Major Project Governance Assessment Toolkit Mark Ritchie, University of Edinburgh Pauline Woods-Wilson, Lancaster University Project and Change Management Group
Project and Change Management Group Established March 2013 Committee from across UK HE Committee members new to UCISA Focus on providing practical resources for practitioners Collaborative and action oriented group more than just the sum of the parts! Working together to promote and develop project and change management best practice in HE and FE
UCISA Project and Change Management Group ~280 subscribers on mailing list ~100 followers on Twitter 2 resources published Major Projects Governance Assessment Toolkit (July 2014) Effective Risk Management (December 2014) First event PCMG15 (June 2015) Working together to promote and develop project and change management best practice in HE and FE
Major Project Governance Assessment Toolkit
Why is it needed? Project governance often ineffective Unclear roles and responsibilities Lack of confidence in project status Focus on IT rather than business requirements and benefits Weak change management Unclear where action required Unforeseen risks and issues Poor project outcomes
How was it developed? Student Record Implementation Lessons Learned (2009) Shared Academic Timetabling (2010-13) Adopted for all major IT projects (2012) Research Management (2013-14) University Web Site CMS (2014) Library Management (2014-15) Peer review by Project and Change Management Group (2013) Role definitions and business as usual added by Lancaster University (2014) UCISA Best Practice Toolkit Published (2014)
What s in the toolkit? Governance assessment process Scorecard for identifying major projects Project governance elements Role descriptions Visualisation tool Case studies
Major Projects A major project is a project that has a significant financial, operational, or reputational impact on a university or college COST Consider whole life costs over 48 months COMPLEXITY Consider number of external stakeholders and changes to business processes and IT systems IMPACT Consider extent and nature of impact on students and staff REPUTATION Consider potential for reputational damage if project goes wrong The toolkit can be used as a checklist for any project and modified to meet your institutional requirements
Project Governance Elements Create vision Vision for Change Business Case and Alignment Engage people Team Building Sponsorship & Stakeholder Buy in Communication Deliver Governance Structures Project Management Risk Management Implementation Embed Learning Business As Usual Benefits Realisation Measurement
Project Roles Project Executive (Sponsor) Project Manager Senior User Senior Supplier Project Board User Group
Project Roles Owns the business case and is ultimately accountable for the success or failure of the project Project Sponsor Ensures that the services delivered by the project meet the needs of user stakeholders Senior User
Project Roles Represents the team delivering the project and is accountable for the quality, performance, technical integrity and timeliness of the supplier deliverables Senior Supplier Provides overall governance for the project. The key members of the Project Board are the Project Executive, the Senior User and the Senior Supplier Project Board
Project Roles Represents the diverse range of user stakeholders for the project. The primary responsibility of the User Group is to ensure that the project deliverables meet the needs of users. The Senior User typically chairs the User Group and represents user interests on the Project Board User Group Has day to day responsibility for running the project and is accountable to the Project Board. The Project Manager is responsible for ensuring that project produces the required deliverables within the tolerances agreed with the Project Board Project Manager
Project Roles An audit function used to ensue that the project is being run correctly and that complete and accurate information reaches the Project Board. Project Assurance
Governance Assessment PROJECT TEAM SCORES (For Each Governance Element) 0 = Not Started 1 3 = Emerging, immature and/or incomplete 4 6 = Progressing towards best practice 7 10 = Mature and working effectively PROJECT BOARD REASONS FOR SCORING USER GROUP SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT
Visualisation Single Assessment Benefits & Ongoing Improvement Business As Usual Learning Vision 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Business Case Sponsorship and Stakeholder Buy-In Team Building Measurement Communication Implementation Risk Management & Assurance Governance Structures Project Management
Visualisation Assessment Over Time Vision Learning 10 9 Business Case 8 Benefits & Ongoing Improvement 7 6 5 4 3 Sponsorship and Stakeholder Buy-In July 2013 Feb 2014 Business As Usual 2 1 Team Building 0 Measurement Communication Implementation Risk Management & Assurance Project Management Governance Structures
Act Following Assessment Focus on the governance elements most needing attention Publicise outcomes and increase project engagement Recognise and reinforce existing good practice Follow up suggestions for improvement IMPROVE PROJECT OUTCOMES
Feedback So Far We hope that the governance assessment and visualisation tool will help people understand where we are and aren t making progress with our projects health. It seemed very clear to us, and we are always looking at ways to present concepts visually. We have had some success with the Major Projects Assessment Toolkit. The gap for us was sizing across the project piece. We have addressed this by amending the toolkit so that we can understand the requirements for different sizes of project. This looks really interesting, I have asked our internal auditors to do a review of projects and programmes to pick up on exactly some of these issues!
Any Questions? UCISA Project and Change Management Group https://twitter.com/ucisa_pcmg https://www.linkedin.com/groups/ucisapcmg -7427251/about Major Project Governance Assessment Toolkit Join our mailing list to have your say and find out more!