Project Assurance
Project Assurance is a discipline that seeks to provide stakeholders with objective oversight of the likely future performance of major projects.
Organisations are under enormous pressure to deliver products and services at a faster pace of change than ever before. Governments at all levels face immense pressure to deliver public services faster and cheaper and this is increasing.
Having a rigorous approach to identifying the right projects to invest in and delivering them successfully will ensure maximum return on investment.
IBRS can help you and your organisation maximise the outcomes from project investment and increase project success. From well-prepared business cases, support through all stages of the procurement phases, effective delivery of project activities through to realising the expected benefits from project investments.
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- Kevin McIsaac
In The Economist’s most recent IT quarterly (September 2003) survey there is a scathing piece about the implementation of CRM in banking, and financial institutions generally. Australia is not mentioned in the analysis, but the point is clear – that as many as 80% of CRM projects fail – which is not news to anyone with experience of CRM projects. There is a gulf between the promise and delivery of CRM.
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- Guy Cranswick
Conclusion: Effectiveness is, along with efficiency, the aim of many projects and investments. It is commonly expressed as a ratio, outputs minus inputs. Measuring effectiveness is however a more delicate process of evaluation than employing the blunt, and occasionally, imprecise ratio method, described above.
Comparing effectiveness with other measures of a company’s performance, such as revenue, demonstrates how well a department or a firm is working. It is more valuable than simply comparing a ‘before and after’ financial scenario.
In adopting this type of approach two factors to consider are:
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Adequate ‘before” the event data, showing levels of performance is required to assess effectiveness. (Sound after the event data is necessary too.) Measurement of performance and function must use all key variables. These variables may include financial items, benchmarked service levels, and people performance measures such as e.g. job, morale index or similar;
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Make any analysis comparative, with the purpose of showing what has been achieved. Grey, and or, so-called mixed results from an effectiveness assessment arise from weak analysis.
Implementing the techniques above should improve the quality of effectiveness metrics and thereby raise the standard of business planning outcomes.
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- Guy Cranswick
Conclusion: Inability to manage the plethora of projects cutting across most organisations can lead to failed initiatives, an inability to align ICT and business investments, a lack of confidence in the organisation's ability to innovate and even substandard operational performance - quite simply operational performance can fall because renewal projects become late or are ineffective.
The main reason that these problems occur is that business initiatives are spawned within functional hierarchies and these hierarchies tend to act like silos. Organisations that are looking to effectively balance goal based and role based work need another structure to support the governance process so that resources and initiatives can become visible to the entire organisation. This paper recommends that a project office correctly implemented can play a key role in supporting the governance of goal based activities.
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- Peter Grant
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- Kevin McIsaac
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- Brian Bowman
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- Brian Bowman
Conclusion: Business managers, who sponsor major Business Solutions implementations, need to be identifying what they have to do to succeed and develop plans that will make success a reality. Focusing on the Right Things Starts with Astute Planning
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- Alan Hansell
Conclusion: When faced with proposals requesting investment in Business Solutions in an environment in which demand exceed available resources, firms need to develop and apply an IAC (Investment Allocation Criteria) to help them prioritise and rank the competing proposals.
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- Alan Hansell
Conclusion: Successful projects are analogous to freshly cooked puddings in that they not only have to smell nice when taken out of the oven but also excel when tasted to earn the praise of the client. Or to put it in simple terms a successful project is one that has helped the firm to realise the expected business outcomes.
To increase the probability of firms implementing successful projects senior managers must, at a minimum:
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Identify staff with potential to handle the political as well as the technical arena of projects and a) give them training in project management disciplines as well as b) negotiation and influencing techniques
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Implement the initiatives described below, monitor their outcomes and ensure the lessons learned in both technical and political arena are widely disseminated
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- Alan Hansell
Conclusion: CIOs, because they have a cross enterprise perspective, are ideally positioned to champion the institutionalising of benefits management practices and demonstrate how to do it by corroborating the benefits from IT Infrastructure investment.
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- Alan Hansell