Project Management Competencies For Certain Contracts

Section 1: Currently, the office of state planning and budgeting is required to prepare the forms and instructions to be used in preparation of all budget requests and supplemental budget requests submitted to the joint technology committee (JTC). For a budget request for a major information technology project (major IT project) submitted to the JTC for funding in the 2020-2021 state fiscal year or any state fiscal year thereafter, the bill requires the forms and instructions to include the submission of a written business case specifying certain information about the major IT project and a survey of other states, including specified information, that have completed major IT projects with similar goals.

Section 2: The bill requires the office of information technology (office) to ensure that every major IT project has a project manager in the office who is regularly involved in the management of the project and who is required to develop, in coordination with the state agency that is a party to the contract (state agency), specified project baseline metrics to track the progress of the project. The office is required to ensure that the contractor does not begin work on a major IT project until the project manager has developed the baseline metrics and they have been approved by the applicable state agency. In addition, the office is required to develop, in cooperation with the applicable state agency, performance indicators to monitor the major IT project and quantitative critical success factors to track the success of the project.

The project manager is required to provide the baseline metrics, the performance indicators, the critical success factors, and a quarterly status report for each major IT project to the JTC. If the quarterly status report for a major IT project indicates that the project is unlikely to achieve the performance indicators established for the project, the office is required to place the project on a list for more intense monitoring. If the office determines that the major IT project is not in compliance with the established baseline metrics for the project, that the variances in the established performance indicators or success factors established for the project are intolerable, or that the project is otherwise in need of corrective action, the office is required to notify the applicable state agency of the its recommended corrective action for the project.

Section 3: For budget requests for a major IT project submitted to the JTC for funding in the 2020-2021 state fiscal year or any state fiscal year thereafter, a governmental body is required to provide for a change management plan, including specified information and the resources necessary for the execution of the change management plan. Governmental bodies are required to seek best practices with private- or public-sector experts when appropriate to develop and implement change management plans and are required to provide written change management plans to the JTC and the office of state planning and budgeting.
(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)