The Money Files

Earlier this month I looked at a spring cleaning plan for sprucing up your portfolio and giving the live projects a bit of a health check. This doesn’t have to take long, but if spring is in the air where you are, it’s the perfect time to reassure yourself and stakeholders that everything is in order.

Last time we reviewed the portfolio in a general sense to check for alignment and relevance. Today, we’re talking about resource optimisation and reallocation, which is Step 2 (step 3 is setting priorities and a future plan – we’ll talk about that next time).

In this step, I’d encourage you to explore strategies for optimising resource allocation to ensure that key projects have the necessary support, while eliminating waste and inefficiencies. And that doesn’t mean we’re spring cleaning the workforce – this isn’t about layoffs or making roles redundant.

Review underutilised resources

Check in with your resource managers or team leaders and find out if there are any colleagues who are underutilised. This shows up in two ways:

1. they might not be working at full capacity as they haven’t been assigned enough work
2. they might be working on tasks that are not a suitable level for their expertise.

In my experience, we don’t often find people who have free time or are on the bench without good reason. Work expands to fill the time, so you might not find anyone sitting around waiting for work to be assigned to them. Make sure people are working on the right tasks and not filling up their time with smaller, less priority projects or team process improvements and things that aren’t helping the portfolio move closer to the strategic goals.

Then, check in with managers about their team members who have been assigned work that really isn’t a good use of their skills. I’m thinking of people who are doing tasks that are below their skill level, often because there aren’t any junior people available. If that looks like it is the case for your teams, see whether there are options to move work around so people with the right skill level are working on appropriate things. This can really help team morale as well as skill up some valuable resources for the future.

Check your tools

Next, check your resource management tools. Is that spreadsheet still doing it for you? Is it time to invest the effort into setting up resource profiles in the tools you already have?

Software can help with resource management, planning, forecasting and decision making, so if you don’t have anything suitable, maybe now you’ve reached a level of maturity across the portfolio where you could put together a case for investment.

Look at upcoming resource needs

Finally, take a look at projects in the pipeline. We’ve cleaned up what’s gone before, but part of spring cleaning is also making space for the new.

Look at what work is coming up and whether resources are available and have the right skills to be able to tackle new opportunities that arise. That might mean spending some time identifying what skills need to be trained in to the current teams or recruited in, or making decisions about contractors joining the team if necessary.

With this step about resource management, what you’re trying to do is identify resources and make sure they are working on appropriate projects – shifting key resources to areas of higher priority or need as appropriate, while taking future needs into account.

Next time I’ll look at some ways that clear priorities can help with your portfolio spring cleaning. See you soon!

Here is the Northern Hemisphere it really feels like spring has sprung. Evenings are lighter, there is less rain (and while the garden won’t thank me for saying it – we had a soggy start to the year so this is something I’m really pleased about) and I don’t know about you but I’m feeling like I’ve got renewed energy for a spring clean. It truly is the season of starting fresh.

That goes for project portfolios too. If you haven’t looked at the work you’re doing across the organisation, across your department, or even simply your personal workload, then now is a good time to take stock of what’s still outstanding and what (maybe) is no longer relevant.

Are you ready to spring clean your portfolio? The way I’ve been thinking about this is in 3 steps. First, we assess and rationalise, which I’ll talk about in this article. Then we review resource optimisation and reallocate where necessary. Finally, we set clear priorities and a roadmap to take us through the rest of the seasons until it’s time to review again.

Step 1 is decluttering – you might have already done some spring cleaning at home, and now is the time to do the same for your work! So let’s share some strategies for renewal and realignment.

Review the current portfolio

First, take a look at the current project portfolio. Make sure your list of projects is up to date, and that it’s complete. There shouldn’t be any projects that have snuck on to the list without the proper approvals, but if there are, add them formally.

Check the basics for each project: they have formal approvals, there is an assigned project manager, they are hitting their governance milestones or anything else that is the normal for your portfolio.

Identify performance issues and misalignments

Next, identify performance issues, overlaps where several projects are tackling the same thing, and any misalignments with strategic goals. Make sure reporting is up to date and source new reports if they are not. Look for milestones that have been missed or risks that are not managed. When was the last time there was a peer review or an audit? Check that each project still meets its financial objectives and is still viable, with a business case that has been recently reviewed and a benefits case that still makes sense.

Review the ‘go’ criteria

Refresh your criteria for project assessment. Remind yourself of how decisions are taken about pausing, continuing or terminating projects. Do you need to update any criteria or measures around financial performance tracking? Perhaps there are new metrics to include.

Review how resources are allocated to live projects and check everything on the list is a good fit strategically. You might not end up changing any of your criteria or measures, but it’s still worth the effort to run through them and check they are still fit for purpose.

Involve your stakeholders

Finally for this step, talk to stakeholders so you can build in their perception of project value and potential. Are there any projects that sponsors have fallen out of love with? If so, these could be taken off the list and the resources reassigned to projects that will add more value.

Next time, I’ll look at step 2 in your spring cleaning plan, which is dealing with resource optimisation.

I’ve been managing a programme for a while now, and it’s quite different from managing projects, or the very large projects that we call programmes that are really not programmes!

Programmes need their own budget as well as the budget of the projects, and here are the things I think should be included in that.

1. Costs of running the programme

It seems silly to point it out explicitly, but there are costs incurred from running a programme with a programme management structure.

For example, my time as programme manager needs to be costed and included along with any support resource from the programme office. Even though we are not full-time, the programme wouldn’t run without us so our costs have to go somewhere.

Ideally, there would also be a programme-level risk budget for handling unforeseen issues.

You may also find that on your programme there are other costs associated with running the programme, such as office space, software licences for third parties to access your programme management software (which is likely to be the same project management software everyone else uses, so hopefully not too large of an overhead there).

2. Assurance costs

Are you planning on having internal (or external) audits and reviews as part of the programme? If so, those costs should be picked up by the programme budget.

Internal reviews, in my experience, don’t cost anything except time, but if you are bringing in consultants or external auditors, there is definitely a cost associated with that (as well as time). Certification or compliance programmes may have extra costs here too, for example, if you have to comply to certain standards, going through the accreditation process is both time-consuming and normally costs something. There’s also often an annual cost to main the accreditation so factor that in too if your programme is multi-year.

Plan all those costs into the programme budget at the frequency and estimate required.

3. Benefits realisation costs

Benefits might be realised at project level, but you’ll likely have some programme benefits to track as well. And the cost of delivering and tracking those should be included somewhere – in your programme budget.

For example, you may need to programme software to create new reports. You may need a new role, and someone hired to go into that role. Some benefits might include making staff redundant due to organisational restructure, and there are costs associated with that activity too.

Plan all of those in at programme level. You may find that it’s useful to take the project-level benefits realisation costs into the programme budget as well so you can track benefits all in one place, but that’s up to you.

Project costs

Of course, there are costs to running the projects too, and in your overall programme budget, you’ll want visibility of those for forecasting and tracking. But these are the ‘obvious’ costs so it’s likely you already have them.

The project costs would normally include the large infrastructure type items that are necessary for the programme to move forward. The first project would normally take the hit for any large infrastructure-type investment, but that makes the business case for that project rather wobbly. You might decide that large capital costs are picked up by the programme as an overhead instead, and then each project goes forward on its own merit without having to fund the infrastructure required to make it and future projects work.

Talk to your financial analyst or project accountant for how best to apportion the costs across the programme and projects so it’s transparent and reasonable.

You’ll see that at various points in the project management lifecycle you are supposed to review the business case and check it is still fit for purpose, but what does that actually mean? What are you looking for?

I’m not sure that continuing commercial justification of a project sits solely on the project manager’s shoulders, but you can do a first pass review and raise any concerns with the sponsor. After all, power sits with them to make changes to the project or cancel it, should it no longer be fit for purpose and likely to achieve its goals.

Here’s what to look for when you do a business case review to check if the project is still viable.

Strategic alignment

Hopefully your strategy doesn’t change that often, but if you’re managing a multi-year project or program, or you’ve just had some strategic change at the top, it’s worth checking to see that your project still aligns with the organisation’s goals.

Affordability

Can you still afford to do the project? In other words, have costs spiralled due to unforeseen issues, scope changes, requests from the client that have to be included because the contract was so vague they are saying you have to pay for it (of course, that never happens…) and so on.

The challenge with assessing for affordability is that it then opens up a conversation about sunk cost. If you’re three weeks off finishing the project, it may well be worth the cost uplift to get you across the line. If you’ve got two years still to go, not so much.

Riskiness

Look at whether the riskiness of the project has changed. Hopefully as you know more, risk levels have decreased. But a portfolio manager would probably want to assess the risk of this project along with the risk of the portfolio overall, and if the whole portfolio risk profile has changed, there are some conversations to have.

Look at whether your risk budget or contingency time in the schedule is adequate to cover the risk. If not, if you added more, would that make the project unviable?

Achievability

Consider whether you can still complete the work. Achievability might be challenged if key resources have left, deadlines have changed, a supplier has gone bust, or there are plans for a merger. Anything might affect your ability to achieve the plan as it is today.

If you can’t achieve the baselined plan, would a replan mean other criteria for viability are not met? For example, you could achieve the plan with more time and more money, but that would mean the project would not be a cost-effective initiative.

Benefits

Check that you are still going to get the benefits, or enough of the benefits to make it worthwhile from a cost/benefit analysis. If the project ticks all the other boxes, it might not tick the box for benefits. For example, a delay in the schedule may push back realisation of the benefits to a point that undermines the business case. Additional resources pushing the price up will eat into benefits. Perhaps the project no longer represents value for money.

Carry out these checks at key governance points and gate reviews. Highlight where there are issues to resolve, and come up with a plan if you can. Then discuss that with key stakeholders, the client and sponsor, and see if you can resolve any business case challenges without having an impact on viability of the project. Ultimately, if the business case is no longer viable, the decision is around cancelling the project – and that’s a tough conversation for everyone.

However, if the business case no longer stacks up, cancelling could be the best thing to do.

Last month, I wrote about 3 things to include in your schedule creation activity before you could say your schedule is ready for use, after you’ve created the work breakdown structure and added in dates, dependencies and task owners. Here are another 3 things you can build into your project planning tasks to polish your schedule.

1. Add in the costs

One thing we’re doing at work more and more is cost loading schedules. You don’t have to do this in your project scheduling software unless it makes sense to do it there. You could also create a phased version of your budget that shows when costs are going to hit.

Adding costs into the schedule to each individual task is a more accurate and detailed view, and then if work is rescheduled or delayed, the costs move too. However, you can get started with a simple spreadsheet where you phase the forecasted budget across the months of delivery and then record the actuals.

You can do this as a practice exercise if you want to give it a go, even if you don’t have external costs. Resource costs are normally a huge chunk of budget, so if you are tracking time, you can match up how many hours/days were worked against the forecasted effort in the week/month and use that to phase the costs by activity.

2. Look for float

Float is where a task has the ‘luxury’ of being able to start or finish later than the dates on the plan and not affect the critical path.

Look out for the tasks with wiggle room – where you could let them slip a day or so or start them early and overall it has no impact on your ability to deliver to the agreed end date. Personally, I like to get ahead with those tasks because you never know when the resources or work might change later and you need that time for something else, for example a team member going off sick.

However, some tasks are better done in a just-in-time way, so don’t bring forward those. You risk rework if you do something too early that might need to be changed later, even if there isn’t a formal task that would drive the change. For example, project communications can be drafted early but might need to change if the context changes, and if you are going through a transformation or strategic reset, the direction of travel might change mid-project causing you some more effort later.

3. Check in with stakeholders

It should go without saying, but given that I’ve reviewed project plans created by the project manager with no input from the team when I’m mentoring project managers, I feel it does warrant a note – check your schedule with the stakeholders.

I do create a high level overview with as much detail as I can before I share it with the rest of the team, because it saves time, and the alternative is having a giant workshop for planning. And frankly, we don’t have time for that (I know, I know…. The irony of not having the time to plan!). If we’ve had phone calls and conversations, there is probably enough I can glean from those to put together an outline and fit it to our project methodology.

But the plan is not workable and achievable unless the key members of staff doing the work have signed off on it.

A project schedule is a working document, so even when it has been around the team for discussion and refinement, it will need to be revised later on.