Designing a Governance Improvement Program

Abstract

I opened my book with a conversation I was having with a CFO of a major Australian bank. I asked him then if he knew what his project success rates were:

• CFO – No

• Me – I’ve been working with your PMO and they’re a little over 70%

• CFO – What do you mean?

• Me – Well, comparing the final cost and schedule performance against what was approved, about 70% of your projects are considered satisfactory

• CFO – What about benefits? How are we doing?

• Me – We don’t know; not enough divisions are tracking realised benefits

• CFO – OK, clearly this isn’t good enough. What do we need to do?

• Me – You need to change your practices

• CFO – You mean, get better at managing our projects? We spend a small fortune on training and tools, why isn’t that working?

• Me – No, when I said ‘you’, I meant you and your peers. Those taking on a governance role need to change what you’re doing.