A proven approach to repeatable portfolio and programme management success

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” – so said one Albert Einstein, and it still holds true today.

To my mind, this is where the programme or project management profession has been consistently going wrong for the last two decades. McKinsey & Company found in 2012 that 75 per cent of IT project leaders believed their projects were “doomed from the start”, while nearly 45 per cent admitted they were unclear on the business objectives of their IT projects – so clearly there is a marked problem.

The industry has changed significantly; there is now an abundance of tools, methodologies, disciplines, documented experiences, and outcomes to hand. Yet, fundamentally, the ‘needle hasn’t’ moved in delivering the right outcomes.

To succeed in a programme, it’s essential to have a plan – a plan which is fit for purpose, which is practical, and meets the constraints of the programme, ensuring the delivery of the project to the right quality, within the timeline and using the resources allocated.

It’s of equal importance to then carefully follow that plan and have enough detail and accuracy in place representing the actual task to be carried out immediately.

Therefore, it’s wise to develop the tools and capability that apply and manage the necessary level of detail and governance to succeed. An often familiar saying for those working on big projects is, “When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time”. This might sound a little strange to the average person, but it’s an effective metaphor on how to successfully complete tasks without being overwhelmed by them – by simply breaking them down into smaller chunks.

Implementing technology that breaks down the programme into smaller, more manageable sections is by far the best approach, but it’s important to always keep one eye on the necessity of reconstructing them back into the larger programme.

This approach brings out into the open the issues that need to be resolved – the time/cost/technology challenges that must be dealt with – but it’s also here that the innovation comes in. The right software has the ability to drill right down into that detail.

I looked back at projects from the earlier part of my career, and those that seemed to progress better than others had one thing in common – the team got round the table. This could be 10 colleagues, each with 10 years’ experience, so in effect, a collective 100 years of knowledge might be tapped into. The value of that being continually converted into more positive outcomes simply cannot be overestimated.

The project teams that were good at communicating, capturing actions and outcomes, and then executing them, tended to be far more successful than those that just became swamped by actions.

Today, software advances are helping to capture those discussions and outcomes from key meetings, including, most importantly, a database to track and chase staff on subsequent actions. Ensuring the execution of actions by capturing them in a detailed manner and making them happen is where the true value lies.

A simple rule for large programmes is to reserve the big brains for managing the big issues, while at the same time refraining from revealing all the complexity to everyone involved, because it can overwhelm and scare. That way, you can give someone a task that’s well within their capability. They execute the task, they’re proud of it, they’re motivated by it, and they agree to the next task. They don’t have to understand which part of the jigsaw it is, but all of those little jigsaw pieces will eventually become the end outcome.

Paying attention to milestones is another key facet of the process. Being aware of all of the information that is implicit in a particular milestone is fundamental to the right outcome, from the benefits that it can bring, and the requirements for closing it, to the anticipated cost of getting to that point in the programme.

Going into a project thinking that it will be plain sailing could be your biggest mistake. So accept that there will be challenges and failures, and that you will need to deal with them.

That’s the first key step to avoiding the fate outlined by Einstein. The second is leveraging time-saving, cost-reducing technology.

That way, you might go into a project with similar ideas at the outset, but thanks to some major differences in approach being utilised throughout the process, can expect a markedly more successful outcome.