Capability To Successfully Deliver Projects And Business Value

The Client's Challenge

Alinta had grown very rapidly through acquisition. The IT department, however, was not keeping up with demand. With staff from various acquired companies plus contractors, it had no ‘one way’ of doing things and this, it was believed, was causing many of its problems.

This assignment was commissioned to determine the status of Alinta’s project delivery capability and prioritize where to focus to improve  delivery performance.

Alinta has a complex structure with multiple business entities as potential customers and some critical aspects of its IT operations were outsourced.

Scope

The end-to-end project delivery process, including

• project initiation,
• design
• development
• (IT) operational acceptance
• and business implementation.

Approach

All project delivery documentation was reviewed and measured against the TOP Value Delivery Capability Model framework to assess its strengths and weaknesses, appropriateness and its relative capability level.

The use of the methodology on a range of projects was assessed to measure how it was used ‘in the field’ — its effectiveness.

All IT executives plus selected business and IT-delivery staff were interviewed together with key external outsource providers and vendors to determine their views of the delivery approaches and ideas for improvement.

A skills survey of all IT staff was conducted to ascertain the levels of competence that existed.

The Results

• 46 aspects of project and value delivery capability (including organizational change management) were assessed and scored on a four-level scale

• The overall nett ‘capability level’ of Alinta IT was determined (and its business consequences demonstrated)

• A staged improvement program was generated to rationalize the current range of alternative approaches into a single “Alinta approach”

• Gaps in the overall delivery program were identified with examples to show how they were impacting project delivery performance

• Critical skill deficiencies were identified for urgent remediation.

The Payoff

Why IT's delivery performance was inadequate was identified and quantified rather than relying on individuals’ opinions and assertions

A prioritized ‘go forward’ strategy was defined to deliver immediate improvements

The relative impact of skill versus process deficiencies was identified for appropriate management attention and action.