TOP Ideas

The role and purpose of Project Governance is not well understood and is usually interpreted too narrowly, significantly reducing the realized value of projects.

Two different purposes

The project team is set up to deliver one or more outcomes into business-as-usual operations. Its measures of success are limited to the successful delivery and achievement of these outcomes – regardless of the long-term cost or value.

The organization, however, needs to not only continue functioning effectively but also to adopt and absorb the project’s deliverables and changes so as to deliver the benefits expected.

Two roles

The Business Project Governance Team represents the organization. Its role is to ensure the organization’s needs are met by the project. It therefore needs to keep the project team focused on and resourced to deliver the agreed project outcomes.

The Business Project Governance Team also represents the management team. Its role here is to maximise the return on the investment. It therefore needs to question the spending of every dollar and chase down the realization of every benefit even after the project team has finished and been disbanded.

Two perspectives

The Business Project Governance Team therefore has two perspectives

• one in on the direction, focus and progress of the project, and
• the other out on the organization’s readiness, willingness and ability to adopt, use and maximise the outcomes.

Too often only the first perspective is adopted resulting in the project delivering but the value being lost. (According to the project success measurement statistics, this happens 95% of the time!)

The Project Governance Question

The Business Project Governance question is

“How can we (the organization) direct, control and leverage this project investment to realize the maximum benefits?”

The implications

The project team must deliver the outcomes to enable the benefits to be realized.

Because so many project benefits are outside the project team’s ambit to deliver, there needs to be an active ‘bridge’ between the project and the organization. This is the Business Project Governance Team.

Realizing the benefits is the core focus of the project governance team.

The Business Project Governance Team therefore must ensure these outcomes are delivered well enough (and at a low enough cost) to enable the organization to deliver, realise and maximize the benefits.

Simplistically, the project team’s focus is on delivering the outcomes and the governance team’s focus is on delivering the benefits and associated value.

And, as we know, Focus wins. It’s that simple.