Major Digital Projects Report

Changes in delivery confidence

New major digital projects are generally starting off well with more than three-quarters reporting High or Medium-High delivery confidence.

The government’s digital projects are being delivered against a backdrop of rapid and continuous technological change. This dynamic environment is reflected in the changes in delivery confidence ratings over the past year as projects move through different stages in their development.

Delivery confidence of projects which have newly entered central oversight

Understanding overall changes in delivery confidence to target engagement and reforms

Most (75.9%) of the 29 Tier 1 and 2 projects entering oversight since February 2024 report a High or Medium-High delivery confidence. These projects commonly report factors contributing to their delivery confidence rating at the start as: establishing effective governance early; having well-prepared documentation and artefacts; and ensuring experienced and capable personnel were ready.

This is an early sign that investment to strengthen digital project design processes is increasing overall delivery confidence. Projects often start with lower levels of delivery confidence, but the recent emphasis on ensuring mature planning is in place before projects start appears to be paying dividends, with more than three-quarters of these new projects entering oversight reporting High or Medium-High confidence. This contrasts with the United Kingdom where ‘it is not unusual for projects to be rated as Red earlier in their lifecycle, when scope, benefits, costs and delivery methods are still being explored’ (Infrastructure and Projects Authority 2024 p.13).

Reforms supporting success – partnering with industry to deliver digital projects

Recognising the crucial role of technology vendors in delivering the Australian Government’s ambitions for digital transformation, the Digital and ICT Investment Oversight Framework includes ‘sourcing’ as an area of focus. As part of this, the DTA coordinates marketplaces and agreements designed to enable agencies to easily access technology goods and services to support their digital projects. In 2023–24, the Australian Government sourced more than $6.4 billion of digital products and services from industry via these marketplaces and agreements. By accessing these arrangements through the BuyICT platform, agencies benefited from the Australian Government’s collective buying power and strengthened terms and conditions.

The DTA’s latest ICT labour hire and professional services panel, the Digital Marketplace Panel 2, adopts the APS Career Pathfinder dataset and Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) to classify ICT labour hire opportunities. The classification of roles and greater panel pricing transparency provides clearer signals for in-demand skills, their costs and potential shortages that will inform delivery capacity and confidence in digital projects. The top in-demand digital and ICT skills sourced by the APS include software engineer, solution architect and business analyst.

Nearly two thirds of the Tier 1 and 2 projects are on track

Common success factors among projects rated High or Medium-High are:

• experienced staff on the project team
• effective governance models keeping pace with the needs of the project
• mature approaches to risk and issue management
• effective partnering and collaboration between agencies and delivery partners.

Reforms supporting success – preparing senior leaders to lead digital projects successfully

Senior Responsible Officials for digital projects have a key role in ensuring these projects succeed in delivering expected benefits on schedule and on budget. To support these officials, a mandatory program is starting early this year to ensure they are equipped to confidently lead digital projects successfully. This program includes a simulation of a digital project across its life with a focus on building capability in assurance, benefits management, governance, project remediation, and commercial acumen. Following final trials, the program will be available through the Australian Public Service Academy and mandated for all leaders of the major digital projects included in this report.

While most projects are on-track, some projects are reporting lower levels of delivery confidence

As this table shows, a higher proportion of Tier 1 projects (45.0%) are reporting a delivery confidence of Medium or lower compared with Tier 2 projects (33.3%), likely reflecting the added risks and complexities inherent to these projects.

Common themes among projects rated Medium or lower are:

• dependencies on changes to, or introduction of, new legislation
• the complex nature of the technological solutions being implemented – including where integration of systems across organisations and even jurisdictions is required to achieve outcomes
• where digital transformation is occurring alongside major organisational changes, or at a pace the organisation is struggling to sustain (for example, due to multiple concurrent digital projects putting pressure on an agency’s enterprise capability)
• challenges attracting and retaining staff with the required skills including in digital disciplines such as cyber security, as well as in project/program management disciplines such as benefits, change, risk, budget management and integrated scheduling.

Projects reporting lower levels of delivery confidence are generally challenged by more than one of these themes. As noted in the July 2023 Review of the Modernising Business Registers Program, ‘the difficulty of effectively implementing a digital and ICT transformation project increases exponentially with each additional layer of complexity’ (Treasury 2023 p. 338).

Reforms supporting success – reducing risk through robust assurance and governance

Parallel development of legislation and digital capabilities can lead to significant delivery risks, including budget overruns, delays and, in extreme cases, project failures. Sometimes urgent factors make this concurrent work necessary, but where this occurs the associated risk must be managed carefully.

For high-risk digital projects, robust assurance and governance are crucial. The DTA seeks to mitigate risk by adding central funding and governance controls. An example is recommending the government quarantine part or all project funding, releasing it upon successful early discovery work and other proof points that indicate likely successful delivery.

Some continuing projects are reporting delivery difficulties

Note: One project reporting a high delivery confidence in February 2024 is no longer reported since being reclassified from a Tier 2 to a Tier 3. This project now falls outside the scope for inclusion of delivery confidence information.