These rules and procedures define how decisions are made during projects. As part of the oversight process, project governance also determines the metrics by which project success is measured.
The PMO usually is the department within an organization that is responsible for setting up and defining the project governance framework.
To truly govern a process, you need a business system.
We don’t manage our customer relationships or company financials in spreadsheets anymore, do we? Why should projects be any different?
Project Business Automation: a Business System for Projects
Just like ERP governs your company’s finances, PBA governs your company’s projects.
Control and streamline all your project business processes throughout the project lifecycle in one system.
There is no one-size-fits all project governance structure that can be used by all companies. However, there essential components of good project governance that all companies should address when creating their project governance framework.
Project Governance Components
There are three essential components of all project governance: processes, data, and people. Processes are how you do things, data is the information you use, and people are the ones doing and using both of those. The key to a good project governance framework is to standardize, integrate and systemize these areas.
Standardize Processes. Standardize project processes around best practices and do things consistently across the organization. Most companies today lack discipline in project processes. Projects are managed differently depending on who is involved. Standardization of processes is critical to measuring success and scale.
Integrate Processes. Integrate your project processes to unify workflows and align your operations. Today, most projects have a multitude of processes that do not interact. For example, managing project costs is typically done in a separate system devoid of any attachment to the current project schedule.
Systemize Processes. By taking standard processes and integrating them into a system, you enforce best practices, foster transparency, and build accountability across project teams.
Project Data
In most organizations, project data is scattered across disparate systems. Moreover, different managers use different data to make decisions. That is why you want to standardize, integrate, and systemize your project data.
Standardize Data. You want to standardize your project data to get consistent metrics that you can use to measure performance reliably across your portfolio and the organization.
Integrate Data. Integrating your project data creates a single source of truth that everyone can rely on.
Systemize Data. By standardizing and integrating your data into one system, you create trusted, real-time insight on a project, portfolio, and company level that can be used to make better decisions.
People
In some ways, people are the easiest aspect of the system. Of course, this assumes you have the right people in the right roles. However, to standardize and systemize the people aspect, you have to rely on properly defining roles (which can then be fulfilled by the right people).
You need to define all the key project stakeholders, including project managers, project coordinators, project controllers, resource managers, directors, executives, resources, etc. Each role, properly defined, will then be placed in the system where needed. They will be alerted to information that is only relevant to them and only at the required time, so as to efficiently manage their workload.
To help with the people aspect, Adeaca PBA has a built-in Project Organization Structure, that governs and automates stakeholder assignment to projects. It also then governs what information they see and the alerts they receive.
Project Governance Tools
To control the processes and data around your projects, you may want to consider an appropriate software solution. There are many different types of tools you can use. For example, PPM, PSA and project management software can be useful. (See the Best PPM Solutions of 2024). However, as a project-driven organization, you really need a business system to provide the control and visibility that proper governance demands. Therefore, you likely want to consider a Project Business System, which is a fully integrated solution that manages all your project related processes and data in one system.
Bring Order to your Project Business
Project Business Automation (PBA) is the first vertically integrated business system for projects designed to provide the financial and operational tools, controls, and insight that you need throughout the entire project lifecycle. PBA is built from the ground up to reduce complexity and seamlessly connect all your project business processes in one system. As such, it is designed to provide enterprise-level project governance that you can rely on.
Streamline and automate processes
Increase productivity
Improve project governance
Reduce risk, overruns & delays
Enhance financial control
PBA from Adeaca revolutionizes project governance.
You may see other project governance content that address the minutia of project management. For example, who should know what type of information when. Yes, this is important. But if you standardize, integrate, and systemize your processes and data into one project business system, you can eliminate the need to define every single detail. The system will do it for you.
For example, as part of Adeaca Project Business Automation, Project Autopilot is a 24/7 oversight alarm for our projects. It monitors every single aspect of your projects and alerts the appropriate stakeholders of any issues. Based on the type of problem and severity, different stakeholders are notified. With this type of system, you can start to manage projects by exception.
Project Governance Model
To ensure the success of projects, they must be set up correctly from the beginning. Many of the problems that occur downstream in a project can be avoided with the right structure up front.
As an example, many projects today are sold with unrealistic timelines and cost estimates. Then, later when the real costs and schedules come in, customers / project owners are rightfully unhappy.
The best way to ensure success is to accurately estimate the costs and schedule up front. How do you do that? You must model your projects so that they can be assembled quickly from curated components that reflect accurate timelines and costs. This process is called Project Modeling, and it is a key component of proper project governance.
You need to govern how a project is initiated to ensure its success when it closes. Project modeling improves the sales process, reduces rework, and strengthens project governance throughout the rest of the project.
Download the Project Modeling Whitepaper to learn how to create a streamlined and controlled planning and estimating process for your company.
EcoSys by Hexagon is a comprehensive Enterprise Project Performance (EPP) platform designed to provide control, efficiency, and profitability of projects.
Kantata is a cloud-based Professional Services Automation (PSA) solution specifically designed for agencies, professional services organizations, and consultants.
