MAREVA - Value creation analysis for government transformation projects (MAREVA)

MAREVA is a successful and innovative methodology to assess the value of public sector transformation projects. This project complies with the priority on eGovernment efficiency and effectiveness included in the i-2010 Action Plan. It helps administrations in prioritizing initiatives, managing them (evaluating alternatives, commitment of project leaders on concrete objectives) and building knowledge for further projects to optimize their value. MAREVA was launched in 2005 by the French eGovernment Agency (ADAE) and has already been rolled out in about 100 eGovernment initiatives in 10 French ministries and in several other public organizations, including Quebec government.

Policy Context

MAREVA has been developed in parallel with the implementation of a new French law on public finances (the LOLF) which changes the state’s budgetary processes and performance management. The LOLF is a paradigm shift for the French public sector from a resource-based budgeting to a result-based budgeting approach requiring tools and methods to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of public sectors policies and programs. MAREVA contributes to serve the purpose of shifting public administrations towards a result-based management of budgets, as it helps to provide a more-balanced assessment of costs and benefits, value and risk as a way to better prioritize and manage project portfolios.

Description of target users and groups

MAREVA targets any administration wishing to better manage its transformation projects portfolio. MAREVA can be considered first as an analysis method and then as a decision-making and communication tool for key actors of governmental transformation projects. It targets decision makers, project leaders and information system departments.

Description of the way to implement the initiative

The project management approach followed different steps. The relationship of the DGME with the ministries is based on trust. MAREVA was tested internally and the deployment depended on the willingness of ministries and other public actors. In order to extend the use of MAREVA in 2007 we helped 10 French ministries to test it in their own context. The objective is to let ministries to be in contact with the method and to allow correspondents to talk about MAREVA internally

Technology solution

MAREVA has been deployed on 2 Excel tools free for any administration. We are currently considering migrating from our temporary Excel tool to a web-based solution that will provide additional functionalities and ease the roll out and the consolidation of the MAREVA methodology. We are also transforming MAREVA under OpenOffice to ensure license-free access .All documents (pedagogical and methodological) are available on Internet. No specific demand is required. These resources are published under Creative Commons license in order to allow every public actor to use it freely. Private sector companies can use them in their own context or to work with the public administration.

Main results, benefits and impacts

MAREVA has already been rolled out on about 100 governmental transformation projects in more than 10 French government Departments and in several public organizations like the National Social Security Office, the Strasbourg Urban Community and the French Farming Mutual Insurance. The methodology has received an excellent welcome and its results have been widely communicated within the French Government and abroad. In particular it has been rolled out on about 40 transformation projects of the French eGovernment Project Management Office. MAREVA enabled to highlight and to follow-up the realization of the 1,1 billion Euros total benefits promised by these projects. Another example: when planning to launch a new contract for shared mainframes, the French eGovernment Project Management Office compared different scenarios with MAREVA to select the best value. Helped by a dedicated training plan organized in early 2007, French government ministries are convinced by the benefits of the MAREVA methodology and progressively plan to roll it out in all their transformation projects (i.e. the French Agriculture Ministry) Decision makers and project managers have told us they appreciate the MAREVA approach for the following reasons: - It is an innovative approach to define the value of a project by integrating ROI but also public sector’s specificities such as productivity issues, impacts on citizens and public servants, organization’s complexity, necessity... - It is a unique method to evaluate and compare many different projects (infrastructure projects, internal transformation projects, e-services…) - It is a powerful tool to facilitate discussion between project team members (functional and IT), decision-makers and contractors - It is a way to commit teams to concrete objectives enabling to better manage the project (early identification of project risks/ pitfalls enabling early decisions) and to engage them on common objectives - It is a way to get impacted departments to be committed to concrete savings objectives (€ or productivity) and to identify action plans to secure them - The methodology enables to follow-up the value of a project at each stage of its life cycle: beforehand, to contribute to the decision-making process, during the project to better manage it (resources justification, choice between alternatives, corrective actions plan) and afterwards, to contribute to the experience gained - The synthetic project value report is highly pertinent (on a representative number of projects) and the tools are easy to use, even without training (in 2005, more than 30 projects were assessed in 2 weeks time after a 3 hours kick-off meeting) The use of MAREVA will be widely developed in the forthcoming years. In particular, the French Budget Ministry is going to request a MAREVA analysis for the most important governmental transformation projects, in line with LOLF approach. MAREVA could thus be used in the forthcoming years by hundreds of decision makers, project leaders and information system departments. Innovation: While value analysis methodologies are usually considered as very complex and too detailed, MAREVA succeeds in providing meaningful one-page synthetic reports easily understandable by any actor of a transformation project (from decision-makers to project leaders and executives). Moreover, specific tools have been deployed to make sure any government transformation project can be evaluated in a very simple manner and with common and standard evaluation criterions (holistic approach). MAREVA assesses the value of a project through 5 analysis grids and restores the value on a five-axis radar graph: - State Financial Value: It enforces the Return on Investment key indicators (Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, break-even point) comparing project development and operation expenses with the financial benefits of the project in terms of productivity, efficiency gains, resulting economies, increased revenue... - Public Service Social & Operational Value: It assesses the qualitative impacts of the project on public functioning government, such as employee satisfaction, improvement of service efficiency, … as well as financial impacts on the broader public sector (like social and health organization). - Direct Customer Value: It assesses project benefits for private users (citizens, companies, associations, etc) in qualitative terms (quality of services…) and quantitative terms, such as monetary and time savings. - Project Necessity: It approximates the level of risk without the project (articulation with other key projects, technology obsolescence, political and legal obligation). - Risk: MAREVA also makes a quick assessment of project risk (project management, legal issues, technical, and deployment capability).

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Track record of sharing

MAREVA has influenced many initiatives in France and in other countries. It is an example of good practice. From the beginning it was conceived to be shared. It is open enough to be adapted to different context and it’s an example of efficacy of public expenditure, as the Administration only spends once in a common need. An example: In Quebec a total of 70 eGovernment projects were launched between 2004-2005. Due to the large budgets involved in these projects, the auditor-general of Quebec requested the Government to justify their importance. The Government of Quebec tested MAREVA on 7 pilot projects by mid-2006: At the end of the test they were very satisfied with the methodology (95% of the users considered that MAREVA was useful to assess the value of their projects). The Government of Quebec has now decided to use MAREVA to assess the value of all of its eGovernement projects. The specific partnership with Quebec was very useful, as it allows giving an external perspective to the project. The DGME is currently in discussion with other EU and OCDE countries very interested (Germany, Portugal, Monaco and Algeria) in this methodology.

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1. Assess the context and adapt MAREVA if necessary: - Assess the maturity of the organization (diagnosis) - Articulate the principles of value analysis with the strategy, the organization and the project management processes of the organization Lesson 2. Take time for Change Management: - Test the method with pilots - Prepare and deploy a training program and a communication plan - Involve decision makers in the deployment of the methodology Lesson 3. Simplicity and efficiency for performance management: - Use the MAREVA methodology to facilitate discussion between project team members (functional and IT), decision-makers and contractors and to get them be committed on concrete objectives Scope: National