Author: PAshton

Readiness assessment

Readiness assessment

Posted on by PAshton

What is it? Readiness assessment provides a diagnostic model and tools for evaluating how well prepared and aligned the organisation, and the involved personnel, are to adopt the planned change to achieve the organisation strategy.

What it is not? Assessing readiness is not a technique for managing change – it is a diagnostic tool that is used throughout the duration of a change initiative to guide decision-makers on the best next step.

What’s different afterwards? Planned or directed change is widely regarded as difficult. Appropriate use of readiness tools provides insight into the probable success of a change initiative, and what adjustments would improve the likelihood of a successful outcome.

Corporate capability building

Corporate capability building

Posted on by PAshton

What is it? Corporate capability is determined by the competence (and capacity) of the individuals involved, the effectiveness of the processes used and the efficiency of the governance model deployed by the organisation. Building corporate capability means addressing each of the three dimensions in a balanced and integrated way.

What it is not? It is not a catalogue of courses and training events, and it is not a static or ‘one-off’ process.

What’s different afterwards? HR and operational departments can calibrate current levels of competence and capacity against a target benchmark. This facilitates the development of a clear route-map to establish a level of competence and capability to meet the predicted levels required to deliver future enterprise portfolio.

AGILE

AGILE

Posted on by PAshton

What is it? Agile software development methods require different management approaches from those used to control more traditional development lifecycles. Project managers who use Agile development methods need to be confident that they have effective monitoring and control mechanisms in place to establish whether genuine progress is being made, and whether the business case continues to be viable.

What it is not? Agile is neither a project management nor a programme management method – it is another approach to developing software and systems, where requirements are difficult to establish.

What’s different afterwards? Only those software developments that would benefit from the use of Agile deploy it. When Agile is used, the governance groups charged with guiding the project are confident that real progress towards an acceptable completion state is being made.

Governance development

Governance development

Posted on by PAshton

What is it? Project governance sets out the accountabilities and responsibilities associated with the development of an organisation’s project investments.

What it is not? Governance is not the management of projects by senior managers, nor is it an approval process, but an active process of forward-oriented decision-making.

What’s different afterwards? With effective governance structures in place the right people make decisions at the right level making it more likely that they will make the right decisions.

Monitor and control

Monitor and control

Posted on by PAshton

What is it? It is collection of attitudes – a mindset – combined with a toolset of methods and techniques that can be used to establish the status of an initiative, form a prognosis about likely outcomes, and determine management actions in response to this information. The approach is particularly valuable when organisational project practices (or the team itself) don’t have well-established performance metrics.

What it is not? Monitoring and control is not a passive observation process, nor is it a ‘policing’ function with onerous demands on the project manager to ‘produce more data’. Rather than simply focused on collecting detailed historical performance, it focuses on steering projects towards future success.

What’s different afterwards? A strong evidence-based model for predicting future outcomes and adjusting management and process behaviours.

Health checks

Health checks

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What is it? Health checks are critical when there is uncertainty about a project outcome (i.e. Will it complete within its constraints? or Will the objective be met? or Are the risks and issues under proper control?).

What it is not? They are not themselves project recovery plans: health checks do not in themselves make a project safe. However, they establish the conditions to be met to make the project safe.

What’s different afterwards? A clear route map with associated management actions and a set of metrics to take control of a project and re-align it to planned outputs, outcomes and objective.

Cofee Club

CofEe Club 34 – Centres of Excellence – What’s working, what’s not?

Posted on by PAshton

Dates: 24th April 2014 Venue: Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Cheltenham The topic for the day was – Centres of Excellence – What’s working, what’s not? The day began with an introduction from Kevin outlining some of the special considerations we all needed to adhere to as a consequence of working on this special site. (At[…]

Innovation deployment

Innovation Deployment

Posted on by PAshton

What is it? Organisational innovation and deployment is the mechanism by which organisational improvements (both incremental and disruptive) are selected and deployed enabling the organisation to meet its quality and performance ambitions, enhancing the value-added to their stakeholders and clients.

What it is not? Innovation deployment is not a process to develop new ideas or applications.

What’s different afterwards? An established and standardised process to monetise good ideas, thus having a way to get commercial value from novel adaptations and innovative applications.