Programme Assurance Resources

Building Governance Around A Programme

The information in this guide is intended for general purposes only. For more specific guidance around your organisation’s projects, please get in touch with our team.

In this section, you will find:

Programmes are large organisational initiatives that involve a lot of people, time, budget and complexity. Underneath a programme there will be multiple projects and decisions made to enable the programme’s goals to be achieved. Programmes represent activity designed to bring about strategic change. To make large changes in an organisation that’s done things a certain way for a long time is challenging. So without good structures in place that guide how the programme is executed, there’s a real risk of budget overrun, inefficiencies and in some cases ineffectiveness or failure.
To build those structures and processes, organisations can adopt thorough governance practices. Governance provides that shared reference point to help determine the current status of the programme, who needs to make decisions and a way to guide the roll out of the programme.
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The principles of governance

Governance is made up of a number of principles. In some organisations there may be a specific governance methodology that outlines certain elements as core to good governance, so there is some variability from business to business.

However, generally you can be confident that good governance will include:

  • Roles and responsibilities
  • Reporting frameworks
  • Meeting cadences
  • Stakeholder communication
  • Risk assessment and mitigation
  • Assurance
Governance is there not to slow down programmes with red tape, but rather the opposite; putting foundations in place so that the programme can run smoothly. The reason that governance varies between organisations is that good programme or project governance often aligns with the broader business’ own practices in this area. Take roles and responsibilities for example – a business may require a certain approach to signing off work generally that ensures its compliance and readiness – any programme within the business will likely need to fall in line with that, too.

How programme governance varies from project governance

The governance around programmes and projects have a lot in common from the perspective of their intention; creating safety nets and guidance for the people associated with those business activities. The difference between applying governance to programmes and projects is associated with the very intention of both of these concepts – projects are typically more deliverables-based, with smaller, tangible milestones being the primary focus. This means that governance such as risks, reporting and sign offs are usually based around helping this ‘delivery’ progress.

Governance on a programme isn’t entirely different, but the nature of reporting and risk assessment is more associated with the strategic objectives as a whole – and less about specific deliverables’ ability to proceed. For example, a programme reporting function would typically communicate progress of all underlying projects and how the business’ strategic vision is being worked towards. The risks and challenges are often broader business threats such as market forces, leadership changes, or evolving consumer needs as opposed to more day-to-day operational risks that a project usually focuses on.

Programme governance – think broad and strategic. Project governance – think specific and deliverable.

Reporting on strategic outcomes

The sponsor and steering committee will need to ensure that a programme is measured continuously. It can be harder for an organisation to build meaningful and effective reporting into programmes than projects given their large, often sprawling nature in the business. Governance sets out the ways in which reporting will occur to make this easier. What are the lead and lag measures of success? Governance should also confirm who is responsible for preparing data and commentary for leadership and other key stakeholders to be kept up to date on the programme. The point of data will usually come from a number of sources, including project management offices and other business units.

The leadership team in an organisation will want to know the answer at any one point in time: how is the programme tracking against its outcomes? Will we get the end result we’re paying for?

The engagement cadence for programmes

Regular engagement (often via meetings) is critical for any project or programme. When communication falls away, decisions can stall or be made without enough context. Worse still, relationships between parties can suffer making hard decisions even harder. Governance around a programme should help give some guidance to the business about what type and level of engagement is can expect. .
Structure around the formal engagement of different stakeholders in a programme also protects everyone’s individual time as their week can be planned around these from the start. A lack of rigour in meeting practices can allow impromptu meetings to creep in with no checks and balances as to the value of these. Before long, your team can feel like their entire work is meetings.

Like the scope of the programme helps focus your people’s efforts on the right thing, governance around engagement helps to drive the best outcomes from group interactions – which can be costly to the business if ineffective.

Key responsibilities in the programme

Who does what is a huge part of governance working well (or not). Ambiguity is a disastrous trait for any programme or project because it usually leaves the action or outcome incomplete or ignored. This isn’t due to any one person’s conscious effort to avoid making calls or desire to pass the buck – but rather a failing of unclear roles and requirements of those.

Establishing and capturing roles and responsibilities helps everyone in the programme know what they need to do, and also who to go to for help or approval. Consider more than just who your project managers are, but the programme director, product leads, steering committee members, programme sponsor, business unit leaders who may be signing work off, and even within the leadership team. Who is responsible for internal communications around the programme, the marketing of the developments externally, the technical infrastructure required to support the change? As you’d imagine, this part of governance can take some time to firm up, but it’s absolutely crucial this is done.

Monitoring and mitigating programme risk

Salina Sandra Alie via PMI.org talks about the concept of risk management and raises the very valid point that how an organisation handles risks ‘is more important than the issue/risk itself.’ We couldn’t agree more. Risks are just a fact of any programme, project, organisation – and life! To expect to be able to eliminate all risks is simply unrealistic. The navigation through those risks is what determines a programme’s strength. This risk management happens in a number of stages.

Before any mitigation can happen, there needs to be a comprehensive review of the programme and potential risks to surface as much as possible. Organisations may wish to engage those in the business that usually conduct risk assessments for the business as a whole to help make this process thorough.

Once the risks have been identified, a programme steering committee will, sometimes with the help of risk-specialist personnel, build a register of these risks and develop strategies to minimise the impact of these and how they will be navigated.

As the programme gets underway and roadblocks present themselves, the business can proceed anchored by the pre-planning of good risk management practices. This is a major factor in reducing risks to the programme’s health – and the stress of your people.

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How ‘change’ is managed

A programme conducted over many years is susceptible to change as the market, business and industry shifts around it. Making changes to the programme and what outcomes need to be is quite common. Take a technological upgrade programme – evolving platforms and end user expectations could demand a change in focus. Change may be a matter of project reprioritisation, or significant scope change to a particular project.

What governance helps a business work through is the way in which change is determined as required, the review and approval process, and ultimately how the change is communicated and embedded. At the scale of a large programme, mishandled change can really derail things, so like risks, preparation and planning is key.

Why governance is even more crucial for long term programmes

Programmes by their nature span years in duration most of the time. Naturally people within a business come and go. A programme’s governance should protect the programme from failure due to people leaving – including senior leadership. Governance is a reference point from which new stakeholders and leaders can pick up and continue on with.

Build the governance model for practicality

A business programme is a complex thing, there’s no avoiding this. But that shouldn’t mean that governance and management of programmes should be convoluted. Multiple layers of hierachy and decision making can cloud a programme’s progress. We’ve worked with programmes where a decision has made it through three or four layers of endorsement only to have the final decision bounce back from the top because of a lack of good engagement along the way. Governance is about clarity, and the more work up front to build clear, practical, simple governance, the better the programme should run.

Consider a governance model that is well-aligned with the culture and rhythm of the business – what processes and practices will be easily adoptable by your people?

Need help building a programme governance model?

Assurance is an important part of governance, giving that extra layer of confidence that the systems and processes your programme runs to will give your programme the best chance for success. We help organisations ensure their governance is set up to serve the programme and business well in the long term. If you’re looking for support with your programme governance, get in touch today.

Where to next?

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