ICT Program and Project Assurance, and Knowledge Sharing to Inform Best Practice Assurance

⁠⁠⁠Activities:
* Advisory, assurance
* Project Risk assurance
* Project governance
* Project health checks
* Deep-dive audits
* Root cause analysis for project failures
* Benefits realisation
* Change impact and management reviews
* Business readiness assessments
* Pre and post implementation reviews
* Knowledge share & capability building

The DTA's Portfolio Management Investment and Advisory Office (PMIAO) provides strategic and policy leadership on whole-of-government information and communications technology (ICT) and digital service delivery, including ICT procurement policy.

In delivering these outcomes the PMIAO has specific assurance responsibilities over a portfolio of strategically important Government ICT initiatives. This assurance provides confidence to Government that risks, benefits and outcomes are well managed, and the initiatives are on track and will be delivered successfully.

This work involves the assurance of those individual initiatives, and also supports knowledge sharing to inform best practice assurance.

The projects require independent assessments by experienced assurers to ensure their delivery confidence is maintained. The DTA works with each project to establish its agreed assurance needs. In liaison with the DTA, the service provider then delivers fit-for-purpose assurance to the project.

This can include things like:
* Impartial assessment of the way the project or program is being managed, its performance against the original baseline plan, and the risks which may prevent it from successfully delivering expected business benefits. This may be over discrete aspects of the project, or embedded over time.
* Accurate insight as to the state of the project to the Client, feeding corrective actions and recommendations through the Client to the project team in order to achieve successful project outcomes.
* Conducting health checks, testing current risk management maturity.
* Carrying out assurance activities where the PMIAO is alerted to a deterioration in benefits delivery confidence (for example, to assure a ‘Plan to Return to Green’).
* Provide advice on the development of the Roadmap to Green, and how the initiative intends to restore delivery confidence.
* Conducting health checks, providing an objective assessment expressing an independent opinion on the delivery confidence of the initiative. Forming a defensible current state assessment, working closely with senior executives to prepare a roadmap of actions and recommendations to help the initiative maintain or restore confidence.
* Providing early guidance to initiative leadership to improve benefits management maturity and position the program to effectively measure and report on benefits realisation.