Apples, Oranges and Watermelons
Consistent and high integrity management information is essential to the delivery to time and budget of complex projects and programmes yet in many cases, the information available to the team is inconsistent and inaccurate which in turn makes it hard to make good decisions and steer the project success. Furthermore, at portfolio level, if the information presented is inconsistent between projects it is not possible to compare ‘apples with apples’ when evaluating a request for change and whether a project or programme will still deliver its business case. Often, when delving deeper into an individual project, surprises can emerge. That nice project that has been consistently reported as ‘green’ and under control can often be found to be red and ugly beneath the surface, rather like a water melon. It is human nature to withhold bad news , which is why the Programme Management Office (PMO) must be able collect regular, consistent and relevant information about each project in the portfolio that can be trusted.
Processes don't have swim lanes
Most attempts at process re-engineering do not achieve the efficiency improvements that were originally envisaged nor that are possible. Many attempts focus too heavily on the ‘As-Is’ analysis when producing the ‘To-be’ model and often sub-consciously import many of the old inefficiencies and poor practices. Although the swim lane representation of the ‘As-Is’ model is valuable, it has no place in the ‘To-Be’ process design and leads to a tendency to import historical and unnecessary management controls (inefficiencies).
Our approach to process re-engineering will deliver the efficiency improvements that you dream of without throwing the ‘baby out with the bath water’ and coupled with use 6-Sigma techniques will make the new processes much more accurate and reliable.
Rescue and Recovery
It’s very easy and very common for large and complex projects and programmes to underperform against their success criteria or even lose their way completely. Under-performance can be for a variety of reasons including the ‘Watermelon Effect’, losing control of the baseline through a series of uncoordinated changes, poor project management practice or poor governance. Whatever the reason, under-performance isn’t usually identified until it has become a crisis. Urgent intervention is then required to either put the project back on track, to re-shape it or even to stop it completely.
Recovering a project requires a particular skill-set to analyse and understand the underlying causes. The project delivery team are often too close to the issues to be able to see ‘the wood for the trees’ and also there is often personal pride at stake. It takes a fresh and experienced eye to determine the recovery actions and to work with the project team and the Sponsor or the SRO to agree an implementation plan.
Herding cats
It is often said that you can’t herd cats but herding cats, or stakeholders with conflicting requirements and no clear vision of the outcomes at they are more commonly known, is a reality that most programmes face. Although it is often very hard, with the right approach it is by no means impossible.
We have extensive experience of working with diverse and very challenging stakeholders, of distilling agreed sets of prioritised project requirements from uncertainty and conflict and of developing deliverable programmes of work. We are also able to develop agreed project success measures and then overlay the levels of assurance, governance and project controls that are needed to ensure successful delivery whilst operating in that changing and uncertain environment.
Risk Appetite
At portfolio level, many companies have an aggressive and optimistic approach to the amount of risk they are prepared to accept to deliver their strategic vision. The optimistic view is that, in practice, the risk exposure will be less than the risk model indicates and moreover, there is a tendency to pick a lower exposure from the probability density function that results from Monte-Carlo analysis.
Although common, this approach to determining the risk exposure the organisation is prepared to accept is fine but only if it is backed up with sound and effective risk management procedures.
Risk is managed by people and not by policies, procedures or risk registers. The key to effective risk management and justification of the risk exposure the organisation is prepared to accept is the people involved in the risk management process. Risk registers that are grudgingly updated each month and management tools such as Heat Charts just are not enough. Management of risk needs to be part of culture of the project team and of the organisation.
We can offer a range of bespoke training packages targeted at different levels in the organisation that help to make the management of risk part of the everyone’s day job and not just a scrabbling panic once a month.
Integration of Projects and Systems
Delivery of projects doesn't end with their Outputs being delivered, the benefits of the programme cannot be realised until both the Outputs and business changes have been successfully integrated to deliver the new or improved services that have enabled by the Outputs.
We have substantial expertise in developing systems integration strategies and functionality roadmaps that dovetail equally well with Agile or Waterfall delivery methods and then managing the integration process through to delivery of the business case benefits.
Boosting Performance
The performance of processes and operations can always be boosted by a full end-to-end review of processes and controls. This is a service that the team at Sapphire Project Management Ltd would be happy to perform using our collective expertise and experience. However, sometimes, there are many reasons why this is not always the best approach as end-to-end process redesign can be expensive and disruptive. In most instances, there are a number of ‘quick wins’ that will lead to immediate improvements to process operations that doesn’t cause disruption to the existing teams and organisational structures. Many of the improvements are usually already known by the incumbent team, but because they are usually very busy with the ‘day job’ they have little or no time to even suggest improvements. We can collate and distill those improvements and also provide our own recommendations to quickly deliver improvements to stressed processes and teams. We usually suggest adopting an Agile approach to the implementation that brings the advantage of both speed and the ability to reverse each change if it proves to be ineffective or to cause unwanted side effects.
The Sapphire Project Management team can be engaged to perform a ‘health check’ of one or more operational areas and produce a ‘no obligation’ report with suggested improvements and a list of ‘quick wins’ for consideration.
The Health Check service can last from two weeks to a few months depending upon the scope of the engagement and can apply to:
- Specific areas within a department;
- Processes that span organisational boundaries;
- Particular disciplines such as Programme Management, Benefits Management or Risk Management capability;
- Project, Programme or Portfolio Office functions.
Working in shades of grey
It is often very hard to get a project or programme off the ground. Projects and programmes are initiated, funded and supported by Stakeholders. The larger and more vociferous the group of stakeholders are, the more difficult it is to obtain enough agreement of the definition of the objectives and outcomes of the project or programme to get it started.
By their nature projects and programmes are black and white in terms of the things that are in scope and things that are out of scope and this is specified in the Programme Management Plan. However, the dichotomy is that a project or programme needs to start before all of the shades of grey are resolved. The ability to see through the fog and to manage your way through the shades of grey is a skill. It is a skill that the team at Sapphire Project Management possess and by using our proven techniques we are able to successfully manage a project or programme through its lifecycle stages and through its shades of greys until all the greys become black or white.
Challenging 'Is-ness'
Consciously or sub-consciously the concept is ‘Is-ness’ is embedded into many organisations. ‘Is-ness’ is not a hypothetical concept but represents a real barrier to both implementing improvements and to the realisation of benefits. ‘Is-ness’ is embedded into the culture; ‘Is-ness’ can often be heard in the common phrases used around the organisation: ‘This is the way we do it’ or ‘this is the way to has always been’.
‘Is-ness’ represents the most difficult customers for a new product or service yet it is not a person or even a group of people it is almost a belief. Improvements, changes and benefits rely on them being adopted until they become ‘the way the we do things’ but any organisation with a strong ‘Is-ness’ is a very hard organisation to change. But, ironically, those with a strong sense of ‘Is-ness’ tend to be those who people that will uphold company standards and controls.
At Sapphire Project Management Ltd, we have proven techniques to effectively manage ‘Is-ness’ and to make any programme of change more successful.
Realisation of benefits
Many programmes and business cases commence with an optimistic view of the benefits that will be available when the programme has been successfully completed. However, all too often, the projected benefits are not fully realised. It may be that the projected benefits were never fully achievable, but typically, it is due to poor planning. It is important to recognise that the skills required to realise business benefits are different to those required to deliver the programme which means that the Programme Manager cannot and should not be responsible for realisation of the programme benefits. Instead, a dedicated Benefits Realisation Manager must be appointed with sufficient resources to support the work required to implement the new capabilities and to realise the benefits. Benefits can take many forms; some can be monetised, some are strategic, some are operational and some are environmental. The plan to realise the benefits should not only include the methods embed the changes into the business, but also a set of robust measures that clearly demonstrate to the stakeholder that the benefits have been realised.
