Programme Mgt Best Practice
Accountability, Alignment with the Business and Strong Sponsorship - key reasons for programme success are; clear
The extensive experience of Leadent consultants has provided them with a clear understanding of the factors which lead to successful outcomes for large projects and programmes;
- Clarity of roles and responsibilities - Each member of the project team understands their role and deliverables for which they are responsible and is closely monitored against agreed time scales
- Key client personal objectives aligned to programme delivery - Both client and consulting staff work as a joint team and client staff are fully cognisant of the objectives and delivery timescales
- Listen to the client - It is important to develop a strong working relationship between the consulting project manager and the client and, above all, that the client's needs are fully understood
- Clear benefit reporting - Ensure the benefits case is clearly defined from the outset and that reporting is regular, concise and easy to measure
- Broadened ownership and integration with the business - always involve business stakeholders; this assists with integration and buy-in within the wider community
- Manageable spans of control - Split the project into separate clearly defined phases or stages, each with agreed deliverables, timescales and exit criteria that must be signed off as authority to begin the next phase
- Project dashboard - Set up and monitor a project dashboard to provide a highly visible reporting tool for measuring project progress
Two items to get right: flexibility with structure, and the realisation that value does not have to be complex.
- Enable the Programme Director and work stream leaders to keep in touch - Schedule regular meetings where updates and progress are freely exchanged between key members of the project team
- Be prepared to operate different processes for projects depending on where they are in the portfolio - If the programme consists of several projects requiring different processes and reporting needs, do not try to force standardisation that does not fit
- Be flexible with structure - Do not see flexibility as a weakness; different projects may require a different organisational structure. Don’t be afraid to make changes to the programme structure to maintain operational efficiency and control
- Avoid shared workstream resources - Be aware that shared resources require careful management in order to avoid missed deliverables and timescales due to conflicting reporting priorities
- Beware of dotted lines on organisation charts - Ensure all project staff have clear lines of responsibility, accountability and reporting
- Know the desired outcome/vision before you start - Have a clear, tangible mission statement for the project before you begin and ensure that it is fully communicated and understood by the project team before you begin. This need not be overly long or complex
- If it can’t be said on one side of an A4 page, then the message is too complex - Remain clear and concise in all your dealings and instructions to the project team
- 80% of decisions and deliverables should be possible within a workstream without referral - Empower the workstream and workstream leads to find solutions to problems and to take decisions. Only key/fundamental decisions should require escalation
- Make sure that the whole team celebrate successes - Publicise success and ensure that the whole team is credited with success; during the project as well as at the end.