Connecting Project & Strategy Management through Integrated Governance - Ability

Article prepared by:

David Dunning – lead author, Business Integrated Governance

On the 12th December, 8.30am., the APM Governance Interest Network is hosting the third in a series of events aimed at enabling PMO / P3 Professionals to step into the gap between strategy and delivery.

This session will provide an hour long workshop for up to 60 people to work through how to get improving Strategy Delivery using Business Integrated Governance onto an executive sponsor agenda. This will be a working session, not one to sit and listen to with a bowl of porridge or a slice of toast.

With multiple hundreds booking onto the first 2 sessions, (Awareness session here and the Knowledge session here) this session will be 'first come first served', with a limit on numbers to protect session quality (and to some degree privacy) for those that can attend.

Why Attend?

The first two sessions in the series established:

• A worrying set of issues related to strategy delivery that attendees faced. These were not related to project / programme delivery, but more related to the mechanisms around strategy delivery themselves - which, in many cases, do not exist or are ad hoc.
• Business Integrated Governance as a possible framework - free to APM Members - that change protagonists could use to address strategy delivery issues.

But how might attendees - who recognise the strategy delivery issues, and appreciate the possibilities with BIG - get change onto the organisation agenda?

Consensus on the Current Situation and Agreement to do 'something'

Tabling initial conversations with fellow protagonists or a potential sponsor enables the ball to start rolling.

There are two schools of thought with respect to getting engagement - to identify a burning platform or to highlight a possible paradise. It is easier to gather information on a burning platform - as it exists - but the process may be disagreeable. It may feel more positive to paint a rosy picture - but establishing credibility at an early stage (with limited time available to status / optioneer) may be difficult.

This section will

• introduce attendees to the "Pains" and the "Solution" Canvasses from the BIG Services Taxonomy,
• support attendees to have a go at the first questions in the BIG Readiness Model
• discuss the development of current situation to build momentum for change.

Vision, Outline Business Case and Roadmap

At some point, key stakeholders and a possible initiative sponsor will need to give credence to the BIG initiative, but they will want to see a solution outline. Assuming there is consensus to do 'something' - what might that be? What might the value be? What might the sequence and decision process look like to develop it and extract the value?

This section will discuss the development of outline Vision and Roadmap to enable "Phase 1", and discuss Outline Business Case.

This section will include using the BIG Components to define high level deliverables and Building a BIG Capability.

Who should attend?

 - PMO Leaders who are struggling to support strategic projects and programmes

 - PMO Directors to cannot see how strategy is driving change or how projects are enabling strategy

 - Governance Professionals who want to see effective decision making, application of policy and process to strategy delivery

 - Operations and finance directors who want to see funds / resources deployed in line with strategic priorities

 - Strategic leadership who want to see effective strategy delivery

 - More stakeholder profiles here