What’s the value

Having a strategy for change reduces waste, accelerates benefit delivery, prioritises the important over the demanding but, and most of all, reduces the risk of failed change. ‘Strategy for change’ includes aligning the work to achieve the vision, turning strategic aspiration into structured actions and the creation of a clear ‘line of sight’ between the strategic intent of the Board and the set of projects that need to be established to develop the necessary new or additional competences within the business to deliver the benefits of the strategy.

Not only the organisation’s aspirations but also its culture will ultimately determine the strategy for change. Just as with organisational strategy, circumstances will coerce the deliberate strategy for change into an emergent strategy – the strategy for change must accommodate such flexibility too and is therefore likely to be updated in ‘real-time’.

Why is it valid

Often a major inhibitor of change is not a lack of clarity on what is wanted but rather how to go about achieving it. Applying a stepped approach to the development of a change strategy gives a clear sense of direction, and allows the construction of the optimum portfolio. Whilst valuable at the outset, it has another great strength as it structures how best to conduct the continual review of progress against plan, and the adoption of alternative strategic strands as becomes necessary.

What you will experience

An initial mapping is made between the declared strategy and the project portfolios under management to determine risk-adjusted expenditure and .risk-adjusted outturns and outcomes. This process, called ‘brigading up’, groups current expenditures into sets that allows the emergent strategy to be described.

The agreed strategy is decomposed into strategic threads, and the specific foci for management attention are subjected to value management disciplines. The tacit, as well as the explicit, prioritisation practices are discovered and the consequences of the choices made clear in terms of risk-adjusted value returned.

The Board then has a model that reflects the actual alignment of the project portfolios with the strategy, which can be used to do scenario analysis – and to confirm or alter the operational imperatives of the emergent strategy.

Where the portfolio contains tens of projects the option analysis often proves very complex. To reduce this to manageable proportions, tool-based decision-support approaches are deployed: cross-linking dependent projects to prevent infeasible choices, and reducing the offered choices to a range of near-optimum selections based on published criteria.

A boundary based organisational analysis can be used to overlay the portfolio and its schedule to optimise opportunities to accelerate or de-risk the desired outcomes.

How you might start

Typically the start point for a strategy for change engagement is a strategic implementation planning workshop with the board sponsoring the change; it is imperative that they have a shared view of and consistent support for the strategy for change. This is moderated through a series of stakeholder engagement workshops and interviews amongst the change managers and change agents. The emerging suite of initiatives are subjected to portfolio analysis to determine the optimum composition for the initial portfolio and this can then be subjected to periodic reviews (typically using boundary analysis or benefit, impact, product maps and associated KPIs) to assess achievement and adjust or regulate the portfolio as appropriate.

Example models, methods & tools used

SIP and Chip workshops
V-model
Impact analysis
Boundary management/analysis.

Clients we have used this method for

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What’s the value

Governance groups and project selection committees have a consistent basis upon which to judge the absolute and comparative merits of competing bids for the investment funds of the organisation in terms of value, likelihood of return, costs and the associated risks. Each business case also has value in the project and change delivery process, acting as the basis for decision-making by the governance group.

Why is it valid

Because many of investment decisions are discretionary and all of them ‘compete’ to some extent or another, it is necessary to have a consistent expression of the individual and comparative merit of any given initiative. This is what a compelling business case provides.

Not only does the compelling business case set out the initial justification for an investment, it is also the basis for deciding whether to provide the ‘authorisation to proceed’ (ATP) as the project unfolds, and the actual costs, risks and opportunities for benefit are realised at each of the stage gate reviews.

What you will experience

Understanding and committing to what the value of the competing investment opportunities that candidate projects offer is a critical part of the selection of the project portfolio.

All decisions about the future should take into account risks, the risk of it costing more to achieve the benefits, and the risk of the benefit not being realised in full or at all. So after defining the problem or opportunity that the project is there to address; the risks and rewards of doing so have to be quantified. Categorised appropriately into financial, strategic and risk avoidance, the benefits are profiled, showing the value recovered over time. This typically involves the identification and quantification of the impacts of the necessary business changes, with sets of KPIs agreed.

With the ‘desirability’ in terms of benefits established, the cost and the possible costs of the known risks are calculated to make possible the cost-benefit-risk assessment (COBRA).

How you might start

Typically a sponsor or a programme will seek support in developing a business case under their ownership. Though usually targeted at a specific difficult case, it is often found that the approach is quickly recognised to have wider application and, where organisations have them, the PMO becomes interested in developing an in-house capability.

We support the development of project-based workshops and provide experts to create business cases, and then using our Reflect-Learn –Apply approach embed the knowledge, skills and attitudes into the organisation.

Example models, methods & tools used

BIP mapping,
Benefits registry document (BRD),
Cost estimating processes and tools,
Risk and complexity modelling and workshops.
Business case templates.

Clients we have used this method for

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What’s the value

Project portfolio prioritisation schemes give assurance to management that the project selections made give maximum value to the organisation for the resource allocated.
Most organisations have more opportunities available and problems to solve than they are able to resource or afford. A project portfolio often represents the largest investment an organisation makes on a yearly basis. Failure to invest wisely, either because money is spent on the wrong things or the investment fails to deliver the intended return is a major source of concern to Boards. Prioritising – investing in the most optimum way – is a critical discipline for an organisation.

Why is it valid

Prioritisation approaches and ways to manage the competition for resource that are based on criteria that compares costs (adjusted for risk) against benefits (value – also adjusted for risk) have been proven to provide maximum return with optimum resource utilisation. A common difficulty faced by project portfolio selection committees is coping with the combinatorial effect. i.e. As numbers of candidate projects rises the number of possible combinations rises very steeply. With just 12 projects there are 4096 while with 25 the number is in the billions. It is therefore unsurprising that without good prioritisation schemes and tools mistakes are made when considering best combinations of projects in a portfolio.

What you will experience

The Board can determine what is intentional and what accidental. A transparent and maintainable set of criteria is put in place to control entry on to the portfolio list and inclusion into the portfolio itself.

With this, senior management is assured and confident that the best options have been selected and that throughput has been maximised against priority.

How you might start

CITI has developed tools, techniques and approaches to set up prioritisation schemes for use by governance groups involved in project portfolio selection and management. Usually called in when a portfolio has become unmanageable due to over-contention for resource and working closely with the PMO or other project groups, project registers are established clearly articulating a number of characteristics: cost and benefit risk profiles of the projects, the basis of choices made and organisational preferences.

Example models, methods & tools used

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

Clients we have used this method for

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What’s the value

Complex change is difficult to deliver, individual projects rarely succeed in doing so, and programmes are often seen as too hard to manage. Solving this problem depends on understanding the significance of the projects’ interdependencies within a programme, and how best to structure a programme to deliver complex change – simply.

Why is it valid

Complex change cannot be achieved with project methodology alone. Programmes are large sophisticated bodies of work that provide the necessary management structure allowing projects and the necessary BAU initiatives to succeed. They ensure all important management decisions are predicated on the need to ensure the required benefits are delivered. The ‘how to achieve’ this is then considered as a secondary concern.

What you will experience

Current planning of your programme is reviewed, and an approach adopted which ‘starts with the end in mind’. This allows the outputs and projects to be grouped into a set of tranches that structures and sequences the work necessary to deliver the vision. Governance approaches are also reviewed and the necessary management structures and roles are confirmed to make the tranches work. The high level political engagement necessary is articulated and clear accountabilities are established.

How you might start

CITI usually gets called in when concerns are raised by the programme board as progress in the first tranche is stalled, or there is serious contention between projects that are already in progress and projects initiated under the auspices of a programme.

Example models, methods & tools used

Programme management evaluations
Benefit – impact – product modelling
Tranche construction
Programme management toolkit
RACI

Clients we have used this method for

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What’s the value

‘Translating strategy into action’ allows the Board to determine the extent to which the project portfolio delivers the organisation’s strategy.

Why is it valid

The evidence set out in a series of Standish Reports clearly shows the incidence of low level s of satisfaction amongst senior management with the alignment and contribution made by projects to the strategy of the company remains a major concern. Very often senior executives complain that they are unsighted by the project portfolio processes being used.

What you will experience

An initial mapping is made between the declared strategy and the project portfolios under management to determine risk-adjusted expenditure and .risk-adjusted outturns and outcomes. This process, called ‘brigading up’, groups current expenditures into sets that allows the emergent strategy to be described.
The agreed strategy is decomposed into strategic threads, and the specific foci for management attention are subjected to value management disciplines. The tacit, as well as the explicit, prioritisation practices are discovered and the consequences of the choices made clear in terms of risk-adjusted value returned.

The Board then has a model that reflects the actual alignment of the project portfolios with the strategy, which can be used to do scenario analysis – and to confirm or alter the operational imperatives of the emergent strategy.

Where the portfolio contains tens of projects the option analysis often proves very complex. To reduce this to manageable proportions, tool-based decision-support approaches are deployed: cross-linking dependent projects to prevent infeasible choices, and reducing the offered choices to a range of near-optimum selections based on published criteria.

This clarity identifies the best use of available resources, rather maximum use of resources, and a clear trajectory to the consequences of changing the composition of the portfolio as business imperatives change.

How you might start

Most organisations find it helpful to call CITI in when it is trying to monetise its vision – or to identify and quantify the benefits. Very often we find that the way the vision has been constructed is blocking the analysis: this may be due to the vision being substituted by a solution or because the separation between the customer value proposition and the business value proposition is incomplete.
CITI’s approach which uses a set of tools to analyse and tease apart related strategic focus areas and our ruthless focus on value has helped many organisations develop stronger commitment and better alignment of its project portfolio. We often have the opportunity to observe, “Show us your portfolio and we will show your strategy.” As one of clients said afterwards, “For once, it’s tell us your strategy and we’ll select the right portfolio…”

Example models, methods & tools used

Portfolio prioritisation models: e.g. MoSCoW, Hedging
SIPP
Benefits analysis
Results chain

Clients we have used this method for

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What’s the value

Project governance – determining and directing the organisation’s resources to achieve the optimum value from its investments – has proved to be the single most important factor in delivering organisational change successfully.
The role of project governance is to provide a structured approach to decision making that is robust and repeatable.

Why is it valid

History and research has shown that there are four fundamental principles that need to be properly implemented for good project governance.

Ensure a single point of accountability for the success of the project: It is not enough to nominate someone to be accountable – the right person must be made accountable, and must have sufficient authority to make the decisions necessary and come from the correct area within the organisation be held accountable.

Project ownership independent of asset ownership other stakeholder group: Making the project owner or asset owner the sponsor, though superficially attractive, has shown to lead to wasteful scope inclusions and failure to achieve alternative stakeholder requirements.
Ensure separation of stakeholder management and project decision making activities: The decision making effectiveness of a committee is inversely proportional to its size. Not only can large committees fail to make timely decisions, those it does make are often ill considered because of the particular group dynamics at play.

Ensure separation of project governance and organisational governance structures: Project governance structures are established precisely because it is recognised that organisation structures do not provide the necessary framework to deliver a project.

What you will experience

The governance structures and remits are analysed in terms of decisions made and needing to be made, the information flows available for decision making, and the level of involvement. ‘Touching’ roles are closely scrutinised to ensure clarity of role and responsibilities is maintained, and that decisions are made at the appropriate level.

Meetings are analysed using a variety of techniques with the results being used to formalise structures and roles.

Issues, decisions and actions are tracked through the governance process to demonstrate timeliness and effectiveness.

How you might start

Two common starting points are when the organisation is faced with a difficult downsizing exercise for its project portfolio and the governance structures in place find it difficult to find an acceptable resolution to the question of “Which projects?” The other is when there has been a significant project failure and the cause is difficult to determine, but it may be due to a failure in the governance process.

Example models, methods & tools used

STOP
Workshop facilitation
Touching roles analysis

Clients we have used this method for

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