Wildfire Consulting Group

26 March 2009

DETA Workshop Presentation

Following successful involvement in previous years, Wildfire Consulting Group was invited to once again contribute to the 2009 Department of Employment, Training and the Arts (DETA) Project Management Program conducted by the University of Southern Queensland‘s Faculty of Business.

The program, held in Brisbane’s CBD, is sponsored by DETA and receives full support from the Director General, who has also spoken at previous workshops, in its aim to improve the project management skills of middle to senior managers by covering all aspects of project management from a government perspective in an educational context.

Wildfire Consulting Group’s Managing Director Shane Perkins delivered a most favourably received presentation outlining his project management experience and leading discussion on the various principles that he has applied to actual projects throughout his distinguished career.

In particular Shane led the audience through an exploration of the challenges and lessons learned from the application of benefits management practices as part of The Integrated Justice Information Strategy’s initiatives within the Department of Justice and Attorney General.

The presentation entitled Successfully Managing the Process of Change covered a number of key areas:

Benefit and capability lifecycle that demonstrated the process and phases from the determination of investment drivers through to benefit realisation;
Benefits framework components and their relationship to project and programme management methods;
The key components of benefits management according to Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) and the Cranfield Model;
Examination of the applications of the Benefits Dependency Network approach;
The project, business and stakeholder relationships explored in the context of the Benefits Dependency Network approach to Benefits Management ;
A worked example of outputs and outcomes from the Criminal Justice Analytics initiative; and
The roadmap to benefits realisation as seen through the Criminal Justice Analytics initiative.

With the Queensland Government Chief Information Office within the Department of Public Works having recently developed standard approaches for managing projects, programs and portfolios in the Queensland Government, this session proved timely and provided a rare insight into the workings of a complex cross-sector initiative that transitioned to these new approaches mid-stream.

Senior Lecturer and Project Management Program Coordinator Barrie Todhunter declared Shane’s presentation of great value and insight to all present.

For further information or media comment on this presentation please contact: brisbane@wildfiregroup.com.au

10-11 July 2008

Fourth National Justice Modelling Workshop Presentation

This prestigious event hosted by Griffith University was opened by Dr Peter Crossman, the Assistant Under Treasurer and Government Statistician within Queensland Treasury and included a key note address by Professor Alfred Blumstein, who was the recipient of the prestigious Stockholm Prize in 2007 for his research into criminal careers.

The two day workshop showcased to attendees from Queensland Government agencies, their interstate counterparts and a number of professionals who flew in from New Zealand, how a range of recently developed models (trajectory, simulation, resource allocation, economic and spatial) had been used to facilitate evidence based decision making in social and justice organizations.
Wildfire Consulting Group’s Managing Director Shane Perkins presented a session entitled Justice Sector Transformation – Calculating the Social and Economic Benefits of Projects delivered in the Queensland Public Sector; an abstract of which can be found below as it appeared in the workshop literature.

Shane Perkins
Criminal Justice Sector Transformation– Calculating the Social and Economic Benefits of Projects Delivered in the Queensland Public Sector

Department of Justice and Attorney General, Brisbane, Queensland

The Integrated Justice Information Strategy (IJIS) is a Queensland Government (Australia) initiative to enhance community safety by improving information sharing and collaboration among criminal justice agencies. The budget for the State government program is $35.7 million to deliver eleven projects over seven years commencing in 2003-2004. This whole-of-government initiative aims to improve business processes and hence the efficiency and effectiveness of Queensland’s criminal justice sector and provide better communication and information systems. These outcomes will contribute benefits back to the community as well as enhance the capability of all criminal justice agencies. The original IJIS consideration was that internal efficiency benefits within and across multiple Queensland Government agencies would justify the expenditure required to implement the initiative. However, many of the expected benefits are anticipated to be public benefits, in that they accrue to the community rather than provide direct financial benefits for the government. Previously, on the productivity benefits of IJIS had been valued and there was now a need to value the social and economic benefits for the community as a whole.

In order to identify realistic and justifiable values for the social and economic benefits the criminal justice sector would need to be modelled and benefit indicators agreed and quantified in an environment of limited research data and great sensitivity. By working collaboratively the Queensland Government has obtained a comprehensive valuation of the social and economic benefits that can be achieved through IJIS. The social and economic values, in conjunction with agency focused returns, can then be used to guide development of IJIS projects to ensure the maximum benefits are realised for the Queensland community. Benefits management methodologies acknowledge that economic and social benefits are important for public sector investments, but provide little guidance on how to value such benefits. This case study shows that the benefits can be estimated using a multi-disciplinary approach comprising strong stakeholder involvement, economic expertise and simulation modelling.

For further information or media comment on this presentation please contact: brisbane@wildfiregroup.com.au

11th June 2008

Queensland Government GITC Accreditation

June 2008 has seen Wildfire Consulting Group become an official signatory to the GITC Version 5 Agreement with the State of Queensland.

The Agreement represents a suite of standard terms and conditions which forms the contractual basis for the Queensland Government's procurement of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) products and/or services.

Wildfire Consulting Group is now accredited to provide Packaged Software, ICT Personnel Recruitment Services, ICT Contracting Services and ICT Consultancy Services to the Queensland Government and looks forward to continuing to deliver an exceptional level of service to the agencies with which it transacts.

For further information or media comment on this presentation please contact: brisbane@wildfiregroup.com.au

4th April 2008

DETA Project Management Presentation

Wildfire Consulting Group successfully delivered to the Middle Management Program Workshop held for the Department of Education, Training and the Arts in Brisbane recently.

Drawing on their extensive experience our practitioners addressed the audience of middle managers with a presentation entitled Successful Project Management at the event hosted by the Business Faculty of the University of Southern Queensland.

The presentation incorporated the Queensland Government’s Home WaterWise Rebate Scheme as a case study to focus on the process of transitioning successful business change through project management and focused on elements of project management including:

Governance that reviewed supportive leadership behaviours,
the business case and its development and the process of agreeing to the vision for success,
project controls and the use of modelling to forecast resourcing and financials,
organizational change management and the path to managing resistance and communicating with stakeholders effectively, and finally
the transition of project capability to business as usual and the means to sustain the newly developed capability.

In addition, the Wildfire Consulting Group outlined their innovative change management framework that integrates project processes and solutions to facilitate change management and also seized the opportunity to demonstrate how the Wildfire Audit Matrix toolset provides a 'live' project management diagnosis to identify areas for proactive project intervention, redirection and balancing.

The session received high praise and was deemed a major success by the University and Wildfire Consulting Group alike.

For further information or media comment on this presentation please contact:brisbane@wildfiregroup.com.au