The document provides a Q&A summary from a webinar led by Owen Anthony, discussing best practices for project handover and management. It highlights the importance of distinguishing between success factors and success criteria, the challenges in measuring intangible benefits, and the necessity of proper knowledge transfer during handovers. Additionally, it addresses the role of continuous professional development for project managers in smaller firms and the increasing attention towards 'soft landings' approaches in project management.

1. Benefits Management
Specific Interest Group (SIG)
Improving project handover webinar
Questions and Answers
Thursday 12 April 2018
Owen Anthony
Programme Manager, Sheffield Hallam University
Webinar speaker

2. Questions and Answers
Please note that the answers given here are the opinions of the people concerned,
who are experienced practitioners and they do not necessarily reflect the guidance
in the APM BoK or other text books.
1. In some projects, you have success factors defined and agreed ahead of the project usually
during the pilot phase. Should the CSF always be considered during project handover?
Sorry, I don’t want to be pedantic but I’m not sure if this is referring to success factors or success
criteria? The main reason for noting the nuance is that success factors such as competencies,
governance and clear and measurable goals are extremely important but I wouldn’t differentiate their
importance at handover from any other time in the project. Success criteria, however are particularly,
although not exclusively important during handover - they should be reviewed periodically as the
project progresses to ensure you are still on the right lines and either they, or the project is still valid.
You may find they alter during the project lifecycle due to emerging opportunities or changes in
personnel or strategy. This is OK if they are properly change controlled and your project is monitored
in line with them. Your project should be set up to deliver your success criteria as a minimum and
they should be an indicator that you have delivered what you set out to deliver. The project will either
just offer up the benefits at the point of completion or be the enabler for the benefits to be realised at
a later date. Either way, the success factors are the measure of ‘what does good look like’ so should
be considered as part of handover.

3. Questions and Answers
Please note that the answers given here are the opinions of the people concerned,
who are experienced practitioners and they do not necessarily reflect the guidance
in the APM BoK or other text books.
2. Are there any better methods of measuring the intangibles?
This question is almost limitlessly vast, so difficult to find a definitive response to! I would say that, if
the benefits or metrics are truly intangible, are they strong enough to drive the requirement of
delivering the project in the first place? Most things can have a metric associated with them that can
either be empirically measured or at least have a trend in the form of a KPI. Even the supposedly
‘softer’ measures such as job satisfaction, wellbeing or how much something is ‘liked’ can be
surveyed and assessed using the benchmark of before and after surveys. In the construction
industry, post occupancy evaluations look to address many of these. In retail customer satisfaction
metrics are abundant. There’s always a risk around ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’ but the adage that
you ‘get what you measure’ is frequently true in project delivery and what I would term the ‘toddler
defence’ of asking ‘why?’ over and over again until you reach a point of a measurable ‘why?’ is a
good brainstorming exercise to start with. If you can’t get to anything tangible or measurable,
perhaps the project should be questioned?

4. Questions and Answers
Please note that the answers given here are the opinions of the people concerned,
who are experienced practitioners and they do not necessarily reflect the guidance
in the APM BoK or other text books.
3. In your experience does acceptance mark the end of the handover period?
In my experience, yes, often. However the research, and my experience, suggests this is not the
optimal way of working. The more that can be done to phase the transition of management,
knowledge and operation, the smoother the project phase can become business as usual. That
sometimes requires more time from the end users up front but it pays dividends once they are ‘flying
solo’. Learning to fly or to drive or to play an instrument are all examples of where there are
significant periods of demonstration and one on one tuition and this is accepted as the norm however
in projects frequently the knowledge exchange is crammed into short and often overwhelming
periods. Few people find this the best way to master a new skill.

5. Questions and Answers
Please note that the answers given here are the opinions of the people concerned,
who are experienced practitioners and they do not necessarily reflect the guidance
in the APM BoK or other text books.
4. For smaller companies where the project team can be just the PM. How can PM ensure they
don't pick up bad habits and projects are run and followed properly?
CPD is important. If you don’t have the opportunity to learn from colleagues in the day to day
business of work, professional development and training is a good way to keep on track. There are
also many guides and methodologies available, whether it is APM’s Body of Knowledge, PRINCE2 or
others. Also, social media and professional networks are good ways of learning and testing out
ideas. A project audit is also a useful tool. A third party with PM experience can be brought in to
conduct a live audit or to facilitate lessons learned, which would highlight areas for improvement or
bad habits.

6. Questions and Answers
Please note that the answers given here are the opinions of the people concerned,
who are experienced practitioners and they do not necessarily reflect the guidance
in the APM BoK or other text books.
5. Are you seeing an increasing number of clients buy into the soft landings type approach?
Yes-ish! I think most clients see the value of elements of it but there is a bit of a perception that soft
landings is just more post-handover aftercare and it becomes the first thing to be cut out if budgets
are tight. I believe this to be something of a red herring, though, because just done in isolation,
longer aftercare is a little like keeping the training wheels on the bike for longer. It doesn’t actually
make you a more proficient cyclist or less likely to fall off the bike without the associated time spent
learning and correcting and perfecting the skill. The most astute clients understand that they need to
change and be ready and have their organisation aligned with the project outcomes from day one.
Soft landings style approaches support this because they are benefit focused, look at end user
operation and function from the outset and this sort of methodology needn’t cost more, it’s just about
having the end in sight from the beginning. I’ve seen this sort of approach more in larger projects or
programmes that have the profile and sponsorship in place to drive behaviours and I am seeing
positive moves both in the raising of the profile and the drive to ensure money is spent wisely to
deliver value.

7. Thank you for your
engagement with this
webinar and
this QandA session.

8. These questions were raised
during a presentation delivered at
an APM webinar
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