Prolog

"Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned."

^{(Peter Marshall)}

Agile methods have proven superior to traditional approaches in many areas of our fast-moving times. It therefore makes sense that they are also being used more frequently by the public authorities and are reflected in HERMES. However, the experience of the Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) shows that consistent application of a method is unfortunately no guarantee for successful project implementation. Other aspects are also important. We therefore encourage you to keep the following in mind:

Any transformation depends on cultural change.

From the outset, raise the awareness of everyone involved that innovation is not driven by technology alone, but rather starts with the individual employee. Encourage a willingness to engage in dialogue, learn to live with uncertainty, question taboos, and allow for errors. A zero-error culture is fatal - not only, but especially for the agile world.

Focus on the business and the end user.

As the project sponsor, steer the project by focusing on the expected business benefits and by ensuring that reporting is consistently aligned with those benefits. For example, use milestones to define when you want to realize which benefit and leave project execution primarily to the project team.

With regard to the Administration's transformation plans, do not hesitate to question existing organizations and processes. Motivate those involved to develop the solution together with the users. In the case of the Administration, users include citizens, companies, subsidy recipients, but also cantons and communes. Dare to ask everyone involved to work together so that a continuous end-to-end process is ultimately created.

Assemble the puzzle pieces in your plan without any gaps.

Orchestrate your projects in such a way that they jointly make a valuable contribution to achieving your strategic objectives. Involve architecture, ICS,* and security officers at an early stage so that their requirements are actually taken into account. Finally, make sure you have sufficient explicit test cases for the internal controls and security elements and that they are automated to the extent possible.

Provide your organization with the necessary powers.

Secure key resources in a timely and sustainable manner and unambiguously confirm their role-specific responsibilities. Make sure that the user representative (product owner) has both the expertise and the necessary decision-making powers, and never start without a mature quality and risk management system.

We will examine these aspects during our audits in the Federal Administration, and we look forward to exploring this new world together with all users. If you have any questions, please contact us at info@efk.admin.ch.

Swiss Federal Audit Office SFAO

www.efk.admin.ch

New clothes for HERMES

This 2022 edition of HERMES project management reflects the evolving understanding of projects in recent years and the expectations of users with respect to advanced project management. One of the goals is for the agile development approach in HERMES project management to be adapted to the current needs of the organizations. For this purpose, the already existing agile approach should be optimized and integrated into the phase model - taking into account governance, a uniform approach in the projects, and the proven interfaces to the project environment. A further goal is to give greater weight to aspects such as organization and business focus, while further reducing the heavy emphasis on IT.

HERMES distinguishes between traditional and hybrid project management. With hybrid project management, HERMES now allows various agile development methods to be integrated in a uniform manner. Otherwise, HERMES offers the same structural system and the same method components as before. The basic outlines of the method also remain the same - only with a greater focus on outcomes, which is why the sequence of sections has been modified, in some cases with new headings.

The specific terminology for HERMES has also been kept largely the same, irrespective of the development approach. The traditional development process corresponds to the currently widespread practice of making project management more business-centric. Agile development now provides for the option of approving interim releases, which gives project sponsors an additional opportunity to determine the next step in the same way as a phase release, helping to further safeguard governance.

Other important adjustments:

• The project phases take into account the requirements of the agile world.
• The focus is on project management; agile development management is subordinate as a method and is integrated as a black box without going into further detail.
• The project already starts with a lean initiation phase; the scenario selection comes into play only with the decision on next steps.
• The procurement process is already planned and prepared during initiation - in that way, it facilitates adaptation scenarios.
• The steering function of the milestones is strengthened. The milestones are now tangible as method components and apply independently of the selected approach.
• The tasks now include a definition of which available outcomes form the prerequisite for their execution.
• Roles that must be filled at a minimum are project sponsor, project management, and user representative, which must be filled by the user partner group.
• Management and specialist competencies are clearly and unambiguously set out and separated from each other on a role-specific basis. The project management no longer needs specialist knowledge, but all the more relevant management knowledge and skills. The project management can therefore be recruited externally by the user partner group. The role of the user representative has in turn become more important; the user representative has specialist product responsibility (traditional and agile). The requirements for the role holder have also increased accordingly.

As in previous editions, this manual provides a basis for projects that tend to be large. However, project-specific application of the method is expected (tailoring). Using individually adaptable sizing, the scope of the documents can be specified online. The goal is to keep the complexity of the approach as low as possible and to further increase the user-friendliness of HERMES project management.

We hope that the new HERMES meets your expectations, and we look forward to your feedback.

HERMES is a successful product and we want it to remain so in future.