The future is nearly here … and you can be part of it
You need to specify how your project is to be controlled and reported so that the value defined in the Business Case is protected. This ensures your project will be an outstanding success.
Who is accountable for delivering what on a project needs to be clearly stated. The people accountable for delivery need to be appropriate.
To validate that the project's value is attainable, you need to assess the risks to project and benefits success.
You need to specify the resources you need to deliver the value promised in the Business Case.
Investment in a project should be justified on the maximum value that is available. But too often projects define only enough value to justify the expenses to get the project approved.
Before you justify your project's solution, you first need to define the rationale for the project - why do you need to do the project at all.
The role and nature of the business case is commonly misunderstood. This leads to poor quality business cases which set projects up to fail.
Delivering a project does not ensure the delivery of the business outcomes
What does TOP have in common with the iPhone
The Problem with Project Management Scope. Traditionally, scope and its management is seen as a key project management control mechanism with strict change controls asserted over proposed scope changes. This appears to make sense...
The 'Problem' with Project Management - Application. On one recent assignment I was presented with a 28 page ‘project management plan’ document that did not add one cent to the value of the project (but added many dollars to its cost).
The 'Problem' with Project Management is that it that it is not the solution but is often thought to be by both the business and the project fraternity
Yeah, but what does the software do? As project value seekers, project organizers and implementers need to think beyond the surface level and dive deeper into understanding the nooks and corners of every project so as to develop a comprehensible and reliable outcome.
Is the CFO part of the problem?
How TOP simplifies the standard risk approach to make it easier to use and more effective in its ratings.
TOP takes the same principles as Val-IT but extends them to be business driven and value focused.
TOP extends the scope of PMBOK to include benefits, value and strategy delivery.
The Investment Logic Map (ILM)
The infamous change triangle (4)
The infamous People Process Technology triangle (3)
The infamous change triangle (2)
The infamous change triangle (1) -people, process and technology are critical elements in change, but they are only three of seven vital elements
Governance of IT
Critical Insights (15) The current project methodologies focus project effort on the wrong outcomes, measure them with the wrong KPIs, and then we wonder why they’re not a success.
Critical Insights (14) You Don't Need External Experts - Your Own Staff Have The Deep Smarts To Deliver Extraordinary Results”
Critical Insights (13)
Critical Insights (12) - A series of information processing steps that represent all or part of an end-to-end process.
Critical Insights (11) If you mention the word “Scope” to most people around projects, the first word they think of is “control”. As a result too often projects are scoped too tightly from the outset as part of this ‘control’ mentality, missing large areas of real value because of how the scope is defined.
Critical Insights (10) Most of the attention on projects for the past 20-30 years has been focused on the “how” — principally project management. Methodologies, books, support systems, training and qualifications on project management abound, but the success rate on projects has not increased.
Critical Insights (9) - When you define the project's value equation you enable the Project Governance team to fulfil their true role
Critical Insights (8) - Too often resistance to change is created
Critical Insights (7) Benefits come from change. Therefore, it makes sense that every project should be seen as a ‘change project’.
Critical Insights (6) Project “Success” has three dimensions
Critical Insights (5) - to focus on value you need to define your project's Value Equation™
Critical Insights (4) We don't do business cases to justify the project - we do projects to deliver business cases!
Critical Insights (3) many business cases have headings of “Tangible” and “Intangible” benefits based on this mistaken understanding of the meaning of the word ‘tangible’. “Tangible” correctly means “measurable” i.e., if a benefit is measurable, then it is tangible. If you can measure an increase in your client’s satisfaction or loyalty, then it is tangible.
We take enormous effort to compute the project’s workload, effort and costs for the Business Case. And then we try to find enough benefits to justify the costs or generate a positive ROI or clear the capital hurdle rate to gain approval.
Getting benefits and value from projects is not peripheral or tangential, rather they are the core reason we do projects. Benefits, therefore, should not be "hoped for" or "someone else’s responsibility" to deliver but the main focus and intent of ALL the project's activities.
Seasons Greetings to all of our readers
TOPics
- Benefits Management (29)
- Business Case (24)
- Business Simplification (5)
- Capability Development (38)
- Capital Investment (24)
- Change Management (17)
- Consultants (1)
- Costs and Waste (16)
- Engineered Thinking/Ideas/Innovation (8)
- Fifteen Critical Insights (15)
- Idea / Project Initiation (3)
- Mental Models, Beliefs and Myths (18)
- Outcomes Thinking (10)
- Path Dependency (10)
- Prioritization (13)
- Process Management (11)
- Productivity Improvement (7)
- Program / Project delivery (40)
- Project Controls (52)
- Project Governance (90)
- Project Management (4)
- Project Success (46)
- Project Validation (2)
- Risk Management (5)
- Scope Management (5)
- Standards/Frameworks/Methods (14)
- Strategic Project Portfolio Management (16)
- Strategy Execution (40)
- The TOP Four Lenses (1)
- TOP compared to orthodox approaches (7)
- Value Delivery (83)
- Value Equation (60)