At 2 a.m., the temporary project office in Lao Cai was still brightly lit, its boards covered with diagrams and notes. Under the pressure of delivering a particularly critical project on schedule, Le Thanh Trung, Project Manager at FPT IS, FPT Corporation, was determined to stay close to every “hotspot” alongside his team. For projects like this, he believes technology accounts for only 30% of success—the remaining 70% comes down to people and coordination.
Decisions That Changed the Course of the Project
In June 2026, Trung was assigned to deploy the technology platform for Lao Cai Province’s Shared Data Repository and Open Data Portal, a project supported by FPT Corporation. The province’s objective was relatively clear, but behind a goal that could be summarized in just a few lines lay a far more complex challenge.
Photo: Le Thanh Trung, Project Manager at FPT IS, FPT Corporation.Data was scattered across multiple sources, while legacy and newer systems existed side by side, creating numerous challenges. Meanwhile, the project timeline could not wait for every condition to become perfect.
The pressure became particularly evident in the second week after the project kicked off. The team had distributed survey forms, but the responses varied significantly. Trung realized that if they continued waiting for each unit to complete the forms using the conventional approach, the project risked falling behind schedule from the very first stage.
The team decided to change its approach. Instead of continuing to “send and wait,” FPT’s business experts and engineers were deployed to work directly with each unit. Technical questions were translated into more straightforward, practical language: “Where do you get the data for this report?” or “How often is this report updated?” Based on the answers, the project team then “translated” the information back into the structure required for the data dictionary.
Photo: Le Thanh Trung provides guidance to provincial agencies and units on developing data dictionaries.Another key decision Trung made was not to follow the conventional sequential model of completing the entire survey phase before moving on to design, installation, and integration. Given the province-wide scope and tight timeline, he believed such an approach would be almost impossible.
Instead, the project was divided into multiple workstreams running in parallel. While some teams surveyed data sources, others built the platform infrastructure, developed templates, and tested data flows for priority datasets. Trung describes this as an incremental rollout approach—delivering and validating tangible results at every stage rather than waiting until the entire process is complete.
Late Nights “On the Ground” with the Team
During the most intensive phase of implementation, the project team decided to remain stationed in Lao Cai. Trung vividly remembers the mountainous weather during periods of low atmospheric pressure: scorching heat during the day, followed by chilly nights.
The workspace arranged by the provincial department gradually became the team’s “command center.” Boards were filled with data-flow diagrams, relationships between different systems, and hundreds of small notes describing individual data fields.
On some nights, the lights were still on at 2 a.m. “I would look around and see nothing but tired eyes and dark circles, yet no one wanted to stop because there were still questions without answers,” Trung recalled.
“Why is this field necessary?”, “What is its legal basis?”, “What business process does this data field support?”, and “Does it overlap with data from another system?” were among the questions repeated almost every day.
Photo: The project team works alongside representatives of the Department of Science and Technology to keep implementation on schedule.Trung has worked on projects of varying scales throughout his career at FPT. Yet he considers this one of the “most challenging and fascinating” projects he has undertaken, largely because it addresses one of the fundamental issues at the heart of the next phase of digital transformation.
According to Trung, three factors give FPT an advantage in projects of this nature: extensive hands-on implementation experience, a comprehensive technology platform ecosystem, and the ability to rapidly mobilize teams on the ground whenever a project needs to accelerate.
Beyond these tangible capabilities, however, the Lao Cai project has highlighted something more difficult to quantify: the willingness to stay with a problem until an answer is found.
It can be seen in FPT engineers who are ready to travel directly to different localities across the province instead of sitting back and waiting for completed survey forms. It can also be seen in an office still illuminated at 2 a.m. because one data field on the board has yet to be fully understood and explained.
For the engineers stationed on site, there is always a strong support system behind them, ready to step in whenever they encounter a difficult challenge. Trung himself makes a point of being alongside his colleagues during the most demanding moments.
Perhaps that is also how he defines the role of a project manager after those late nights in Lao Cai: being decisive when difficult choices have to be made, while always having the team’s back so they can confidently see the project through to the end.
The project is part of Program S7, which aims to ensure the effective and timely implementation of digital transformation projects for ministries, government agencies, and local authorities, as well as tasks assigned to FPT under resolutions, plans, and action programs implementing Vietnam’s strategic policy pillars.
Under S7, FPT will undertake digital transformation initiatives with ministries and government agencies including the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Public Security, State Bank of Vietnam, Ministry of Ethnic and Religious Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Construction, Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee, as well as local governments.
Program S7 reflects the commitment, determination, and collective ambition of FPT employees to contribute to Vietnam’s development as the country enters a new era filled with both opportunities and challenges.