Purpose and Management

Though less extensive than enterprise IT projects, enhancement projects still influence multiple business areas. They typically emerge from prior projects under-delivering on scope or from the need to extend features beyond the initial implementation.

These initiatives enhance specific functionalities of existing systems, improve service delivery, and elevate user experience. They also optimise operations, boost efficiency, and ensure compliance with standards and legislation. Sponsored by the business and overseen by the Project Management Office, enhancement projects demand meticulous planning, execution, and alignment with established frameworks and best practices to deliver targeted improvements.

Focus Areas

Enhancement projects encompass the following focus areas:

• Vendor and stakeholder management: Coordinates with vendors and stakeholders to refine existing contracts or secure support for enhancements.
• Project management: Manages resources, timelines, and budgets for targeted improvements.
• Project assurance: Maintains quality for the enhanced components by building on the strategic and operational standards set by the core system. 
• Enterprise architecture alignment: Reviews the existing IT infrastructure to ensure enhancements integrate seamlessly.
• Compliance: Verifies that enhancements meet legal and compliance standards by extending existing measures.
• Requirements: Evaluates current system features and user needs, conducts gap analysis, and specifies requirements for enhancements.
• System Design: Reviews existing system architecture and limitations, defining technical updates to deliver the specified enhancements.   
• Technology implementation: Configures or updates existing systems to incorporate new features.
• Process alignment: Adjusts business processes to align with enhanced system features.
• Data management and analytics: Enhances existing data structures or analytics tools.
• Security: Strengthens existing security measures, such as updating user and functionality access controls.
• Quality control: Tests enhanced features to ensure they meet functional and non-functional requirements, and if applicable, integration with the core system.
• Organisational change management: Supports users in adopting enhanced features through targeted training.
• Service support planning: Not applicable in enhancements given operational support structures are already established during core implementation.
• Disaster recovery planning: While already covered during core implementation, enhancements may require minor updates to existing recovery strategies.
• Hypercare activation: Provides short-term support—typically one to two weeks—post-enhancement to ensure stability of new features.
• Warranty: Following hypercare, the vendor addresses incidents under the existing warranty agreement, including  enhanced functionality.
• Continuous improvement planning: Monitors enhanced system performance and user feedback to identify further refinements.

Value Proposition

Enhancement projects impact specific business areas, often extending benefits to users within the organisation. They deliver value by:

• Improving operational efficiency and productivity through targeted system upgrades.
• Driving incremental innovation and growth by adding features, building on the core system.
• Enabling swift responses to regulatory changes and market opportunities with enhancements fine-tuning compliance or agility.
• Enhancing service delivery, personalisation, and user engagement to boost satisfaction within existing frameworks. 

The enduring value of these initiatives lies in optimising and extending the core system’s capabilities to meet evolving needs.

Example of an Enhancement Project

An enhancement project example is the addition of a mobile application to an existing records management system. This enables remote access and interaction via mobile devices, improving operational efficiency.

Following the core implementation of Copper RMS, the Ironclad Police Department launches an enhancement project to extend its records management system with mobile capability. This case study applies Agile and ITIL frameworks to deliver a streamlined mobile application, addressing gaps left by the initial project’s de-scope of mobile functionality.

Project Overview

The Ironclad Police Department, serving 250,000 residents across 12 precincts, relies on Copper RMS, implemented as a desktop-only solution by BlueLight Technologies. While Copper RMS meets core needs, its lack of mobile access—de-scoped during user acceptance testing—limits field efficiency. The objective is to deploy Copper Mobile, enhancing Copper RMS to support policing operations remotely.

Project Justification

Copper RMS improves desktop processes, but officers face delays in field operations, with incident logging taking 15 minutes due to manual entry back at precincts. This hampers decision-making and response times compared to the 5-minute benchmark of mobile-enabled forces. Copper Mobile aims to cut logging times to 6 minutes, enhance situational awareness via real-time National Police Database (NPD) access, and boost public safety.

Current State Process Analysis

A four-week analysis documents current workflows with Copper RMS:

• Process mapping: Captures 12,000 annual incident reports and 5,000 monthly evidence items, identifying a 15-minute field-to-desk delay.
• System assessment: Retains Copper RMS’s NPD integration and reporting strengths, but flags its desktop-only limitation.
• Compliance and integration: Ensures mobile enhancements align with GDPR, ISO 27001, and Police and Crime Act 2017 standards, integrating seamlessly with Copper RMS. 

Fit-Gap Analysis

A three-week Fit-Gap analysis evaluates mobile options:

• Alignment evaluation: Assesses Copper Mobile’s fit, meeting 95% of needs (e.g., real-time reporting, NPD access), requiring minor tweaks.
• Customisation needs: Identifies adjustments like a simplified interface for 300 officers and offline data sync for rural areas. 

Request for Proposal

An RFP follows, outlining:

• Requirements: Specifies real-time updates (under 5 seconds), offline mode, and GDPR-compliant authentication for 300 users; non-functional needs include 99.5% uptime and a 4/5 usability rating. 
• Vendor invitation: Invites BlueLight and two competitors to propose solutions and timelines. 

Selecting the Technology

BlueLight’s Copper Mobile wins, costing $600,000 against competitors’ $750,000 and $540,000. Its advantages include proven Copper RMS integration, a three-year support contract, and scalability for future features like bodycam uploads.

Building the Team

The project team forms, including Deputy Chief Clara Swift (Project Sponsor), IT lead Simon Bytes, mobile developers, RMS specialists, and end-users. Following Agile principles, they assess feasibility, review prototypes (scoring 88% in usability), and meet bi-weekly to resolve integration issues.

System Design

A two-week system design phase follows, using hands-on access to Copper RMS’s live environment and a Copper Mobile prototype:

• Capability assessment: Evaluates Copper RMS’s existing integration points, confirming NPD sync (5-second baseline) but noting a 15-second lag in multi-device updates under field conditions.
• Gap identification: Reveals new gaps, such as inconsistent offline sync (60% failure in rural tests) and limited support for real-time evidence uploads, missed in the Fit-Gap analysis.
• Customisation planning: Defines technical updates, including offline data caching, five Python scripts for sync optimisation, and a simplified mobile interface, shaping the development scope. 

Development

A two-month development phase unfolds:

• Configuration: Tailors Copper Mobile for incident reporting and evidence submission, adding offline sync.
• Scripting: Writes five Python scripts to sync data with Copper RMS, cutting delays from 15 minutes to 2 minutes.
• Data integration: Links to NPD and existing 1.2 million records, with 99.9% accuracy.
• BlueLight collaborates via weekly sprints. 

Testing

A three-week testing phase verifies the solution meets the requirements:

• Functional testing: Confirms real-time entry (500 daily updates) and offline mode on 50 devices.
• Integration testing: Validates NPD sync (under 5 seconds).
• Security testing: Passes GDPR audits with encrypted offline storage.
• User acceptance testing: 15 officers rate usability 4.3/5, fixing a sync glitch (from 10 to 3 seconds) in one week. 

Organisational Change Management

Training spans two weeks for 300 officers. Online modules and field drills (90% pass rate) focus on mobile workflows, supported by a 5-page app guide. This ensures adoption with minimal disruption.

Implementation

A one-day go-live activates Copper Mobile:

• Deployment: Rolls out to 300 devices across 12 precincts.
• Data validation: Verifies 10,000 records, achieving 99.9% accuracy.
• User support: Deploys five IT staff for one day, resolving 15 queries (e.g., login issues).
• Rollback planning: Keeps desktop Copper RMS as fallback, unused after a smooth launch 

Hypercare

A two-week hypercare period stabilises the app:

• Active monitoring: Tracks 99.8% uptime, fixing two incidents (e.g., a 4-second lag) in under 12 hours.
• Daily check-ins: Gathers feedback from 30 officers, addressing five minor issues.
• Issue resolution: Resolves an offline sync delay by week one.
• Transition: Hands over to BlueLight’s support team. 

Warranty

A one-year warranty follows:

• Incident resolution: Addresses three incidents (e.g., a data refresh glitch fixed in 24 hours), ensuring stability.
• Periodic reviews: Conducts monthly checks, maintaining 99.5% uptime.
• Support access: Logs 10 tickets, resolved within SLA terms.
• Documentation: Tracks fixes in Copper RMS’s portal. 

Monitoring and Feedback

For three months post-launch, surveys of 50 users monthly yield a 4.6/5 satisfaction score. Feedback refines offline mode, boosting adoption.

Outcomes

Copper Mobile enhances Copper RMS, cutting incident logging from 15 to 6 minutes (60% faster), raising satisfaction from 4.3/5 to 4.6/5, and enabling real-time NPD access for 300 officers. Field response times drop by 40% (from 20 to 12 minutes per incident), improving decision-making and public safety. This targeted upgrade optimises operational efficiency within the existing system’s framework.

Commentary: Project Delivery Frameworks and Governance

Enhancement projects typically follow the same delivery phases as enterprise IT projects—such as initiation, planning, execution, and closure. Those with medium to smaller scopes often skip steps like extensive enterprise architecture alignment or disaster recovery planning. This flexibility in practices and governance extends to production support and business-led projects. Understanding this distinction ensures a balance between delivering business benefits and adapting to varying levels of framework rigour.