1. Summary

Many businesses recognise that online technology offers them the ability to remain competitive, accelerate growth and increase productivity or even to market to a wider geographical audience. And Superfast Broadband, along with the rapid development of the internet and the emergence of cloud computing, has catalysed huge changes in how these companies operate.

 

As with any transition from old to new, the cornerstone of success lies in a structured project management and change management approach. It starts with the desired outcome, controls the implementation and data migration, and ends with employee adoption. This guide outlines some basic principles to help you control costs, measure outcomes and manage project timescales.

2. What benefits might I expect?

  • Valuable clarity: Defining a project with clear objectives, tasks, timescales and responsibilities allows everyone to understand why it is happening.
     

  • Business benefits: Project management helps maximise the opportunities that can be gained from new technologies such as Superfast Broadband.
     

  • Reduced resistance: Involving people from the start of a project builds commitment to change; driving efficiencies and supporting stable growth.
     

  • Company buy-in: Change Management creates a shared vision through ongoing communication and training for all roles and responsibilities.
     

  • Employee ownership: Staff that are involved from the planning stages and decision making will take ownership, helping to ensure success.
     

  • Minimised risk: Change management processes allow you to identify challenges and to respond to these effectively.
     

  • Less disruption: Disruptions to operations can be identified, anticipated and minimised with careful preparation using project management.
     

  • More control: A well planned project with agreed timescales will have effective cost controls to ensure it is delivered within budget and on time.

3. Real life example

An award-winning IT consultancy is transforming business performance across the UK by empowering IT teams to embrace lean and agile practices. Founded by CEO James Smith and CPO Stephen Thair in 2013, DevOpsGuys has 87 members of staff and is predicting growth to 500 employees and a £100m turnover within the next five years.

 

Picture of 2 men

 

The company, which provides bespoke solutions and operating models, uses Superfast Broadband so clients can access functionality at previously unattainable speeds. “This achieves greater customer engagement and unlocks new revenue streams by accelerating software delivery across Digital Transformation initiatives,” said Smith. “It also enables innovation, which drives competitive advantage and is something our customers’ value.”

 

  • Employees mostly work remotely from locations across the UK, with a team in Sofia, Bulgaria “It enables us to recruit the best talent regardless of physical location, and allows us the agility to work across EMEA”.
     

  • Remote team management requires a number of software packages so the teams can connect each day to discuss and manage different project requirements. Each month, the team meets at Cardiff HQ to encourage team building and celebrate the previous month’s successes and to plan the month ahead.
     

  • Customers include Admiral, ASOS, BAE, Companies House, Defra, Fitness First, Gov.uk, Ministry of Justice, Nokia Systems, Travelodge, Waitrose and the DVLA.

4. Why consider change?

Many people subscribe to the adage; if it’s not broken don’t fix it. And in some cases that could be true. But to remain competitive in today’s rapidly evolving business environment more often companies need to embrace change. Without it they risk losing their competitive edge and fail to meet the emerging needs of their customers. 

 

The changes could be something small; adopting a social media strategy, for example. Or they could involve implementing a new system or entire infrastructure. And in this instance, without changing people’s behaviour so they embrace new ways of working any investment could be wasted. This is why change management is so important.

5. What is change management?

Change management is a process that influences people’s feelings, attitudes, and behaviours. And unsurprisingly it is used to achieve support for large scale changes that will ultimately deliver business benefits. The most obvious example is when a company implements a new IT system that alters the way people go about their day to day. But the discipline can help with many types of change; from leaving behind ‘paper’ to focus on online processes, to breaking down the team silos that naturally form as employee numbers grow.

 

It’s worth knowing that when refereeing to change management formally, the people who have some form of interest in the change are known as stakeholders. And there are two main types. ‘Sponsors’ are the people with power who have direct interest in the project and include the management team or investors, for example. Whereas ‘targets’ are the people who will intentionally be affected by the change and include employees, business partners and customers. You will need to influence them both.

 

For more information on how to do this and successfully manage change it’s worth reading our guide, ‘How to successfully manage digital change in your business’. This, combined with a knowledge of Project Management, will give you a good starting point so you can control costs, measure outcomes and manage project timescales.

6. What is project management?

Project management is a structured approach that businesses can use to deliver a high standard of initiatives (projects) to be delivered on time and within budget. There are a number of project management methodologies and the industry you are working in often determines the best method to use. For example, if you work in the civil service you may use PRINCE2, MSP. Or if you’re tendering a major construction contractor that requires all sub-contractors to be accredited to BS6079 and you may opt for CMMI.

 

And it is not just large projects that benefit from using a common language for all staff involved in a project’s delivery and use. Applying basic project management principles to even the smallest of projects gives you a much better chance of achieving the desired outcomes, on time and within the cost parameters you have set. It really is the application of structured common sense and though projects vary in size, they have a number of common characteristics that indicate a successful outcome.

 

 

Support from within the business (sponsorship) to ensure there is a valid reason for undertaking the project

  • Action: submit a business case to a decision making board that considers the technical feasibility (can it be done) and the commercial viability (should it be done).

 

A plan that identifies the required resources (materials/labour), timescales and set of outcomes that can be costed

  • Action: develop a project initiation document which splits timescales into logical stages, outlines the resources required, and highlights the quality criteria to be met.

  • Action: it should also list costs and benefits, reporting structures, and required tolerances.

 

Project tolerances to specify how far over the project can overrun in terms of time or cost before some sort of remedial action is taken

  • Action: submit your Project Initiation document and confirm or amend tolerances.

  • Action: on large projects, the project board mid-point at each stage and at the end of the stage to review progress and gives approval for the next step.

 

Reports that conform how things are progressing against the original plan (and remedial actions required)

  • Action: consider weekly checkpoint reports, monthly highlight reports, mid stage and end stage assessment reports, exception reports.

  • Action: On completion, confirmation that the project outcomes have been achieved.

7. Large projects

For larger projects, good practice would put more formal controls in place. You may not require all of these in your own business but it is worth understanding what they are and the benefits they can deliver.

 

Listed below are a selection of the most popular processes and methods, though slavishly following a full methodology can bring high levels of overhead so it is quite acceptable for smaller companies to select only those elements that are most appropriate to their business and project needs.

 

Methodologies Method or Organisation

  • PRINCE2 - Projects in a Controlled Environment

  • MSP - Managing Successful Programmes

  • APM - Association for Project Management

  • PMI - Project Management Institute

  • CMMI - Capability Maturity Model Institute

 

Consider also some of the software tools that are available to assist with managing the project. A number of these are Open Source or free to use solutions.
 

 

8. Project plans

Ensure that your project plans cover the following key aspects (even if they are in very general terms):

  • Critical milestones

  • Key deliverables and their quality criteria

  • Reporting

  • Total costs

  • Total benefits

Regularly review the progress of your project:

Maintain clear records of which operations are happening in the cloud and which are in-house - and where data is stored. In addition, be clear about the “handover” process from the project team to the systems user or manager.

 

Evaluate your project

For a small project, you should get written feedback from the key people involved and put together a short “lessons learned” paper. This should highlight what went well (and why) and what went wrong (and why). These lessons can prove invaluable in the future as knowledge for undertaking similar projects.

 

Lastly, critically review any new ideas before initiating them as a project

Consider the following questions when evaluating a new initiative within your business to help you decide whether or not this should be a project...

9. What is the initiative?

What is the initiative?

  • In what ways, do we want your business to be different as a result of this initiative?

  • What is the rationale for change? Does the initiative offer value for money?

 

Who are the stakeholders?

  • Who is likely to be impacted? Who has the power or influence to facilitate or stop the initiative?

 

What outcomes do the priority stakeholders want?

  • Does this change our approach?

  • How does this initiative relate to others? What is the priority of this initiative in relation to others?

 

What mechanisms, systems, processes and change does the initiative indicate?

  • What do we need to make or change? Could we do nothing?

 

What is the scope of this initiative?

  • What is included? What is excluded? What is essential and what is a bonus?

 

What are the success criteria?

  • What does success look like? What are the milestones? What are the preconditions for success? What big things, if missing, could cause the initiative to fail?

 

What are you going to have to produce?

  • Do you need to deliver anything? What are the component parts? Break it down to a level that allows you to understand what has to be done to create the components.

 

What do you need from others?

  • What can’t or shouldn’t you do yourself? What buy in or ownership do you need from stakeholders?

 

How much will you need for the project?

  • How much effort or resource is required?

  • Is the amount of effort/resource consistent with the scope of the project (does it still represent value for money)?

 

What sequence do things need to be done in?

  • Which things need to be done first? Can you do things in parallel?

  • Is there a particular sequence of things which dominates or drives the timetable?

 

What resources are available?

  • Do you have the necessary resource and skills? Do you need to revisit the delivery approach or scope?

  • Are there different ways of doing things that would enable you to deliver the outputs with the resources and skills you have?

 

What assumptions are you making?

  • What are you holding to be true to create the plan and take things forward? Can you confirm any of these assumptions?

  • Would the plan be different if the assumptions did not hold? What level of risk do the assumption imply?

 

What are the constraints?

  • Are there any legal, social, environmental or other restrictions? Are the restrictions real? What level of risk do the constraints imply?

 

What are the barriers to success?

  • What else could stop or slow you down to the point where you couldn’t succeed?

 

What are the likely consequences and side effects of our success?

  • Could there be any negative outcomes from this initiative? Could you be too successful? What level of risk do these side effects imply?

 

Who is likely to be disadvantaged by your success?

  • Could they cause problems and how? Do they pose a risk?

  • What is the probability and impact of each risk and its risk factor (high, low, medium)?

  • Are there counter-measures you can take and what is your reassessment of the risk after we’ve taken them?

 

What contingences do you need?

  • What could you do if the risks are turned into reality? Do you need separate plans for these contingencies?

  • In light of the previous answers what is the plan? Is it complete and deliverable? What is plan B?

10. Additional information

Use the Superfast Business Wales Software Directory to explore the software that could help you run your business.