Programme Governance

Programme Governance is the management framework within which project decisions are made and delivery tracked. Much of the success is down to making sure the stakeholders are fully engaged from the start. This typically this comprises the Programme Sponsor and Executive team, Programme and Project Teams, Operational Business Owners, Vendors and Technical Teams.

Our role in providing Programme Governance services:

Organisation, Process & Structure

Developing Proper Organisations, Processes and Structures

Fundamental aspects of programme governance cover a clear structure, defined processes and stakeholder engagement to facilitate decision making and delivery. At the outset of our engagement, Harness works closely with the executive team to define and ensure this is in place and fully understood by all stakeholders. A clear framework for decision making is mandatory and ensures that the right choices can be made. Having the right processes that allow early warning flags and identification of competing priorities from within and outside the programme increases the likelihood of delivery success. Maintaining a clear focus on the benefits and strong communication channels are used to maintain focus on the delivery goals.

Surrounding all this is the need to implement a communication framework and culture that means that employees are empowered and allows for collaboration across teams and departments.

Adherence

Achieving Consistency by defined Processes

A structure and framework for consistent monitoring and tracking is essential for reporting the success. Using key project data and metrics helps maintain consistency of reporting throughout the life-cycle of the programme. This should happen in line with regular cadence and defined processes for managing risk and benefits.
Harness work with large teams to ensure that the correct processes are fully defined at the commencement of the programme. We can help define the creation of appropriate metrics, reporting documentation to support the Business case, KPIs and business value.

Timeliness

Timeliness and Programme Governance.

Implement a Cadence and ‘heartbeat’ of the programme, ensuring that background work is being carried out in a timely fashion such that decisions can be made at the right time, using the correct information and metrics. A key factor to many programmes going off track and experiencing lost time is because of a failure to achieve ‘timeliness of information. Decisions get delayed because of inconsistent or incomplete information.

With our wealth of project experience Harness can predict when decisions need making and identify the framework to enable the right information to be delivered in time.

Project Assurance

Projet Assurance is more than just an approach to audit, it is a way to de-risk a programme and project portfolio. It includes reviewing and assessing the disciplines of the project, its methodology, processes and elements such as leadership and people. These are viewed alongside the complexity of the programme to identify the critical factors leading to success.

Project Assurance helps your organisation to manage risk and improve confidence that the programme can deliver to time, scope, quality, and budget. Project Assurance is a discipline that seeks to provide an independent and objective oversight of the likely future performance of major projects. It uses technical, strategic and contractual expertise to audit the project and develop a forecast of outcomes using technical, economic, and performance indicators and critical success factors.

What makes Harness different undertaking Project Assurance! Simply, we understand the human element of implementing a project.

All projects combine technology and innovation, business processes, people and leadership against the business goals and benefits. The aim is to understand how these all join together to achieve a successful outcome to the programme.

Our role in providing Project Assurance services:

Discovery Audits
By performing an independent review of the programme and individual project allows a clear view of the status and health of each one. They can be assessed without the internal influences that might otherwise occur and cloud independence. This result in clear set of recommendations for improvement and allows for better leadership and direction to occur.
Industry Best Practice
Making sure that the teams use and can adapt best practice to the delivery, ‘not reinventing the wheel’ to make for a faster delivery to realise the business benefits. Harness makes sure that clear, reliable metrics are being used to track and monitor progress. Having the right tracking metrics ensures that the opportunity to spot issues can occur before they impact the delivery. This allows management and stakeholders to focus on the areas that need attention.
People
Project Assurance can be dry and tedious, focusing on documents, specifications, meeting minutes and agendas. For us, Project Assurance goes further and we build open, trusting relationships at all levels within your teams, such that we really understand what is happening, not just what has been written down. This level of rapport gives us this extra-dimension to view your project.

The element that is the most varied is the people, how they are organised, their agendas (both business and personal), their skills and experiences and how they interact with each other. It is understanding this human element that differentiates our Project Assurance services from being a dry analysis.

Contact us Today

Ian Hay
Director, Financial Practice

+44 (0)772 0769031
ian.hay@harnessprojects.co.uk