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Governance Newsletter No. 5 – Winter 2015 |
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Welcome to the fifth edition of the APM Governance SIG newsletter. The objective of the newsletter is to keep SIG members up to date regarding the activities of the SIG and related developments in the world of governance - and the feedback to our previous editions was extremely positive - thanks to those that provided the feedback. From the Chairman Welcome to the first newsletter of 2015. I wish you a healthy and happy 2015. I look forward to meeting many of you at our GovSIG events during the year. And please do persuade your colleagues to join the SIG so they can get a copy of this newsletter and advice of events – contact Catherine Bowles. Reflecting on 2014 - it was a progressive year for governance. A number of surveys and research showed beyond doubt that good governance is THE critical success factor in project success.
We look forward to much more in 2015 and I hope that you have a productive and rewarding year. We:
Update on CDC fresh
Co-Directing Change (CDC) refresh The update to the CDC guide is nearing completion. It has undergone wide consultation and will undergo a reader/user review by interested parties on Wednesday 11th February and will then be reviewed by a pilot group from both industry and public sector organisations. One of the delays has been the need to clarify some issues surrounding potential conflict of interests and duties that may occur when a director of a co-owning organisation is also appointed as a director of a legal entity to deliver a co-owned project. We are looking for senior reviewers to join the pilot group for this updated guide – please do get in touch with James Simons if you are a sponsor of a co-owned project and would like to get involved in the review. Agile Governance Guide The Governance SIG plans to launch a (slim) ‘Agile Governance’ guide in 2015. It will provide guidance to Main Board, executive directors, and senior management of private, public and third-sector organisations and their advisors, auditors, those in professional services, and consulting organisations. It will cover when to use or not use Agile approaches, specific interventions to gain confidence from, and control, agile projects, programmes or portfolios. It will also allude to agile behaviours that can be used to support and encourage effective agile working. APM is looking for volunteers to take part in a reader review – please contact James Simons for more details. Brian Wernham, Governance SIG Committee Member PwC PPM Global Survey 2014: ‘Insights and Trends into Current Programme and Portfolio Management’
PwC kindly hosted a Governance SIG event in July 2014 – thanks again go to James Lowe and Karl Reilly and his colleagues for organising, facilitating and providing great facilities. It was really good to see the positive engagement we’ve had with PwC over the past year or two continue to develop. PwC carries out a biennial survey on the current state of project management. PwC’s Fourth Global Survey received 3025 responses across 110 countries and 47 industry sectors. The objectives were to assess the latest trends, challenges and opportunities relating to the management of portfolios, programmes and projects.
1. Optimise their portfolio of change / projects to maximise added value - successful organisations do that For a copy of the Directing Change Guide (APM members only) please follow this link. HS3 – Governance Aspects Background
The broad strategic principles driving HS3 have already been revealed
in outline, both by politicians and by local civic leaders (particularly through ‘A Proposition for an Interconnected North’ published by One North, an association of northern city councils, in July 2014). Together they support
the concept of the Northern Powerhouse, of which HS3 forms a part.
Governance Issues
No organisational structure for HS3 has been announced, but it is clear that many stakeholders will be involved. Even at this early stage, the issues of programme governance are considerable, and are compounded by the involvement of numerous public sector organisations including Department for Transport, HM Treasury, TfN, One North, Local Enterprise Partnerships, Passenger Transport Executives, Network Rail, and city and local councils. Given its national strategic nature, the HS3 programme may be established as a delivery body independent of its parties and possessing its own structures and delegated powers, as with the Olympics and Crossrail. In addition, the principles of good governance of the management of projects and programmes will still be valid in governing the relationships between the parties and the programme. Assuming that HS3 becomes a partnership, co-owned by the parties, the major challenge in this initial phase of the programme will be to establish the governance structures which will be needed to develop the programme and to see it to its delivery phase. The essential components of the governance structures, which are set out by the APM Governance SIG in ‘Co-Directing Change’, are:
The government and the other parties can call on experience of delivery of successful major projects, to guide HS3. These include the 2012 Olympics (although it might be best to draw a veil over cost estimating), T5 and, so far, Crossrail. Lessons learned from previous projects (such as the FiRE Control project, which according to the NAO wasted £469m) should be applied, and provision should be made at an early stage to control against the expected benefits on which the business case will have been approved.
Peter Deary MAPM, Committee Member, Governance SIG Around the World of Governance
Lord Browne... recently stepped down from his role as the most senior business advisor to government. He has, though, voiced his high regard for good governance, project thinking and inclusive approach to leadership. He singled out the need to inject more private sector rigour into the design of major projects. The PMI Pulse Survey of 2014 …. highlighted core governance issues and suggested that organisations might assign a Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) to oversee strategy development supported by a high performing PMO - after all, strategic change happens through programmes and projects. The survey went on to report some interesting governance statistics:
The conference looked at the challenges and approaches to governing highly complex projects and how they contribute to public value. Lots of the sessions explored what was meant by a mega-project, governance and public value. The conference looked at projects such as the Apollo Moon Landings, The 2012 Olympic Games and Nuclear
De-Commissioning. A common occurrence through the conference was the reference to APM derived guidance - the APM BoK v6 (definition of governance), Directing Change (principles of the governance of project management) and Co-Directing Change (how to govern multi-owned projects, which is a common factor in mega-projects). The event was well represented by APM corporate members too with Sellafield Ltd and Outperform UK Ltd among corporate members who shared insight into the topic. The highlight of the event though was a video address by Margaret Hodge MP, the current Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). She shared her thoughts on why many publicly funded projects struggle and what can be done to remedy them. Issues included the lack of skills and experience of senior civil servants to lead mega-projects, the practice where senior civil servants rarely stay in the same post for more than 2 years (continuity of project sponsors is a key factor in success) and a lack of appropriate data to monitor project progress. Remedies included getting better involvement of the private sector through increased competency to commission work, improved transparency (e.g. making private sector organisations who deliver public projects subject to the Freedom Of Information act), improved ethical standards by contractors and proper competition. Andy Murray Committee Member, APM Governance SIG CrossRail Governance 1. Where does accountability (and risk) lie? Book Reviews
‘The Blunders of our Governments’, Authors: Anthony King and Ivor Crewe Oneworld Publications, September 2013 Paperback Revised Edition – September 2014 Blunder: a stupid or careless mistake. This book, written by the distinguished political observers Anthony King and Ivor Crewe, catalogues some of the blunders our governments have made over the past three decades, many of which have related to projects. In the case of projects, the common factor is that problems have occurred where project governance is most vulnerable, at the interface between political policy and management of the project. They identify the failings of the systems of government which have allowed such blunders to arise and to run unchecked. The authors are not politically biased – for every Metronet fiasco under the last Labour government, they record a Poll Tax under the previous Conservative administration; and they make the point that governments of both parties appear to blunder in much the same way. Blunders are not confined to the public sector – they give the examples of Lehman Brothers, or the the break-up of GEC, caused by the successors to Arnold Weinstock from the 1980’s onwards. As causes of blunders, the authors have identified cultural and operational disconnects, group think, and prejudices and pragmatism in the category of ‘Human errors’. In the category of ‘System failures’ they point to a lack of accountability, the wonderfully-named ‘asymmetries of expertise’, and deficits of deliberation. In particular, they point out that
Tellingly, they note that many projects appear not to have been thought of in that sense; and that even where they were, they were not professionally governed or managed as such. Hanging over these is the influence of HM Treasury, and politicians not understanding what good governance looks like - either giving insufficient support and direction, or micro-managing schemes. The Major Projects Authority and the Implementation Unit have been established, and it is to be seen whether they are better able to protect governments against the consequences of their own actions, and achieve project benefits. The authors recognise the virtue of the idea by which policies can be scrutinised before the implementation processes begin - to review the practicality of proposed policy. There have been successes: HS1, London 2012 and Crossrail (so far) come to mind, noting that politicians had (in effect) been excluded from being involved in the management of these schemes through suitable governance structures, good leadership, and strong sponsorship arrangements. The best place to read this book is from behind the sofa, with your hands over your eyes. By naming one of the section headings ‘Horror stories’, the authors acknowledge that Stephen King should have been invited to contribute! Peter Deary MAPM, Committee Member Governance SIG GovSIG - What's On?
Comments and feedback
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Association for Project Management |
t: 0845 458 1944 |
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