With the hundreds if not thousands of quality assurance reviews we’ve conducted in our history, we know better than most just how different the review approach and conversations are when providing independent assurance on a business’ programme vs. its projects. Our team is highly experienced at both, but critically, we understand the interplay between a programme and its related projects and how this changes the assurance focus. In this article, we explore some of the fundamental differences between our review of programmes to provide you with an idea of the type of engagement you can expect when working with us to get your programme on track and on the path to success.
High level strategic vs. day to day delivery
Programme assurance is all about reviewing the organisation’s high-level strategic goals and how well the business activity is supporting this through the programme. Providing assurance on a strategic level requires an assessment of different functions of the business than a project review. A project assurance review requires us to assess business activity at a more granular level in terms of daily activity. This helps us determine where areas for improvement exist to bring the project in on budget and time. Programmes however are bigger, longer and present outcomes more slowly than projects.
Thus, our team designs an approach to guide towards strategic outcomes that may leverage projects and their priority but ultimately empowers senior leadership to make decisions.
We commonly undertake programme and project assurance together for clients who need the confidence their teams are delivering towards success and also the strategic peace of mind that the projects and other initiatives are taking the business towards its KPIs.
Who we work alongside on assurance for programmes vs. projects
Programme assurance is also quite distinct from project assurance in terms of the personnel in your organisation we talk to. At the project level, our review may require collaboration with project managers, steering committee and delivery team members. For a programme that reaches far across the organisation with multiple projects’ outputs as a dependency, our conversations will typically go broader and higher up the chain. We need to establish a clear view of the business outcomes and the intention behind the business case for a programme before we’re able to provide a comprehensive assurance service.
Our programme assurance can take us into board rooms, sitting with senior leadership teams, and of course working alongside programme directors, managers and team. Depending on the needs of the programme, we may also interface with project managers. Our objectives in the meetings, brainstorms and interviews during a programme assurance process is to get a breadth of opinions and facts that gives our clients the best view of their programme’s quality and the likelihood of success. It also empowers our recommendations to be more considered and ultimately more effective.
Measures of success or ‘health’
Success is measured differently at the project level than it is at the programme level. Yes, the project’s success is often one objective of a programme, but this is simply means to a strategic end. A project’s goal is typically to generate a set of functional outputs that can be pointed to as part of the business, such as the development of a new staff intranet. The programme, however, will have measures of success that reflect a bigger organisation-wide change or development.
For example, the staff intranet may be part of a programme to make the business digital-first and remote working ready. This programme may have half a dozen other projects to support this evolution along with any activity occurring at the BAU level within your standard business units.
We are big believers that every programme (and project) deserves to succeed. We also work with our clients to understand the concept of programme health; a way of looking at the different elements of a programme to determine how things are going. Programme health is based around the strategic objectives of the business and how well the programme is supporting these. Project health brings the analysis to a more process, people and output level where we can map progress on a project against budget and time to provide health metrics.
The programme assurance health check requires us to understand the programme from top-down and bottom-up – is the programme’s scope, direction, people and governance moving the business in the right direction towards its goals and are the projects supporting this adequately in their scope and priority.
If you are interested in testing your programme’s health now, you can use our free 3 Minute Project Health tool.
Assessing the combination of projects to meet an organisational outcome vs. individual project delivery
Programme Assurance takes our work a few steps back from ‘the action’. Our methodologies revolve around collections of projects in the longer-term rather than getting under the hood of a project team’s way of working, people and work produced. The highly structured approach to programme assurance is essential to big picture work that can save significant budget and time once we determine which planned and existing activity is working or required. Imagine the budget implications of embarking on a number of projects not scoped or qualified properly, vs. the budget implications of a single project’s decisions. We are supporting our clients with much higher stakes in programme assurance in many cases.
Think of it like this; project assurance is us helping you to make the right moves on a chessboard. Programme assurance is us helping you determine which games of chess to play. While project assurance will contain strategic thinking, the conversations and recommendations are more tactical and functional than programme assurance which is mostly strategic and direction-based.
Budget issues and solutions for programmes vs. projects
Another big difference in the assurance of programmes and projects is in how we treat budget matters. Making changes to a project to reduce unnecessary spending typically come as actions that are reasonably straightforward to implement – with results of these changes visible relatively quickly. For example, our assurance process may identify efficiencies to be gained that free up paid resources to complete milestones quicker and closer to budget. This could be as quick to implement as removing meetings or restructuring the workweek.
Programme budget on the other hand is larger and more cumbersome. It’s signed off at a high level and isn’t designed to be nimble with day to day challenges. The programme budget allows projects to be scoped and signed off within them, each being apportioned a % of the budget. Strategic outcomes can take years to materialise. When a programme budget is being exhausted at a rate beyond the expected level of change in an organisation, assurance needs the scope to assess all parts of the business that affect the programme. Bigger decisions may be required for a programme budget to be brought within control to avoid failure.
As we tell our clients, keeping projects running well with good governance and delivery practices are big factors in supporting the overarching programme’s budget.
Governance and reporting quality assurance – considering different roles in programmes vs. projects
Anyone who’s worked in projects or programmes for a number of years will no doubt have come across governance issues. Governance helps programmes make decisions by laying out the rules of the game; the reporting lines for decision making, risk analysis and mitigation, reporting frameworks and meeting and communication processes. As would be expected, the governance around a project should help to report on and manage functional challenges with the delivery of the project outputs.
Programme governance is also a set of decision making and guideline frameworks, but tailored towards a strategic business plan as opposed to project deliverables. When we support our clients with programme assurance, our main focus is placing the structure around the programme to ensure progress is reported, communication lines are open and risks are clearly outlined. The personnel involved with the programme is different to a project, and thus the accountabilities and sign-offs will be different, too.
To be adequately prepared for decisions that have large budget implications to the business, governance assurance for programmes is integral.
The Programme Manager will use governance as a tool through which to guide the programme throughout its lifetime. We help programmes to ensure their governance serves them, the strategic goals and the related projects as well as possible.
How well the business is equipped to deliver vs. how projects are performing
Assurance for a programme requires analysis of the business’ readiness and ability to deliver various initiatives as part of the strategic direction of the business. A project assurance process takes a closer look at the actual delivery of work itself and how this is tracking against milestones and budget. In many ways, a programme assurance process can pave the way for more successful projects after it, by getting the strategic direction dialled in before work starts.
Does your programme need independent quality assurance to get things back on track?
If you’ve got a programme in planning, just started or even years into progress, we want to talk to you. Programme assurance doesn’t always need to come in times of crisis – having assurance in place can help the organisation avoid these in the first place. Chat to our team today via our contact form or reach out to us via our LinkedIn page.
