Page 80 - Straight Talk On Project Management IV

Project Manage with meaning and purpose. New Year, New IT Project

Manager you - Part 1

Have you made any New Year Resolutions? I’ve been
chatting with IT Project Management colleagues,
friends, clients and acquaintances over Christmas and it
seems that collectively, and yet, independently, we
have identified areas for improvement.

That’s what this series of five posts is all about.
This first one is all about meaning and purpose.

To be honest, this post could be summed up in a single
paragraph, so, to keep you reading, I’ll leave that
paragraph until the very end.

How meaningless governance is literally meaning less governance!

Among the IT Project challenges that a friend, let’s call her Dianne, encountered last year was a
failure in GOVERNANCE. I’ve deliberately written GOVERNANCE in capitals because I know a lot of
readers read the word and glaze over.

Oh yes, it’s easy to get excited about the sexy deliverables, the business change and end user
benefits of the IT Project but GOVERNANCE? All a bit “meh”?
We don’t help ourselves on this, take a look at the Association for Project Management’s (APM)
definition of project governance:

“Governance refers to the set of policies, regulations, functions, processes, procedures and
responsibilities that define the establishment, management and control of projects, programmes
and portfolios.”

Oooooooh how exciting does that sound? Gets the juices flowing doesn’t it?
Actually, anyone who knows me knows my view!! I am into GOVERNANCE in a big way. I’m one of
the few who see it as more than a means to an end but an exciting and dynamic aspect of our
project work. Each to their own, right?

My definition would be more about “governance being the key to effective delivery of a project, its
whole and all of its parts, it’s the structure that keeps the purpose of the project on track while you
work on the minutest of detail, it’s the framework that helps you measure your glory and a set of
templates for a successful career and less stressful work life”.

This is why governance is a key pillar of a lot of the Project Management as a Service work that we
do at Stoneseed and it’s why we get a lot of repeat work – governance delivers successful IT
Projects.

I suppose it’s also why ‘Dianne’ shared her challenges with me.