SERVICES - PROGRAMME & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Projects should fit with business strategy, be clearly defined and bring specific benefits to your business.
A well run project, achieved through strong project management involves planning, communications, handling budgets and keeping a balance between the key parameters of time, cost and quality.

Programme Management:

Our hands-on approach is designed to enable organisations to gain and retain control of all project activity and to create an environment in which projects will succeed.

A programme may be defined in a number of ways:

• One complex project broken down into components or stages.
• A number of distinct projects which are connected to one strategic change.
• A view of an organisation’s entire investment in projects (i.e. the portfolio).

The projects in a programme are linked by:

• Inter-dependence.
• Competition for resource (capacity, skilled people, senior management).
• Competition for finance (investment).
• Impact on same business area.

Projects are temporary and do not usually reflect business operations, in terms of management structure.
Our approach to programme management is designed to connect this temporary work to the permanent organisational structure and decision making processes of the business.

The essential elements of our approach are:

• A clearly understood business strategy which determines the business priorities.
• A programme management structure permanently connected to the organisation structure of the business that facilitates the tactical management of projects.
• A clearly understood process for project start up.
• An objective process for prioritising projects.
• An objective method for assessing benefits of projects, the likelihood of their realisation and sensitivity analysis.
• An approach to managing resources across the programme.
• An approach to managing risks across the programme.
• An approach to managing interdependencies across the programme.
• An approach to managing communications across the programme.

Project support – this means undertaking many of the administrative and housekeeping tasks that are common across the programme and would be more efficiently managed from the centre.

Project assurance – providing management support and QA of management standards and also undertaking post-project reviews.

Promoting project management standards, so that all projects are undertaken in a similar manner, thereby reducing systemic management risks.

We believe that our approach should be applied pragmatically, as no two organisations are the same or have the same challenges.

Deliverables:

• Project start up document.
• Programme initiation document.
• Programme resource schedule.
• Programme interdependency map.
• Programme progress report.

Project Management:

Our comprehensive and proven approach is based on PRINCE2, LEAN and Six Sigma with more flexibility for project managers to apply the degree of control appropriate for the risks of each project they run.

Project Management Lifecycle: delivery vs. management
Projects tend to follow a similar pattern: a stream of delivery work, supported by several ongoing streams of management work where the control is maintained. This management work covers scope, benefits, quality, stakeholders and communication, risks and issues.

The responsibility of the project manager is to adopt the tools, methods and techniques throughout the life of the project that support its delivery. This will require the following:

1. Definition of the project
A clear business case is essential so that the project is understood within the context of the business and that the anticipated project benefits are evaluated from the start and project tolerances are quantified. To support this, the project scope (and exclusions to scope) and quality criteria, acceptance criteria and project risks need to be defined.

Also project executives and key stakeholders must be identified for making key decisions.

2. Project planning
The effectiveness of project planning is entirely dependent on the quality of the definition. Planning is concerned with anticipating how the project will be produced: what are the critical deliverables and milestones; when major decisions need to be made; how limited resources will be applied to the project production; how project risks can be anticipated and avoided; who does what and when.

3. Project monitoring
Project monitoring will follow the definition and plans and tracks progress, anticipates risks and milestones, tracks the resolution of project issues and gathers information appropriate for the identified project executives and stakeholders to make the decisions necessary to keep the project moving forwards.

4. Project control
Project controlling is driven by the decisions described above. A formal basis for delegating authority and decision making in advance will enable project managers and sponsors to work most effectively and keep the project moving forwards.

5. Project closure
Project closure needs to be a formal process involving acceptance of the project (or project stage) by key stakeholders at the end of the project manager’s responsibility.

6. Post-project review Reviewing work after it has been completed enables improvements in project standards and techniques and identifies any final actions required to realise a project’s benefits.

The Deliverables:

• Project business case.
• Project Initiation Document.
• Project plans (Gantt and PERT charts, resource plans and descriptive text).
• Project quality plan.
• Project communications plan.
• Project control documentation, such as sign-off documents and change requests.
• Project progress reports.
• Project closure documents.

We are able to provide highly capable project managers, available to handle part or full project lifecycle. We have experience of successful delivery of large, complex multi-stakeholder projects, although we will project manage any business development, change or IT project whatever the size, particularly where this is the result of consultancy services provided by Byrnes Freeman. Formal project management methodologies such as PRINCE2 are available providing robust, dependable frameworks which minimise risk and exposure on bigger projects. For further information on services, don’t hesitate to call us on.