Measuring a Project vs Operations
On a recent Prince course someone asked how they could measure their project with the recommended Time, Cost, Quality, Scope, Risks and Benefits.
It was called a project, but when we dug a little deeper, discovered that it wasn’t a project at all. So that lead to some discussion about it being a programme, but it was very clearly defined and MSP transformation style management didn’t fit either.
It turns out they were delivering a service, IT based, rolling one year contract delivering the same service to the public, year after year.
There are probably two ways to approach this, they could manage each year as a project. Starting Up each year, Initiating when the money was guaranteed, this has some merits and works well in some circumstances.
We agreed, eventually, that they would measure KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and the real goal was improvement in the delivery of the service.
Setting up the Service would have been their first project, measured with TCQ etc.
Running the service is measured with KPI’s which provides baseline measures for any performance improvement projects.
The Benefit Review Plan would show the current (baseline) system performance, and the PRINCE plans would show the changes to the service needed to move to a higher performance level.
Their final project would be shutting down the service and informing their clients.
Any other tips for this type of organisation?
On a recent Prince course someone asked how they could measure their project with the recommended Time, Cost, Quality, Scope, Risks and Benefits.
It was called a project, but when we dug a little deeper, discovered that it wasn’t a project at all. So that lead to some discussion about it being a programme, but it was very clearly defined and MSP transformation style management didn’t fit either.
It turns out they were delivering a service, IT based, rolling one year contract delivering the same service to the public, year after year.
There are probably two ways to approach this, they could manage each year as a project. Starting Up each year, Initiating when the money was guaranteed, this has some merits and works well in some circumstances.
We agreed, eventually, that they would measure KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and the real goal was improvement in the delivery of the service.
Setting up the Service would have been their first project, measured with TCQ etc.
Running the service is measured with KPI’s which provides baseline measures for any performance improvement projects.
The Benefit Review Plan would show the current (baseline) system performance, and the PRINCE plans would show the changes to the service needed to move to a higher performance level.
Their final project would be shutting down the service and informing their clients.
Any other tips for this type of organisation?
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