CheckPoint™

Background

Many public/private sector organisations have strong project management processes in place. However, while this may offer a level of assurance around the formal management and governance of a project, key judgmental aspects such as the project rationale, the viability of the solution and stakeholder commitment are often ignored with the result that many projects are aborted or fail altogether. CheckPoint offers assurance against this eventuality.

Checkpoint offers a fast turnaround service which allows senior executives to get an objective assessment of where a particular project or programme is and also to gain a forward view of the likely prospects of a successful delivery. This objective assessment cannot always be readily gained from formal project/programme documentation

Each review would be individually scoped to be proportional to the size of the investment or scale of transformation and also take account of the different stages of the process i.e:

1. Feasibility
2. Option Appraisal
3. Procurement
4. Investment Decision
5. Operational Readiness
6. Post-Project Evaluation

The service is ideal for:

1. Business Cases and Service Developments
2. Sustainability and Transformation Plans
3. Cost reduction programmes (QIPP and CIP)
4. Organisational Mergers

Underlying Principles

The underlying principles governing Checkpoint are:

1. Adding value through the process
2. Acting as a “critical friend”
3. Complete confidentiality to the sponsor and not an “audit”
4. A focus on a desk-top review of high-level documentation and key interviews – i.e. not requiring data analysis or due diligence
5. A succinct, “paper-lite” approach
6. Fast turnaround – a small team in for a few days with daily feedback to the sponsor if required

The Outcome

The output would be an objective assessment of project viability in Summary Report form with recommendations as to actions required as appropriate. This can be presented via a “RAG” format, or perhaps a Spider Diagram to show viability in terms of benefits/risks/strategic fit etc.

Benefit/Value

The benefits to the organisation would be clear

• a realistic, triangulated assessment of the current status of a project/programme
• an assurance as to the direction of a project/programme and the likelihood of it achieving its objectives
• identification of the real “risks” (the ones you don’t talk about!) which are sometimes missed in the formal risk management process
• identification of possible “bear traps” ahead
• a set of recommendations leading to an improved outcome
• the avoidance of additional advisory costs in re-working business cases and programmes which fail to get internal and external approval.