It Tufs

There are number of problems that can be addressed from this case. The two main issues I noticed in this case is lack of communication and lack of interest shown by the underwriting managers. TUFS (Technical Underwriting Financial Systems) was a project that was going to help Northern Insurance transform their underwriting process and also provide strategic business capabilities. As, per the case there was a lot of excitement when the project begun two years ago but it looks like as the time passed by the focus from the project shifted as the interest kept getting lower from the all the team that were involved. Hence the project was completed on time and in budget but the TUFS system has turned into a nightmare in its first few months of operation and was not delivering what it was built for i.e. to streamline and transform their underwriting process.

Looking at the problem I think the issue started at a very early phase of the project where requirements for the project were not well-defined. Also as this project was the most highly invested project in IT interest and attention was required by the CIO and CFO all along the project. It seemed like the CIO Martin Drysdale who was in charge of this major project didn’t take that responsibility to track the project and keep everyone on their feet while completing the requirements that were needed for this project to be a success. Being in charge of a huge project that is going to effect the whole organization you have to make sure tasks are completed on time, and things are documented in case something goes wrong in the later process of the project. Nevertheless, the technicians did not get any participation from the underwriters, departments were not on the same page in the creation of the system, and as a result lot of money had to be spent on fixing those underwriting errors that kept appearing over and over again. Also, the senior underwriting managers had lost all their interest and insisted on old reports...