Assurance: the partner to maximising portfolio success and driving strategic value - The Open University
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Rachael Troughton, Head of Portfolio, and Louisa McLeod, Senior Assurance Manager from the Open University, presented at the APM Portfolio Management Conference on 17 May 2018.
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Assurance: the partner to maximising portfolio success and driving strategic value - The Open University
- 1. Assurance: the partner to maximising portfolio success and driving strategic value
- 2. 2 Who are we? Louisa McLeod - Senior Assurance Manager Rachael Troughton - Head of Portfolio .
- 3. 3 What we’re covering Introduce the Open University Share what we mean by portfolio assurance, including the how and why of what we do Explore assurance as a key influencer of, and contributor toward, portfolio success
- 4. 4 The Open University? The Open University exists to challenge conventional thinking and pioneer new teaching, helping our students achieve their life and career goals, it is essential we deliver the right change within the university.
- 5. 5 Our relationship with change As a University we recognised that we were falling short in both our ability to identify the right changes and to deliver them well The outcome was simple: we needed to do less and do it better We had three areas of focus: Clear the decks – to free headspace and capacity Change procedure - single approach to approval, prioritisation and assurance Reinvigorate our change community and approach to capability building
- 6. 6 Single Process Approval Prioritisation Assurance Accept or reject proposals inline with key criteria: • University Strategy • Step change in capability • Student Focus • Decide when initiatives happen in relation to the wider portfolio and known dependencies. • Retain the right to pause, stop or reprioritise. • Provide 2nd line assurance to all projects such as health checks and gate reviews. • Reporting to University Committees and External Bodies
- 7. 7 So what? Assurance is about enabling change being delivered across the university to: meet, and continue to meet, the University’s strategic needs; deliver value and remain viable in terms of costs and benefits; follow appropriate procedures and rules; respond effectively to change and deliver the intended outcomes / benefits; and successfully integrate outcomes into routine business operations.
- 8. 8 How do we do it? 2nd Line of Defence 1st line of Defence 3rd Line of Defence Who: Sponsor of that Change What: accountability that the project is delivering the right change in the right way (inline with agreed standards and frameworks for delivery) Who: Portfolio Office, Major Change Board What: Independent scrutiny of the project/programme, infrastructure and outcomes. Specifically focussed on ‘how’ the outcomes/benefits are being delivered and managed Who: Internal Audit What: independent assurance that the risks of the Programme are being managed effectively
- 9. 9 How do we do it?
- 10. 10 Single version of the truth
- 11. 11 Health checks The health check process is intended to be supportive and constructive; a ‘critical friend’ primarily focussing on areas for improvement.
- 12. 12 So what do we know? Our project level health checks inform and influence the success of our portfolio. We know; • Change capability and capacity is the biggest restriction for project success • The timing of the change can often be more important than the actual change • The university needs help to check in on whether we’re really delivering the right outcomes • Project teams need support in making hard decisions – either through stage gates, or through the reality of delivery
- 13. 13 How does it influence what we do next? Knowing how our portfolio responds as individual projects and as a collective has driven different approaches and assurance activities to enable success and allow us to be preventative from an early stage Forewarned is forearmed – we profile our changes across key points in the year and identify work needed to land all changes successful or to re-profile mitigate risk of failure Challenge – we proactively challenge delivery and outcomes to ensure the plane stays on course and as needed we provide hands on support to make any adjustments to the flight plan to improve likelihood of positive outcomes Capability focussed – we have an on going and open commitment to set the standard and improve the capability of those working within the portfolio to ensure we deliver to the same standards and in the same way
- 14. 14
- 15. THANK YOU
Editor's Notes
- Insert general bio – light touch intro you Rachael and Louisa Who the Portfolio Office are? Who we are
- Todays synopsis promises that we’llwill explore the role of portfolio assurance as a key influencer of, and contributor toward, individual project and wider portfolio success And we’ll do this through sharing practical experiences, theory and case study to bring to life the role assurance plays in creating resilience within a project portfolio and how it directly influences strategic gain and success. Whilst we cant guarantee we’ll cover all of the above, seamlessly, our key message is the same and is our primary take away, when it coms to delivering successful portfolios prevention is always better than the cure
- Basic stats Over 8,000 staff, 150,000 students, 400 mill turnover Under ever increasing pressure to focus on a commercial model to respond to UK HE policy decisions We have the same struggles that most have you will have seen, heard of or experienced yourselves, complex change portfolios, lack of change capability and capacity, unless benefits and direction But we also have some great assets under our belt, a reputations as being a British icon, a mission that asks us to be both risk takers and trouble makers and in terms of delivering change, whilst we might not always get it right, we are the only university to have corporate accreditation with the APM and the first winners of the APMs PMO of the year. That’s a short intro to who we are – but this short video brings to life why we do what we do and its this video and its key messages that I want you to remember during this presentation.
- Before we jump into assurance, its important to give you a little insight to where we have come from. As a university we haven’t always got change right, like many of you, we’ve tried to change too much, too quickly and in some cases we’ve tried to change the wrong thing. The Open University exists to challenge conventional thinking and pioneer new teaching, helping our students achieve their life and career goals, it is essential we deliver the right change within the university. But agreeing whats right and delivering it well is where the real challenge begins.
- To respond to our relationship and experience of change working with our Executive we agreed a single approach to decision making relating to the delivery of change across the university The focus being on driving Better scrutiny and challenge of change and investment cases Institutional wide improvement in our ability to challenge and prioritise change initiatives Reduction in cases for consideration and improved quality £10mil cost saving in the 16/17 academic year Devolved Responsibility from VCE Represenation from across the organisation – including OUSA Called Major Change Board
- Assurance is ……. Our largest change/impact projects and programmes….
- The role of assurance is to provide information to those that sponsor, govern and manage a project to help them make better informed decisions Reduce the causes of project failure, promote the conditions for success deliver improved outcomes. Assurance activity (both local and centrally coordinated) Identify reactive and proactive improvements to the way the project is being governed and delivered. Effective assurance is a layered approach best described as “lines of defence” operating continually both within and independent of the management of the Transformation. We have 3 lines of defence PMO support 1st Line – tools, techniques, competencies Assurance Function support 2nd Line – Monthly reporting, Healthchecks Audit Depart – 3rd line
- The focus of our assurance is always at the portfolio level first, informed by project and programme level detail Monthly Status Reporting, Overall Status Dependencies Key Deliverables Risks & Issues Benefits Realisation aggregated and ensure the conversation remains focused on the ‘whole’ we do this because; Our projects can either enable a change or deliver the change – we need to understand the role of the individual project, but also where we need to invest or do more to deliver what we need Dependencies and interdependency are frequent, but our understanding of them is relatively immature Areas of concern, or focus are never limited to one project so our solutions and interventions shouldn’t be Assurance informs the ‘so what next’ of all of our project delivery so its key it has a broad and deep view of that change challenge the university faces. We use a number of tools for assurance………
- The Change and Project Management Framework forms the basis for all our assurance activities The Portfolio Office has developed this framework to integrate the key skills of good project and change management. Based on competency models from the Association for Project Management (APM) and the Change Management Institute (CMI), used to provide a guide for ‘what good looks like’. It underpins our approach to project assurance, our minimum standards and how we develop organisational capability Sets the standard for both delivery and for assurance – single version of the truth that helps project managers and teams delivery their projects in the right way Provides scope to identify portfolio and project level areas of good practice and areas of development
- The purpose of a health check is to review, with the project delivery team and their key stakeholders, how well the project is set up to deliver the intended outputs, outcomes and benefits. A “Critical Friend” Scheduled Healthchecks and Ad Hoc Select areas of focus RAG Status of each area The outputs and actions are agreed at MCB first, and are then actioned by the project. Actions can be; Critical (do now) Essential (do by) Recommended (iterative improvement) **** Pick out a few good examples of things we’ve found ****
- Our project level health checks inform and influence the success of our portfolio. Through our healthchecks we know that Change Capability and capacity biggest restriction Timing of the change is important Need help delivering right outcomes Support for hard decisions Feedback into new projects/programmes for prioritisation and approval
- What has this taught us? We have to flex our approach to assurance activities – we haven’t got all the answers, or a magic formulae, Forewarned is forearmed Challenge Capability focussed
- At times the argument is levelled at PMOs that they don’t add value or builds in level of bureaucracy If you get it right a PMO with good assurance will maximise portfolio success, drive strategic change and make a real difference in an organisation… And it amazing when that recognition is realised………