Case Studies

A developed nation was unifying their methods of paying benefits to citizens. This would be achieved by issuing 10s of millions of citizens with a unified payment entitlement card. The card offered many advantages, including cost savings and fraud avoidance.

While some programmes are national or international and involve huge budgets, programme management is also highly effective when used at the local level. The delivery of local services is now extremely complex, involving as it does an interlinking network of service providers; local authorities, NHS trusts, schools, police forces, voluntary agencies and so on.

Many local authorities have adopted PRINCE2 as their local project management standard. AFA has extensive experience of helping county, district and metropolitan councils & NHS Trusts embed PRINCE2. Embedding PRINCE2 is a journey, and no two journeys are identical. So this case study draws together our experience with a number of different clients. Typically a local authority wishes to introduce a tailored version of PRINCE2 that links to existing council project management practices or wider financial authorisation rules.

Many local authorities have recognised the need to include risk management within their corporate framework. While specialist risk management, such as health and safety logging may be adequate, it has proved to be much more difficult to integrate risk management into the corporate culture at the highest levels, without merely adding an extra element of complexity to an already complicated matrix of service delivery priorities.

A newly formed primary care trust realised it needed to establish their corporate governance as rapidly as possible. The PCT found that it had inherited a risk management system with major flaws. Susan Ferguson takes up the story.

An international financial services company recognised that niche, technical risk management, though sophisticated, was inadequate. They felt growing pressure to have a comprehensive risk governance framework as a result of initiatives such as Turnbull in the UK, Sarbanes-Oxley in the US and Basel2.

A newly formed government agency brought together no less than nine previously separate organisations. They faced many challenges in merging so many diverse cultures and fusing them into a new coherent way of working. Processes were put in place but then unforeseen circumstances forced the client to rethink Kimberley Wiseman takes up the story.

A number of linked local authorities had been conducting a public access programme for a number of years. A fixed portfolio of projects had been identified and the programme appeared to be progressing satisfactorily. But while project delivery was on stream, benefits were not yet accumulating. Indeed there were signs that it might actually be more, not less expensive to operate the new facilities than the old ones.

A blue chip industrial client had been pursuing a major business initiative for a number of years. A small client lead team had been pioneering a programme management approach to the wider initiative. While they had been successful thus far, they needed to consolidate the work they had done and raise the profile of the wider programme. Susan Ferguson takes up the story.

When a global utilities company faced a significant regulatory change in one of their key markets, they recognised that they had a major business change opportunity. As frequently happens with opportunities, any failure to exploit the situation fully could lead to the loss of their market leadership. Stuart Flatt takes up the story.

A government agency responsible for the registration of births, marriages, civil partnerships, deaths, divorces and adoptions, as well as being the main source of family history records had an in-house project management handbook for many years. But audit reports continued to observe that project delivery was still inconsistent. The client asked AFA to conduct a capability maturity audit. Alan Ferguson takes up the story.

A large county council, with diverse urban and rural responsibilities recognised that to gain the full benefits of PRINCE2, not only did staff require training but they also required additional coaching to succeed with maximum skills transfer. Mary Andrew takes up the story.

One of the UK’s leading international premium spirits companies based in Scotland wanted to embed PRINCE2 into their organisation. With some of the values that had made the company so successful, in place since the 1850’s, they did not want to re-write the rule book, so a tailored version to fit in with the local culture was called for. Mary Andrew takes up the story.

AFA were approached by a relatively newly formed financial services and utilities solutions provider. Their main aim was to be the leading provider of comparison shopping marketplaces for financial services and utilities products and the leading provider of eIntelligence solutions for the business community. Alan Ferguson takes up the story.

A factory employing 500 people is to be comprehensively redeveloped over the next 5 years. Numerous building & conversion projects have been identified but it has also been recognised by the senior management team that staff will have to alter their ways of working.