A large client was changing the way it managed its projects and wanted to establish a performance management framework to track and monitor success and non performance.
It called on Brickendon to analyse the different stages of multiple ongoing projects and holistically evaluate the overall PMO & project management process. The aim was to highlight key problem areas and design a long term solution that would benefit the client through more efficient processes and reduced costs. The client was committed to managing the projects following the Agile methodology, which benefits from having a simple and effective overall progress report of multiple projects.
Client Challenges
The client was a large global business with significant operations and ongoing projects with
substantial money invested in key projects. Their challenges included:
Project costs were not easily measurable, resulting in incomplete or inconsistent IT cost
reporting at each stage of the Agile process
Absence of a framework for measuring performance hindered the provision of consistent
performance reports and the ability to compare efficient and poor performances
Lack of available data to measure and track the progress throughout the implementation
period meant the client was not able to take advantage of available methods to understand
success factors or impediments at stages of the project
Client employees needed ongoing support to embrace the overall shift in project
management approach and cooperate with data collection for statistical analysis of various
factors that are related to performance outcome
Multiple changes to project briefs throughout the process due to overall uncertainty and
lack of adequate change control processes.
Brickendon Solution
The client enlisted Brickendon to assemble a team to collaborate with both the business and IT
departments in assess the performance of the live projects. The tasks involved:
Produce a simple set of value-tracking metrics to assess the performance of each project on a
continuous basis, paving the way for a more agile business model.
Establish a set of measurable criteria to support the metrics, which could be applied across
different project teams.
Set up a clear cost map across multiple stages of projects to increase cost visibility and provide a
summary at an organisational level.
Utilise appropriate statistical techniques (from descriptive statistics to more advanced
regression-based techniques) to understand factors explaining performance variance and
factors contributing to successful or poor performance (including cost information).
Highlight and prioritise critical or high-impact problem areas.
Formulate a solution based on the statistical findings to significantly improve the
performance.
Provide continuous support for members of the client organisation to aid consistent
improvement.
Client Benefits
The Performance Management Framework was implemented successfully in the client and the
benefits included:
From the Clients change board down the individual projects, the metrics created around
project performance were used and enable projects in trouble to be caught early and
steered back on track or shut down
A proposal was presented to make substantial cost savings by removing or improving the
performance of some of the underperforming parts of the project chain.
Ability to track, and in turn compare, costs consistently across all project stages, giving
management confidence to make informed decisions about future staffing levels and
project resources based on scientific analysis and performance criteria from previous
initiatives.
Creation of a systematic and consistent performance measurement framework.
Delivery of a network providing ongoing support for client employees throughout the
transition to the agile project management approach and creation of a process for the easy
collection of required data.
Alignment of goals across all projects and departments.
Continuous support was provided to members of the client organisation to aid consistent
improvement.