Complex transformations need analytics and intelligence

In the public sector IT projects are often struggling. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority annual report (IPA), published in July 2018, assessed 133 large and risky programs the UK government has in flight. Overall, the IPA noted a general increase in the proportion of projects ranked red or amber-red -- which indicates projects are undeliverable or at high risk of failure -- from 38 to 46, and a decline in the proportion given amber-green or green, from 28 to 24. It happens in the commercial markets too, but of course, it doesn’t always make the headlines.

Clients -- commercial or public sector -- need to look for delivery organizations that make greater use of analytics and intelligence if they are to drive the successful completion of complex IT transformations.

Typically, the PMO [Program Management Office] capability put in place to manage complex transformations will already be tracking whether targets are being hit. The delivery organization might be using a basic spreadsheet to understand which project actions are on target, in progress or overdue [with the same Green, Amber or Red system]. And, then they’re in a position to say, "We’ll go fix the tasks that are behind scheduled". It’s simple stuff.

This piece of work is often handled by the most junior members of the project management team, which isn’t necessarily conducive to a positive outcome.

The secret is advanced analytics and intelligence.

Ultimately, a simple system of tracking progress isn’t enough. It might work on smaller IT projects, but not with complex transformations. Organizations need to be challenging their delivery partners for more.

What needs to happen is a much more detailed looked at the trends -- the root cause of those tasks which are overdue. There needs to be a search for trends which may link them together.

For example, a basic delivery organization might look at a project and see it has 11 identified risks to tasks and 1 task is already overdue. The others could slip too. Rather than simply flagging those numbers, what needs to happen is that someone is responsible for ‘digging’ into those tasks further to look for trends. Is there a single problem causing tasks to be overdue?

This is easily achievable too. Project management teams always collect and maintain a lot of data. The next step is to interrogate and present information to make decisions. A good delivery organization will provide change analysis, project plan analysis, project variants, and risk trends analysis. This type of approach promotes and demonstrates good governance, allowing informed decisions to be made in good time.

It is also best brought to life by a skilled and experienced team -- not junior people -- that can apply experience and insight to what the "numbers" are saying. A good delivery organization will feed this information into the Program Director and then down to the Project Managers to action.

It’s then possible for the project management team to make changes and, rather than fix lots of tasks, it might be that they only have to fix one problem which in turn resolves several issues that are impacting the project(s) in different ways. This "collective action" may fix all of the other overdue tasks more quickly.

This type of approach is demonstrative of a high-performing project management team, which brings value to the program delivery.

Savvy clients

Lots of clients already recognize the need for using advanced analytics and intelligence to spot trends in complex transformations early on, but aren’t necessarily getting it. Either because delivery organizations don’t have the skills themselves to interrogate project data as the client needs, or budget prevents it happening. Sadly, in some case, clients simply don’t often know what good looks like, and simply don’t ask for it.

Ultimately, companies are making significant investments in their transformation endeavors, they want as much surety as they can possibly get that they will achieve a return on investment. Greater investment in project management analytics helps to support this. And, of course for the Public Sector, perhaps working with delivery organizations that offer much deeper interrogation and analytics of their projects, they can reverse those failure rates and take corrective action, earlier in the project lifecycle.

Photo Credit: Sashkin/Shutterstock

Mark Johnson is Group Operations Director of Servita, the Professional Services Company that enables clients across a wide range of industry sectors throughout the UK, the Middle East and Asia to achieve breakthrough results from large scale business transformation programs. As Operations Director, Mark is responsible for leading Servita’s business operations, ensuring our business is conducted to the highest possible standards efficiently, consistently and securely. He leads all back-office services whilst ensuring our leaders and teams are equipped with the information, tools and processes to be successful.