Project Benefit Realisation and Project Management : The 6Q Governance Approach

Dispels the confusion between project management success and project success, showing how project sponsors can govern their projects to succeed in delivering the strategic benefits originally envisaged

Project management success does not automatically lead to project success. Many large projects fail to live up to expectations, with between half and two-thirds of large projects either failing to deliver or delivering few strategic benefits. Traditional project management resources focus on delivering a project on time and on budget, yet they fail to supply top managers, many of whom find themselves in the role of accidental project sponsors, with guidance on how to govern their projects to succeed.

Project Benefit Realisation and Project Management: The 6Q Governance Approach bridges the strategy to performance gap by providing boards, senior managers and project sponsors with the six critical questions necessary to diagnose the health of any project. Presenting a systematic framework developed from research cases of successful and unsuccessful projects in various types of organisations, this practical guide enables those in top management to determine if their strategy or policy is on track and to assess whether a project is likely to deliver the expected benefits. The text features real-world examples illustrating how concepts can be applied to different types of projects in engineering, construction, information technology, business transformation and many others. This must-have guide is designed to help top managers and other stakeholders:

• Clarify the link between business outcomes, benefits, and strategy to evaluate where effort should be directed
• Assess how much behavioural change is required to effectively implement strategy and realise desired benefits
• Select a project sponsor committed to influencing key stakeholders to make necessary changes and intercede to resolve issues as they arise
• Establish how success will be measured before a project begins, to gauge sponsor commitment and ensure project goals are not changed to match whatever is achieved
• Ask if the right culture is in place to ensure all relevant information is being reported
• Determine teams’ ability to adapt and change plans in response to issues arising in the project
• Monitor if the project is on track to realising the benefits and have a process in place to cancel failing projects

Project Benefit Realisation and Project Management: The 6Q Governance Approach is an indispensable volume for board members, project sponsors, project advisors and those in senior positions who find themselves in the role of accidental project sponsors.

Raymond C. Young is a Senior Associate Professor in Project Management in the International Business School Suzhou (IBSS) at Xian Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU). An international authority in the area of project governance, Young has a decade of management consulting experience. He is a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia, former Director of ISACA, past CIO within Fujitsu Australia, and a founding member of the committee that developed the governance standards AS8016 and ISO38500.

Vedran Zerjav is an Associate Professor of Infrastructure Project Management in the Bartlett, UCL. He is a scholar of projects with an interest in a range of organisational issues in project- based organisational forms. His main areas of interest include strategic, operational, and value considerations in projects and his empirical focus is on urban infrastructure and its delivery. He is a qualitative researcher with an interest in hybrid and novel methodologies for project studies. Vedran’s engagement with the world of project management practice is extensive and spans research and advisory roles working with major infrastructure clients and professional bodies such as the Association for Project Management and Project Management Institute.