Development method in a large-scale public sector IT programme

The Norwegian parental benefit programme started as a large-scale information technology operation to automate and provide self-service solutions for parental benefit applications. This benefit replaces lost salaries for about 100,000 parents every year while parents are home with new-born children. A previous programme to modernize IT solutions was stopped. The new programme replacing legacy solutions from the 1970s was seen as a large, complicated, and risky undertaking with a cost limit of USD 130 million. Initially, this programme had three main releases based on an internal development method combining project management and agile methods. During the second release, the programme experienced challenges with coordinating work across the business and development projects. The programme manager established a task force to propose changes in the development method for the last release. We then ask the question: If you were part of this task force, what should the programme manager do to remedy the coordination challenges for the last release? This teaching case is based on a longitudinal case study and is relevant for graduate or continuing education courses in information systems development or IT project management during which students learn how to organize efficient software development at scale.