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Purpose
To provide independent assurance on behalf of the programme board that the programme and the projects within it are being managed appropriately and in accordance with any policies or processes the organisation may require.
Service Details
The Programme Assurance service will be carried out by experienced Programme and Project Management (PPM) consultants. The Programme Assurance service comprises two distinct elements:
Start-Up
· Establish the terms of reference for the assurance function (authority, jurisdiction, and scope), e.g. does the assurance function have authority to investigate subcontractors?
· Establish the reporting requirements of the programme board and other stakeholders.
· Review programme plans in order to design and agree the auditing strategy with the Programme Board (frequency and timing of auditing, selection strategy, controlling non-conformances, etc)
· To produce and agree the Programme Assurance Plan
Programme Audit Iterations
Conduct a Programme Audit at the frequency and time defined on the specific area identified in the Programme Assurance Plan.
Each Programme Audit will include an assessment of the overall programme performance at an overview level as well as the detailed audit for the specific area selected:
Overview – Programme Audit will look at the summary performance of all the projects within the programme, the status of current benefits against those planned and the currency of key programme documentation.
Focus – The Programme Audit will assess in detail a particular part of the programme as specified by the Programme Assurance Plan. Specific areas could be a project within the programme, the PPSO, the programme management, security, configuration, benefits, requirements, finance etc.
Each Programme Audit will also follow-up and report on the status of Audit Actions from the previous iteration.
The PPM consultant will produce an Audit Report which will be issued in draft form to those people interviewed to check for any misunderstandings before being issued to the programme board. The PPM consultant will present the results to the Programme Manager and Sponsoring Group.
Benefits
In MSP™, PRINCE2® and many other programme and project management methods the responsibility for assurance rests with the programme or project boards. It cannot be delegated to the programme manager or project manager. However, most board members do not have either the bandwidth or specialist knowledge in order to satisfy themselves that the programme or projects are being managed appropriately. Outsourced Programme Assurance is ideal for such scenarios.
An outsourced services means that those people being interviewed are more likely to be open in discussing their concerns with an independent assessor compared to someone in their management chain or customer/supplier chain.
The critical function of assurance can often get pushed aside in lieu of more urgent work and can end up only being performed late in the programme’s life when it is too late to make an impact or not at all. An externally sourced assurance service delivered against a plan defined during programme or project initiation will be guaranteed to take place.
“If only I’d asked for this audit 3 months ago I would have saved $15m” – a Programme Manager for an international Mobile Network Operator.
Deliverables
1) Programme Assurance Plan
2) Programme Audit Report(s)
3) Programme Audit Records (Interviews, document reviews, systems reviews)
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