In this concluding session we will be looking at how to kick start the PPM process and the key questions to ask when conducting a readiness assessment. Finally we will explore the benefits of including a Health Check and Proof of Benefit (PoB) when when deploying PPM.

How to Kick Start the Process

Now that we have covered and understood the main issues that need to be addressed in order to start organising the business for PPM, we now need to translate this into reality.

Where to deploy PPM

Determining the location of the businesses ‘domain’, or in other words, where to deploy the initial PPM process is critical. The proof of benefit (PoB) process  articulates the need to prove the initial ROI at a more tactical level within the business, typically at the unit or departmental level. The rationale is to enable the business to construct, test and model the PPM process within a low risk environment as well as understand the change management issues confronting the organisation.

To de-risk the process of organising and deploying a PPM solution, it is essential to deal with ‘chunks’ of activity that prove the value of the solution and process from one stage to the next.

 

The Readiness Assessment

When implementing PPM it is important to bear  in the mind the following key questions:

• Executive sponsorship: are we going to get executive support to implement a project portfolio management process? Will we get adequate funding, people and time to implement this?
• Culture and organisation structure: How flexible are the staff, can they change their existing mind-set as well as business processes?
• Project management and business processes: How do we tie our strategic objective to project deliverables, and what will be the impact of PPM on our existing business processes and project management infrastructure?
• Metrics and performance criteria: Have we established realistic, measurable performance criteria? What will be our ROI and ROO models?
• Quick wins and credibility: How do we ensure that we get quick wins and quick ROI?, how do we ensure that PPM is taken seriously as a change management project and are our resources going to provide us with the right inputs to go into the PPM infrastructure?
• PPM staff and experts: Will we have internal or external PPM experts who can manage the whole process of PPM evolution in the organisation,that is, selecting a PPM vendor, establishing success criteria,taking alternative actions if PPM implementation does not go as planned, and monitoring vendor artefact’s and processes?
• Technology: Are our business counterparts technically minded enough to use the software to its utmost capacity?

 

The Health Check

The health check is conducted in conjunction with the selected vendor and is the first step in assessing the needs and requirements of the business and is designed to be a low risk engagement model. The health check allows the business to analyse key processes underpinning the delivery of projects within the organisation in order to make certain that the solution and process will deliver value.

A typical health check exercise includes a review of a number of agreed key processes, typically including:

• portfolio management
• management reporting
• project resourcing
• milestone/delivery reporting
• scenario modelling
• project/programme management
• time recording
• review of document processes, including inputs/outputs and data flows
• identification of timings for processes
• understanding and the documentation of business issues and constraints

 

Proof of Benefit (PoB)

The PoB is a configurable test environment that enables the business to understand from a real world perspective how PPM will be delivered into the business, the key steps include:

Step 1: Objectives and Goals

This step involves for example:

• developing and agreeing the purpose of the PoB
• agreeing and developing a timeframe for PoB delivery
• identifying and engaging key stakeholders responsible for the PoB
• targeting and defining the business domain in which the PoB will takeplace, that is, which departments, business units, and so on
• identifying high-level analysis of current work streams and processes with the business domain ready for ‘current state’ assessment
• developing and agreeing a project structure and a governance structure appropriate to the successful delivery of PoB, wherever possible utilising existing structures, for example: roles, responsibilities, resources, project frameworks, and so on

Step 2: Principles and Scope

This step typically involves:

• roles and responsibilities within the PoB
• key issues and risks including the management principles relating to risk and issues resolution and development of a risk log and an issues log
• financial control and reporting mechanisms
• the prioritisation process
• quality assurance
• provision of management information, executive reporting and programme reporting
• standards
• escalation routes and procedures

Step 3:  ‘Current state’ assessment

This step three commences the actual PoB work and looks to map out a ‘current state’ assessment by coming to understand the current processes within the targeted domain or areas within the business. This assessment forms the baseline from which a PPM model is built.

This step typically involves:

• Establishing and agreeing the facts concerning the existing status of the current processes within the business, typically including attention to:
  • time recording processes
  • resource management processes
  • project management
  • programme management
  • milestone management management information production
  • scenario and project modelling
  • processes and measurement criteria
  • roles and responsibilities
  • workstreams and supporting plans
  • technical architecture
  • critical project dependencies
  • resourcing requirements and constraints
  • ongoing issues and risks
• Populating the ROI/ROO tool with accurate/up-to-date data ready to assess the benefits of PPM

Step 4: ‘Future state’ assessment

This step defines and builds a picture of the targeted PPM model, in other words, a model of what the business should be doing to benefit from PPM and how to deliver it into the business, this step involves:

• Agreeing critical success factors for the PoB and feeding PPM benefits into the ROI/ROO calculator
• Defining the target PPM model, by reference to:
  • strategy and accountability processes
  • project life cycle processes
  • portfolio management processes
  • milestone management processes
  • budgets and costing processes
  • programme management processes
  • resource management processes
  • management information processes
  • scenario modelling processes
  • time recording processes
  • roles and responsibilities
• Establishing and agreeing a practical and achievable PPM delivery model by mapping out process implementation and installation of the software procedures
• Identifying and creating a configuration document that supports the agreed processes and maps out the overall future state assessment

Step 5: ‘Gap analysis’ assessment

This step looks at what the target domain needs to do to achieve a successful implementation of PPM. It involves implementing the model developed at step 4, and starts to model the PPM environment. The results of the modelling are rolled up to the executive level so as to understand the implications of a larger-scale roll-out. Wherever possible,‘quick wins’ should be identified, and progress made in accordance with appropriate project control and development standards and resource and budget constraints.

This step involves:

• undertaking and documenting a ‘gap analysis’ as between the ‘ current state’ assessment and the ‘future state’ assessment
• identifying and defining workstreams from the gap analysis
• developing a model and prototype processes and solutions to identify areas of improvement, and then implementing these processes and solutions
• documenting change management issues
• calculating the actual ROI/ROO of PPM implementation

Step 6: Presenting the results to the business

It is recommended that the executive sponsor be asked to deliver the PoB to the business. The findings of the PoB need to be well documented, and all key stakeholders need to be educated on all aspects of the PoB. The findings of the PoB should also be used has the basis for roll-out to other parts of the business. This step involves presenting:

• PoB objectives
• identified PoB target domain
• ‘current state’ assessment findings
• ‘future state’ assessment findings
• ‘gap analysis’ assessment findings, including:
  • the defined PPM model
  • the ROI and ROO for the business
  • the change management issues
  • the process changes to be involved in roll-out within the business
  • the software products needed to support roll-out within the business

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