programme offices - tracking benefits

To set up an effective programme support office, CITI employs a two stage approach:

Stage 1 - Introduce project status tracking process
The need to track progress and status of the projects is vital. The following aspects are key to success and should be provided by a capable programme support office: making clear the status of delivery of products (deliverables), programme level risk and issue management, change control and project interdependency management.

Stage 2 - Introduce benefits, impacts and costs tracking
As the programme mobilises, it is important to introduce and maintain an effective measurement and tracking process for benefits and impacts. At this point the programme support office begins to become involved with some of the operational areas, as detailed work to implement appropriate benefits, impacts and costs tracking processes is carried out.

project and portfolio management offices - forecasting performance

Probably the most valuable of all management office functions is its ability to forecast. Forecasting portfolio performance is essential to the project boards in helping determine prioritisation decisions and reducing internal conflict. A key role for a portfolio office is the assessment of the value of projects in terms of desirability and do-ability. A management office would almost certainly take responsibility (if not accountability) for the development of project managers, project sponsors and programme managers.

However, the actual remit the function performs depends entirely on the culture and sophistication of the project community within the organisation. With this in mind, CITI's fast-start offering employs a three stage approach:

Stage 1 - analysis of the current situation mapped to the impacts and benefits the organisation desires from the establishment of the management office. From this CITI recommends the 'best fit' management office based on industry best practice together with the required products set.

Stage 2 - establish the management office.

Stage 3 - manage the management and/or support and transfer knowledge to the internal team.