As with the earlier steps, I believe once again that it is essential to involve all project and program managers in the process.
Start by defining, documenting and agreeing a high-level peer review process based on fixed points in a project and program life cycle.
Develop the necessary standards and guidelines to support the process or base them on something like the gateway review process (see below).
Transfer everything to the project and/or program office to maintain, support and develop.
Identify potential peer reviewers and provide them with any necessary training in the process.
Select a pilot project, run peer reviews on it, review the outcome of the pilot, refine and roll out the process and standards.
Then repeat the same steps for a program.
Gateway Review Process
This is an example of the Gateway peer review process as it is applied to programs and projects:
A project (on the left) has a review at the completion of each stage, with a focus on: 1) Business Justification, 2) Delivery Strategy, 3) Investment Decision, 4) Readiness for Service, and one or more on 5) Benefits Realisation.
A program (on the right) has a review during the Definition Phase, one for each Delivery Phase, and a final one during the Closure Phase. But please don’t ask me why they decided to call them all gateway 0!
Next week we will look at the final step in the process, portfolio management.
Last week we looked at deploying project management best practices, this week we look at a very similar process for deploying program management best practices:
Deploying Program Management Best Practices
Once again it is essential to fully involve all the organization’s project and program managers in the process.
Once again the process starts with defining, documenting, agreeing and implementing a standard program life cycle.
Then define, document and agree program management processes to support the project life cycle. These can be based on standards such as Managing Successful Programs (MSP) or Standard for Program Management (SPM), or a good program management handbook such as my own Project Program and Portfolio Management in easy steps. This takes you from level 1 to level two on the program management capability matrix.
Then establish a program office (or develop the project office into the role) to maintain, support and develop the agreed processes. This takes you from level 2 to level 3.
Define program reporting standards and metrics and task the program office with maintaining, supporting and developing and them. Which takes you from level 3 to level 4.
Once again you could stop here but why not take the next step and task the program office with optimising the processes and standards. This takes you from level 4 to level 5 and completes the deployment of program management best practices.
Next week I'll look at deploying a peer review best practice process.
Deploying Project Management Best Practices
Having established where the organisation currently is on the capability maturity model and planned how to get to the next level in steps 1 and 2 we can now start to roll out the best practices. I am going to assume that you are starting from level 1 (if not you will already have some of the earlier items in place).
Before starting any of this I believe it is absolutely essential to involve all the organization’s project managers in the process (after all they are all key stakeholders). So these are the steps involved:
Define, document and agree a standard project life cycle (if you don’t already have one), then define, document and agree project management processes to support the project life cycle. To speed up the development, these can be based on existing standards (such as PRINCE or PM-BOK) or on a good project management handbook (such as Effective Project Management in easy steps). This takes you from level 1 to level 2.
Next establish a project office to maintain, support and develop the processes. This takes you from level 2 to level 3.
Then define project reporting standards and metrics and task the project office with supporting and enforcing these, together with collecting and processing the data and reporting it to management. This takes you from level 3 to level 4.
You could stop here but why not take the next step and task the project office with optimising the processes and standards. This takes you from level 4 to level 5 and completes the deployment of project management best practices.
Next week I'll set out the process for deploying program management best practices.
Last week we looked at the Capability Maturity Model and the process of establishing where your organisation is on it. Once you have established that you can plan what you will need to do to move up the model. But remember that you can only move up one level of maturity at a time so plan on the basis of achievable short-term objectives.
For example if you decide you are currently at project management level 2: repeatable (you will have documented project management methodologies and a standard project life cycle in place; and you will be involving your project managers in the definition and agreement of these standards). You will now plan to move to level 3: defined. In order to achieve this you will need to carry out the following steps:
- Establish a project office to maintain the standards and documentation and provide an interface to the project mangers.
- Obtain management support and authorisation to enforce compliance with the standards and monitor this through the project office.
- Involve the organisation's project managers in reviewing and improving the standards.
Once you have that in place you are ready to plan for moving to the next level of organisational maturity. Next week we will look in more detail at the steps involved in deploying these project management best practices.
