At Valueadding.com we have been involved for many years and across many councils and other public sector organisations in helping authorities design and implement successful changes based on sound Business Process / Lean principles. During that work we’ve developed great expertise in identifying and embedding practices that ensure theory gets translated into action. 

Condensing that down, we’ve found that the answers to four key questions are vital in ensuring the projects we’re involved with run smoothly and effectively:

Is the project focusing on the right issues and opportunities?

Our expertise in business process improvement ensure we have the experience and instincts to help you start out safe in the knowledge that your project has this most fundamental foundation stone in place. If this phase is a natural follow on from work that we ourselves have been involved in, it will be provided as an integral part of our services. Alternatively, if you want us to provide an external, independent sense-check, we charge at an ad-hoc daily rate.

Is the project structure and team right? 

Project inception is the other critical foundation stage. We can work with you and your in-house project management teams to help ensure that all the project start up documentation, procedures and team building are carried out effectively. If you already have experienced Project Managers and team members in place this can take to form of a “health check” bringing to bear external perspectives and rigour. Alternatively, if you have a less experienced team we can help tutor and mentor those individuals to help them steer clear of many of the pitfalls that can undermine a project right from the outset. For a large-scale project we provide 5 days’ expert support, including workshops, validation of key project documents and team mentoring.

Is the project progressing effectively towards its overall goals in the context of the organisation's wider objectives?

As projects evolve, there is often the danger that they develop a life and momentum of their own with the risk that they (and their participants) lose sight of the bigger picture. We have found it useful to provide expert support at key stages to help counter this risk. This can take many forms but typically it complements incumbent Project Manager’s roles by applying external perspective to the delivery of important milestones and outputs, ensuring that they are both fit for purpose and in alignment with other, wider programme goals. This type of support can be provided either on an ad-hoc daily basis or can be pre-agreed to coincide with pre-defined project milestones at a negotiated reduced rate, depending on levels of input required.

Has the project delivered its targeted benefits and have the key learning points been embedded for future reference?

As projects move to completion, it’s vital to ensure that they have actually delivered the benefits they were designed to provide. Equally, important learning will have taken place amongst the team and its key members throughout the duration of the project. To validate the delivery elements and embed the learning, we offer a structured post-project review package. Typically for a large scale project this would constitute a 3-day involvement from one of our senior staff and would include running and writing up a formal post-project workshop and preparing a structured Project Closure report.