Value realised

The ATM Working Group agreed to a Treasury initiative to address the issue of a significant number of communities living on low incomes and in socially deprived areas that had no access to cash machines, or only machines that charged a fee for withdrawals.

With the value of initiative re-framed in terms of benefits gained rather than products delivered, the governance group could now manage the project for value gained in terms of positive social impacts, competitive advantage, and other, wider stakeholder interests, as well as any additional revenue benefit they might achieve.

Engagement focus

The structure of the project was originally framed as a ‘mandatory’ project. It was seen as the installation of a number of cash machines in various locations around the country by a given deadline – and all to be done with a view to keeping the costs as low as possible. The project was regarded as a ‘drain’ on the investment options of the bank. The role of governance was thus focused on the technical aspects of delivery, and the constraints: the costs, schedule and management of the roll-out.

Approach to solution

CITI became involved through an initial workshop with the technical team, and offered some challenge to the assumptions underlying the existing project brief. This led to wider engagement of other parts of the business, culminating in agreement on broad terms of reference for the project that transformed it from being a mandatory technical task into one that maximised the value to the bank.

The project was restructured to take a more holistic approach that brought value to the bank by maximising the goodwill created, minimising potential negative impacts, facilitating local community engagement and leveraging positive feedback from the UK Treasury for their contribution to the initiative.

This involved a broadening of the remit to include non-technical work streams around stakeholder engagement and PR, and the management of non-technical risks related to local disruption or resistance.

Lessons learned

Classifying projects as ‘mandatory’ often causes organisations to lose benefits and opportunities go unnoticed. Badging something as mandatory should be a last resort – not a simple route to project authorisation. Once labelled as mandatory the project should be managed for minimum cost (there is after all no benefit) and reduces the sponsor’s involvement to the monitoring of constraints.

Models / tools used

Project Mission Model, a framework for engaging technical and business people in constructive discussion of project’s terms of reference

Value proposition

You can read more about the strategies used during this engagement here:

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Value realised

Senior managers of Lloyd’s Register were now confident that their scarce IT resources were being deployed to deliver to their agenda in a near optimal way – and the development of the competence and capability of IT was closely aligned to the needs of the organisation.

Engagement focus

CITI were engaged to review the performance of the IT project management office (PMO). The Board were aware that the governance functions were not being exercised with sufficient rigour and believed that decision-making and portfolio choices were being made on an inadequate set of project performance data. The critical question that needed to be answered was, “What was the best set of projects given the resources (particularly IT resources) available?”

Approach to solution

The PMO was struggling to identify and monitor information that would aid decision-making, particularly in support of reducing resource conflicts caused by prioritisation issues between the projects.
The set of projects being monitored by the PMO were analysed and grouped by three distinct characteristics: business driver – enhancement, maintenance, or strategic; size and complexity – work packages, small projects, interlinked initiatives; and source – infrastructure, internal customer, external problem, which allowed for a much clearer allocation of governance functions and structures to be made.

This approach clearly identified two fundamentally different portfolios. Each had different monitoring requirements and required different governance structures to make the important decisions.

Workshops were conducted to engage the stakeholders, and to gain commitment to the change in management behaviours required. The Head of the PMO and her staff were profiled, as was the PMO in terms of functions, and a roadmap drawn up to align the capability of the personnel with demands being made on the newly structured PMO by the management of the two portfolios.

Lessons learned

‘One size doesn’t fit all’. Attempting to prioritise in the absence of good information, and when the projects being ranked have no agreed basis of comparison leads to a loss of control over the portfolio, and deeply discontented stakeholders.

Models / tools used

Portfolio analysis techniques
Facilitated workshops
Benefit – impact- product mapping
RACI analysis
KASE profiling
PMO maturation model

Value proposition

You can read more about the strategies used during this engagement here:

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Value realised

The Group Programmes division of HBOS, after an extensive survey, published an influential internal report identifying common, repeated failings across projects and programmes in the organisation.

The value of the ‘Right First Time’ initiative was set out at the outset. There had to be: clearer definition of projects; more engaged stakeholders; and less time and money spent on project rework. After three years, a senior I&IIT executive stated that they had audited that the level of rework costs had been reduced by 40%.

Engagement focus

The HBOS Investment and Insurance IT group (I&IIT) recognised that their IT managers were focused on delivery and were neither accustomed to, nor confident in challenging the business during project initiation and planning. Many projects began with unrealistic business expectations and most suffered regular ‘revision’ of the terms of reference in ‘mid-flight’, or were deemed failures by the business, generating mistrust between project teams and the business. I&IIT spent a considerable amount of its annual project budget on rework of existing project initiatives, rather than initiating new ones.

Approach to solution

I&IIT engaged CITI to structure and deliver a programme entitled ‘Right First Time’ to improve performance in setting up, structuring and planning of projects.
CITI engaged in a series of workshops to develop roles and responsibilities, and to gauge levels of competence with I&IIT’s project community. Master classes were arranged to transfer knowledge of good practice in project initiation, planning, stakeholder engagement, project roles and responsibilities, and focus on a project’s business outcomes. Workshops on actual current projects were used as vehicles for practicing and embedding the necessary skills. Through a rolling series of face-to-face interventions and document reviews, CITI were able to support the entire I&IIT project community in improving its performance in project initiation and planning.

Lessons learned

Improvement to project performance means project managers and business analysts adopting the right behaviours in engaging with, and challenging their business colleagues. Models and tools can illustrate best practice, but the most effective way to make improvement happen is to show what it looks like in real-life scenarios – projects that project individuals and the business have a real stake in. This approach is a powerful vehicle for facilitating peer-to-peer learning from experience.

Models / tools used

Project Mission Model, a framework for engaging technical and business people in constructive discussion of a project’s terms of reference,
Stakeholder engagement, holding project conversations
RACI model for project governance (accountabilities, responsibilities, consultation and information).
The Reflect-Learn-Act approach encouraged knowledge sharing and the problem-solving focus allowed the community to generate its own solutions to how the concepts should be adapted and applied within the organisation’s constraints.

Value proposition

You can read more about the strategies used during this engagement here:

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Value realised

Project managers now proactively engage with key stakeholders – usually their project sponsor and operational managers. There is a marked improvement in the nature of the partnership relationships and the timely and appropriate identification of issues allowing for their swift resolution. CITI refers to this with clients as ‘political collaboration’.

Engagement focus

An initiative to develop project management capability had thrown into sharp relief the inappropriate techniques and approaches most of the project managers used to engage their sponsors, with the result that sponsors became disengaged and disenchanted with projects.

The Head of Learning & Development invited CITI in to address this problem and incorporate the learning of good sponsor engagement into the training programme. In practice this meant improving stakeholder engagement and political collaboration at M&G by engaging the delegates and their sponsors as ‘stakeholders’.

Approach to solution

Project managers undergoing education on project management methodology were invited to discuss progress of their initiatives and to identify specific challenges they faced. Through a series of facilitated workshops their view was critiqued by colleagues (facilitated by CITI) specifically to identify areas of tension between the project manager and the sponsor. These typically ranged from lack of access to non-attendance of the sponsor at key events to ‘micro-management’ suffocating the project manager.

Specific potential solutions were then generated and incorporated into a ‘stakeholder plan’. Additionally, head of Learning & Development created and managed ‘delegate stakeholder plans’ resulting in very different support options for the delegates, e.g. delegates in favour of the training programme were supported differently to those who saw little value in it!

Lessons learned

The development of project managers should always be regarded as a change programme – and processes used in change programmes adopted. When developing technical project managers into those capable of running business benefits-driven projects the problem often is providing them with insights into how to engage with the personal and political aspects of projects. Experience is the best teacher, so if it can be arranged, getting these individuals to experience – be on the receiving end – of different stakeholder engagement processes is a highly effective technique.

Models / tools used

CITI stakeholder analysis techniques
Facilitated workshops

Value proposition

You can read more about the strategies used during this engagement here:

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