5 framework provides end-to-end business approach of the
Information Technology enterprise governance.
COSO Framework
According to Alavi 2017, the failures of big companies were due to the formation of
COSO in 1985. The COSO was then revamped to provide final outcome that includes risk
assessment, controlling environment and activities information, and monitoring and
communication. The COSO framework benefits the organization’s internal control framework
where they get better understanding of direct, reciprocal and indirect associations. This
association is among the information and communication’s dimensions (accuracy, openness and
feedback flow) (Rae, Sands and Subramaniam 2017). The COSO framework works effectively
if a company has effective communication environment. However, there are criticism related to
COSO that it is too much focused on financial report of an organization. The COSO framework
is maintained in a feasible level of safety and security (Magruder 2015). This is because of
realization that all the COSO components cannot be satisfactorily implemented at any framework
level as expected by the organization. Hence, COSO framework 2013 should be implemented in
the Queensland Health payroll system. This version of framework helps to identify the gaps
present in the organization’s program.

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Frameworks Implementation in the Queensland Health Project
The development of the Shared Services Initiative (SSI) by Queensland Government has
been found that it was earlier developed to LATTICE by informing the Queensland Health
department. However, the LATTICE system was considered to be unsupported. Hence,
Queensland Health initiated the Shared Services Initiative in order to minimize the risks
associate to the unsupported system (Bartens et al. 2015). Therefore, in the mean time, IBM and
CorPpTech revamped and restored their prior systems with SAP finance, HR and the WorkBrain
solutions. Thus, the WorkBrain system was inclined to procedure the transport and timesheets to
the organization’s SAP system. The notification was sent the department that the standardization
of the project, Finance and Payroll System was made necessary for all the departments of the
Government (Huygh et al. 2018). This resulted in the formation of a special unit of Government
named CorpTech to manage all the implementation of Finance and Payroll system project.
Consequently the payroll and finance systems project implementation in Queensland Health
included three necessary key groups of stakeholders (Cohen, Krishnamoorthy and Wright 2017).
This stakeholder’s team include staff members, IBM and CorpTech.
The staff members are the necessary stakeholders which are responsible for the internal
control of the department. The IBM stakeholders are considered as the primary consultant of the
Queensland Health implementation project (Boyle et al. 2015). However, IBM was not
responsible for the implementation of Queensland Health project in the remaining Queensland
Health departments because of financial planning. CorpTech stakeholder was responsible for
organizing or running the roles and responsibilities of IBM working. The CorpTech was
responsible for managing the overall project of Queensland Health including IBM’s working
process also.

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Therefore, from above it can be said that the Queensland Health was responsible for the
implementation of the frameworks, and managing and control within the Payroll project of
Queensland Health (Larson and Herz 2017). Their responsibility also includes training to the
existing staff and defining business requirements. The responsibility of CorpTech was to
examine the full implementation of the project in all the Queensland Health Government
departments including management of IBM’s work. The IBM’s responsibility was to handle the
incorporation of the implementation of the project including analysis of SAP finance and HR,
and WorkBrain solutions.
Analysis
System Development Life Cycle
The system development life cycle is referred to a six step procedure which involves
planning phase, analysis phase, design phase, examining phase, organizing phase and
maintenance phase (Khan, Parveen and Sadiq 2014). These six phases are the major components
to create a software system, hardware system or a combination of software and hardware system.
The below discussions only focuses on the first two phases of the system development
life cycle and they are Planning phase, and System analysis and requirement phase. These two
stages have been evaluated to examine the Queensland Health implementation project of Finance
and Payroll Systems.
Planning Stage
The planning phase of system development life cycle is evaluated in this section with
reference to Queensland Health project failure of Payroll system. The project failure was
calculated as 300% over the budget limit and it was delayed by 18 months that means it was

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behind the defined schedule (Valacich, George and Hoffer 2014). It has also been found that the
workers including staff, nurses and doctor were incorrectly paid or not paid. The project’s total
cost was $ 1.25 billion AUD which includes cost of implementing, managing, maintain and
stabilizing of Queensland Health system project (Mustaquim and Nyström 2015). The multiple
reasons for the Payroll system failure included strikes in industries, health minister resignation
and loss of existing member due to new employees. The Queensland also incorporated the
enquiry form in Australian Government to know the exact reasons for the disastrous failure of
the project. The Queensland Health also arranged an enquiry for the security of future projects in
the Information Technology field (Fang et al. 2015). The enquiry resulted in the issues that were
the reason of the failure of Queensland Health project. The issues were related to Governance
and project management.
System Analysis and Requirement Stage
The system analysis is the second phase in System Development Life Cycle which is
evaluated in this section with reference to Queensland Health implementation project failure.
The Queensland Government is composed of three types of firms. They are Government
departments and agencies, general statutory body and Government owned corporations (Wasson
2015). The Queensland Health provides services in healthcare regarding medical, dental and
services to old-age people across Queensland. Queensland Health provides facilities and service
to about 40,000 people and has 85,000 staff (Bano and Zowghi 2015). The large number of
employees and their vast skill sets resulted in the occurring of complexities in the payment
process to the employees. The current structure of payroll system shows that the organization
needs to follow about 24,000 calculation combinations related to payroll system (Bano and
Zowghi 2015). The payment to the staff of Queensland Health was done through unequal payroll

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system implementation named LATTICE and ESP engine. These systems worked efficiently for
six years. However to accommodate additional structures such as incentives and award, the
payroll system needed some modifications.
The LATTICE system in 2005 became unsupported and hence there was requirement to
replace the system with new payroll system in Queensland Health department (Modi, Singh and
Chauhan 2017). The payroll system project was implemented through Queensland Health staff,
IBM and CorpTech. The project failure was the reason due to inefficiency of these three
stakeholders management.
Summary of Findings
The summaries of findings for Queensland Health implementation Payroll system failure
are given below in the following paragraph.
The main reason of the failure of Queensland Health implementation project was due to
the unsupported LATTICE system used for paying the employees of Queensland Health. The
IBM and CorpTech were the stakeholders however they were not effective to provide benefit to
the implementation of the new payroll system. This was the major blow to the Queensland
Health which contributed to the failure of the new payroll system. The COBIT 5 and COSO
2013 frameworks are the major frameworks to analyse and manage risk controls for the
implementation of the new payroll system. This is explained in the prior section. They should be
implemented in the Queensland Health for effective evaluation of the new payroll system. The
further investigation of the project failure through analyzing two phases, Planning and System
analysis, of System Development Life Cycle are done. The investigation through these two
stages shows that there were gaps in the implementation of the new payroll system. The gaps
were related to the Queensland Health internal and external operations. Their inappropriate

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systems and inefficient contribution from the stakeholders contributed to the payroll system
failure. Therefore, for future projects they should opt for COBIT and COSO frameworks to
establish a more functioned and improved implementation of project.
Recommendations
The above discussions shows that there are some gaps which needs to be filled for the
effective implementation of the project, payroll system, in Queensland Health department. The
recommendations for the Queensland Health department are given below in the following points.
 Analysis of the project requirements- The projects should be analyzed before
working upon it and the requirements should be planned and gathered. These will
help to avoid any future complications.
 Time consideration- Time is an important factor which is needed for the correct
and accurate implementation of any project. Queensland Health department
should focus on time management for future researches.
 Experienced In-charge for the project- Queensland Health should appoint
experienced and skilled In-charge for the whole process of implementation of a
project. This is because the In-charge will be solely responsible for the project
complexities. There will be no need to administer individual people or group for
the process of project implementation in future.
 Choosing the right stakeholder/partner- Queensland Health should choose correct
stakeholders for the implementation process of the project because they are the
primary stakeholders who will be responsible for giving support. They should be
chosen wisely and with proper research.

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 Sharing of good and bad new- Queensland Health should share good and bad
news with the people related to the project implementation to avoid any
confusions and complications.
Conclusion
Therefore, the above discussions conclude that to implement a new project or any type of
project within Queensland, they require accurate frameworks, and maintenance and controls.
There is a need of this accuracy to implement the project accurately and these are the major
factors for Queensland Health to take into account. The frameworks and controls should be
implemented to overcome the complexities of the implementation process within the
Government department such as Queensland Health. This is necessary to avoid any conflict and
any type of confusion. The discussions show that improper and inappropriate implementation of
the project resulted in incorrect payment of staff. These should be avoided at highest priority
because staffs are the most important asset of Queensland Health department. Therefore, for
future researches, Queensland Health needs to take the discussed points into account for any
future complications.

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