IBM

Prime contractor (IBM Australia) for the Queensland Health payroll system.

PIA Investigations Covering This Organisation

IBM appears in 1 Project Insider Asia investigation, covering Governance.

The Evidence Record

What the investigations document about IBM's involvement, drawn from the published investigation records.

Governance Lessons

Lessons from the investigations covering IBM, each attributed to its source investigation.

1. A Fixed Price for an Undefined Scope Is a Dispute Deferred

   IBM's A$6.19 million fixed price bought a project with no settled statement of work. The low number did not transfer risk — it concealed it. If you cannot define the scope, you cannot fix the price; you can only schedule the argument.

   From Queensland Health Payroll

2. Never Let a Vendor's Support Deadline Set Your Schedule

   The July 2008 expiry of LATTICE support dictated Queensland's timeline and severely weakened its negotiating position. The deadline was known years in advance. Managing legacy end-of-life is a governance task, not an IT detail.

   From Queensland Health Payroll

3. Probity Is Not Bureaucracy — It Is the Control That Fails Last

   The Commission found the evaluation was not administered properly: no probity advisor at key stages, no conflicts register, shifting criteria. When procurement discipline is skipped, every downstream decision inherits the contamination.

   From Queensland Health Payroll

4. One Owner, One Accountability

   Responsibility split across Queensland Health, CorpTech and IBM meant each party could believe risk sat elsewhere. Complex transformations need a single empowered owner with authority over both the business and the contractor.

   From Queensland Health Payroll

5. A Coerced Go-Live Is a Governance Failure, Not a Launch Decision

   The system went live with known serious defects because there was no fallback. When 'we cannot go back' becomes the argument for going forward, governance has already failed — months earlier.

   From Queensland Health Payroll

6. Test Evidence Must Outweigh Deadline Pressure

   User acceptance testing documented serious defects before March 2010. The decision to proceed prioritised the deadline over the evidence. Organisations need pre-agreed, evidence-based go/no-go criteria that schedule pressure cannot override.

   From Queensland Health Payroll

7. Count Total Cost of Ownership, Not Contract Price

   The project was judged, bought and defended on a A$6.19 million contract figure. The real cost — over A$100 million to go-live and an estimated A$1.2 billion-plus to own and operate — lived outside the number anyone was managing.

   From Queensland Health Payroll