Do you know the difference between project governance and project management? Most people will use the terms somewhat interchangeably, but they are not the significantly different. Project governance is the structure in which project management occurs. It provides a framework that is transparent, rational, reasonable and repeatable to govern how a business invests in projects, including which projects to pursue, which to abandon, when to intervene and how to assess success.
With-out good project governance your projects will overrun, not achieving their goals or fail completely. Project Governance aligns three integral components of any project: People, Process, and Information
Process
The process of project governance ensures that project management is efficient and effective. It ensures that your project aligns with the organisation’s vision, which projects to prioritise, as well as that the correct documentation is completed.
People
Good project governance can ensure that the correct people are involved as early as possible, including those who are responsible for tasks, those who are accountable and those who need to be informed. Project governance also ensures people involved focus on prioritised projects.
Information
The most common complaint, in organisations as well as during the project life-cycle, is the lack of communication. This is why this component of project governance is so important. It ensures that the right information is gathered and that all this information is communicated regularly to the right people at the right level of detail.
Regardless if your project is a construction project or rolling out a new production line, all projects undergo the following four (4) phases:
The importance of People, Process and Information for each phase is described below.
Project Initiation
This phase of the project requires the most significant governance effort. Many project managers would be tempted to skip or minimise this step, so that they can jump right into planning the project, but this will have very serious implications. It is a bit like starting to build your dream house without knowing if you own the land you are building on.
Process
The governance process ensures alignment and that all due diligence activities have been completed. In other words, doing this ensures that the project aligns with the organisation’s vision and contributes towards the overall vision. This ensures that money and resources are appropriately allocated to projects. If this is not done, you may have a successful project, which comes in on time and in budget, but will not support the organisation’s long-term strategy.
People
Project governance requires a detailed list of exactly who will be involved in the project, what their responsibilities are and who will be accountable for what. It also requires a list of those who will be impacted by the project. This will lead to better stakeholder buy-in. Not doing this means poor buy-in which can lead to obstacles, wasting time and in extreme cases inadvertent and even wilful sabotage.
Information
A lot of information is required in this phase, most importantly the project finances, risks affecting the project and the project scope. The project scope, in other words what the project will address and more importantly what it will NOT address, must be clear. If this is not clearly stated it will lead to scope creep. At the least it will mean many meetings side-tracked with people arguing about what should and should not be done, and also scope creep, leading to delays and cost overruns.
Project Planning
When discussing project planning, you naturally think of Gantt charts and/or resource plans. Good project governance requires more than that and will ensure that the project plans are thorough and detailed enough.
Process
While the planning process is simple, it does require focus and diligence. Not only do you need to ensure that all the right people are involved, but that all the steps, tasks and sub-tasks are taken into account, as well as their dependencies. This will ensure that there is a realistic critical path. Not doing this in enough detail will mean that the project will run over. It is a bit like building your house, and then calling the plumber in after to fit all the pipes.
People
You need people with sufficient experience for the planning to ensure that no crucial steps are forgotten and that the timings for the tasks and sub-tasks are realistic. It will also ensure that if there is a resource shortage, a decision can be made as to whether to change priorities, bring in additional resources, outsourcing certain activities or to delay/prolong the project.
Information
While the outputs for this phase are typically the Gantt chart and resource plan, detailed cash flow statements, which take into account the required amount and timing of deposits for capital assets and/or work specifications, shipping information, and the overall project budget are also required. All this must be clearly communicated and be easily available for review during the next phase.
Implementation
This is the part where the project is actually done, and the project governance components become much more interlinked. Information sharing is the most important component for good governance during this phase.
Information
As mentioned, communication is often cited as a critical failing during projects. Good communication ensures proper oversight and that problems are identified early and reviewed pro-actively. This is addressed through regular work stream meetings, project review meetings, and Steering Committee meetings as well as the actual project progress compared to the planned progress.
People
The right people must be involved in the appropriate meetings, as such, it does not make sense to have the project sponsor involved in the work-stream meetings, but they must attend the Steering Committee meetings. The decision makers at each of these meetings can bring extra resources, approve changes and in the worst case, close projects or work-streams before too much money is spent.
Process
Project governance processes during implementation are about dealing with change and risk. No matter how much planning and preparation you have done, something will go wrong or need to change. Change management includes scope changes, resource changes, overruns, budget or compliance changes. Risks are addressed during regular risk review meetings. When this does not happen, or is inadequate, risks and changes cannot be addressed pro-actively, and overruns and additional costs are almost guaranteed.
Project Close-out
All projects do eventually come to an end. Good governance makes sure they are closed off properly, and that they do not just fade away into noise of the organisation.
Process
One of the most important processes during the close-out is the review of mitigation plans as well as completing the lessons learnt. It also important to ensure that all the documentation that was created during the project is archived correctly, ensuring it is easily available for future reference.
People
The project close-out process ensures that all those who are involved have a clear cut-off and that the project is signed-off, whether it was successful or not. It is also an opportunity to acknowledge those involved and their individual contributions.
Information
The information that is gathered during the close-out is not only for those involved in the project but more importantly, those that follow after. Learnings from this project are kept and shared and easily available, so that these can be incorporated in future projects. Classic examples include planning for service providers who are always late, mitigating for known weaknesses and not being overly reliant on team members who just are not team players.
Ongoing, transparent, rational project governance ensures that even unsuccessful projects are not a complete waste of resources, and that mistakes are used to learn from and not repeated.