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?

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)

• 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)

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”

COSTConsider whole life costs over 48 months

IMPACTConsider extent and nature of impact on students and staff

COMPLEXITYConsider number of external stakeholders and changes to business processes and IT systems

REPUTATIONConsider 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 ElementsVision for Change

Business Case and Alignment

Team Building Communication

ImplementationRisk

ManagementProject

ManagementGovernance Structures

MeasurementBenefits

RealisationBusiness As

UsualLearning

Sponsorship & Stakeholder

Buy in

Create vision

Engage people

Deliver

Embed

Project Roles

Project Executive (Sponsor) Project ManagerSenior User Senior Supplier Project Board User Group

Project Roles

Project Sponsor

Owns the business case and is ultimately accountable for the success or failure of the project

Senior User

Ensures that the services delivered by the project meet the needs of user stakeholders

Project Roles

Senior Supplier

Represents the team delivering the project and is accountable for the quality, performance, technical integrity and timeliness of the supplier deliverables

Project Board

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 Roles

User Group

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

Project Manager

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 Roles

Project Assurance

An audit function used to ensue that the project is being run correctly and that complete and accurate information reaches the Project Board.

Governance Assessment

PROJECT TEAM

PROJECT BOARD

USER GROUP

SCORES (For Each Governance Element)0 = Not Started 1–3 = Emerging, immature and/or incomplete4–6 = Progressing towards best practice7–10 = Mature and working effectively

REASONS FOR SCORING

SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

Visualisation – Single Assessment

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Vision

Business Case

Sponsorship andStakeholder Buy-In

Team Building

Communication

GovernanceStructures

Project ManagementRisk Management &

Assurance

Implementation

Measurement

Business As Usual

Benefits & OngoingImprovement

Learning

Visualisation – Assessment Over Time

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Vision

Business Case

Sponsorship andStakeholder Buy-In

Team Building

Communication

Governance Structures

Project ManagementRisk Management &

Assurance

Implementation

Measurement

Business As Usual

Benefits & OngoingImprovement

Learning

___ July 2013___ Feb 2014

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 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!

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.

Any Questions?

UCISA Project and Change Management Group

https://twitter.com/UCISA_PCMG

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Major Project Governance Assessment Toolkit