A large client was changing the way it managed its projects and wanted to establish a performance management framework to track and monitor success. It called on Brickendon to analyse the different stages of multiple ongoing projects and holistically evaluate the overall 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.
The Challenges
- 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 particular 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
The Brickendon Solution
- 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 potential 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
