The total budget for California's Child Welfare Services - New System modernization project is remaining the same at about $397 million — at least for now — despite the project's move to agile.
But the state entities and departments involved in the project need funding sooner to support more rapid development. The governor's administration is requesting a budget augmentation of $32.1 million in state and federal funding, and $28.6 million in expenditure authority for the Office of Systems Integration to develop and implement the project known as CWS-NS.
"The reason we believe this is incredibly important is that this is new. We need the ability to be able to move at a faster rate than would ordinarily take place," said Peter Kelly, who is heading the development team under an organization called Child Welfare Digital Services.
Kelly said his team will be doing design and development activities "within months," so funding needs to be brought forward about 18 months in the time frame than would be the case for a waterfall-style design approach.
The project's general cost estimates are remaining the same for now, Kelly told a State Senate budget subcommittee on April 21. The project has spent $22 million so far, which leaves $375 million still on the table.
When the move to agile was announced late last year, officials with the Department of Social Services said they were unsure what the total cost ultimately would be. Project management experts say that one of the challenges associated with agile, particularly in the public sector, is getting backing from elected officials when the project's scope and total cost is fluid and changeable by design. Proponents of agile say the methodology, if done correctly, should be cheaper.
Kelly noted that much of the CWS-NS budget is centered on non-IT activities within counties.
"Through this change process what we want to do is have the county customers have a seat at the table in the design and the build sessions, and show them — and have them look at product every two weeks. So that rather than asking them to look at a design and coming back six months later or two years later and having them test it, they get to see it as it evolves and their feedback is collected at a point in time where the cost associated with making those changes is small as opposed to growing exponentially throughout the life cycle," Kelley said.
The Office of Systems Integration said the contract award announcement for the CWS-NS project's first module, the Legacy Application Programming Interface (API) likely will be announced before the end of May.
