Steering your master plan: 20 tips for implementing your projects

Drawing up an IT master plan synchronizes the strategic orientations of general management with those of the business and IT departments. Taking stock of projects, projecting into the future, taking stock of needs, making proposals and putting them into strategic perspective... This leads to the identification of a whole series of projects, all of which are aligned with the company's ambitions.

All these projects then have to be implemented to achieve the objectives set out in the master plan or roadmap. This is where project portfolio management comes in. Here are 20 tips to help you successfully implement your master plan. What project and project portfolio methodology? What are the roles of the PMO, general management and business units? What indicators should be used to monitor the progress of projects and the master plan? What governance should be put in place to guarantee strategic alignment? What tools should be put in place, from a desktop approach to the implementation of PPM software?

In this article:  

• The four levels of steering maturity
• How can you assess the maturity of your project organization?
• Tips to improve the management of your master plan by activating 5 levers
• The matrix to boost your management of the master plan and its projects

These 20 tips are offered by an expert in project management who provides day-to-day support to senior management, business units and IT departments. This article summarizes the highlights of the conference "How to get your projects to take the roadmap", available in replay. co-hosted with Céline GUIHOU - Director of Steering and PMO Consulting - Noveane Groupe Scalian, a firm specializing in digital transformation.

Steering the master plan: start by assessing your level of project steering maturity

Four levels of project management maturity

By observing hundreds of steering cells, Noveane has established a four-level steering maturity model. This model is based, above all, on field feedback from information systems departments. It is based on four types of maturity markers:

• how the master plan (or digital roadmap) will be drawn up (by department, strategy, etc.)
• decision-making processes for project launches (ad-hoc bodies, management committees, strategic committees, etc.)
• functions set up in the organization to manage projects (executive PMO, multi-skilled manager, corporate PMO)
• tools used to monitor project implementation (office automation, project management software, complete Project Portfolio Management platform, etc.)

These markers can be used to define four levels of maturity:

How can you assess your organization's project management maturity?

How do you know what your maturity level is? As a first approach, you can look at how many maturity level markers you can tick for your organization. If you answer positively to three out of four points, then you've validated the level. So what's your level?

Elementary level maturity markers :

• Non-formalized roadmap, which does not prevent projects from being carried out in the field
• Project launch decisions made by Top Management, based on a list of projects in progress, with a "can-do" approach.
• Purely operational comitology, linked to the project. Only strategic or important projects are presented to top management.
• Low-code office tools

Intermediate level maturity markers :

• Formalized roadmap for each department (often drawn up by the IT department, but other departments can also undertake this task).
• Only the projects carried out by this department are identified, without highlighting the links with the projects of other departments.
• Operational comitology for each project, but also a project portfolio comitology by department.
• The beginnings of the PMO function appear.
• Project management tools in place.

Advanced level maturity markers :

• Each department draws up its roadmap in collaboration with the company's other departments. The compilation gives the company's roadmap, highlighting the interdepartmental links between projects.
• Project comitology and project portfolio by department, a more global comitology is emerging at a higher level in the organization to challenge the eligibility of future projects with regard to this global roadmap (Bottom - Up logic).
• e-PMO function in place to manage this eligibility, but also the portfolios by Division, ensuring in particular that budgets and capacity to deliver are kept under control. Management PMOs are sensitive to the need to respect strategic alignment, but there is as yet no such thing as a corporate PMO.
• Tools for project portfolio management (PPM)

Expert level maturity markers :

• Company roadmap drawn up on the basis of strategic challenges expressed and shared by Top Management with the Departments, which use it to build their own roadmap, with adherence between Departments (Top-Down logic).
• The company's challenges strategy influences the eligibility of future projects. The dedicated committee will challenge project priorities and be able to decide not to launch certain projects or to de-prioritize others.
• PMO function established at different levels of the organization, piloting eligibility, but also portfolios by department, ensuring in particular that budgets and capacity to deliver are kept under control, but above all that projects launched are properly aligned with the company's strategic challenges .
• Advanced PPM tools deployed for both business users and implementers. Advanced IS integration for exhaustive data coverage

Here is the result of the conference participants' self-assessment:

We asked participants about their level of roadmap management:

• 21% estimate elementary level
• 47% intermediate
• 24% advanced
• and 6% expert

How can we improve management of the master plan and its projects?

To improve your organization's project management maturity, we have identified 5 levers of progress on which to focus:

1. Methodology: project methodology within the organization
2. KPI: steering indicators
3. Governance: aligning strategy with operations
4. Comitology: setting up monitoring and decision-making points
5. Tools: tools used to manage projects & portfolios

Five tips for the basic project management maturity level

💡 The levers to activate to improve your level of project management at this stage :

• Methodology : Make sure you give Project Managers a sense of responsibility, while maintaining their autonomy. For example, tell them what is expected of them in terms of management practices, with a job description.
• KPI : Simple, effective project management indicators (schedule, budget, resources...)
• Governance : Draw up a list of projects monitored by Top Management, with a follow-up on progress KPIS.
• Comitology : Encourage projection, at least over the next 3 months, rather than a "snapshot" of what already exists.
• Tools : Leave project managers free to choose their own tools, but propose a single "Project Progress Sheet" model.

To improve the basic level of project management, it is necessary to establish a project progress framework with a synthetic view. You can offer Project Managers a unique template such as the "Project Progress Sheet". This will facilitate project reporting. For example, I worked with a company in the banking sector, CIO , which employs around thirty people. They lacked a steering framework. We developed a project management methodology, which the project managers were trained in and coached on the job. At the same time, we deployed a harmonized and unified dashboard with indicators for schedule, the budget, risks, etc. This way, information was passed on to top management, giving them better visibility of projects and automated processes. In 3 months, top management was enlightened with a unified dashboard!

Céline GUIHOU - Steering and PMO BU Director - Noveane Groupe Scalian

Five tips for the intermediate project management maturity level

💡 The levers to activate to improve your level of project management at this stage :

• Methodology : Instill portfolio management dynamics through a consolidated view of projects by department
• KPI : Enhance project management via capacity planning and budget management (photo and landing)
• Governance : Setting the framework (roles and responsibilities) for PMOs as drivers of management portfolios
• Comitology : Establish key moments via the Management Portfolio Review Committee
• Tools : Set up a single project management tool

We need to start thinking in terms of project portfolios. During one of my assignments, I worked with a player in the healthcare sector. We set up a monitoring system for 60 active projects, within 3 thematic project portfolios.

Céline GUIHOU - Steering and PMO BU Director - Noveane Groupe Scalian

Five tips for the advanced project management maturity level

💡 The levers to activate to improve your level of project management at this stage :

• Methodology : Consolidated management of portfolios, identifying their interdependencies
• KPI : Building and maintaining portfolio capacity plans and budget monitoring
• Governance : A PMO Management community working hand in hand, with one voice
• Comitology : Setting up a body dedicated to the eligibility of future projects
• Tools : Upgrade tools to a PPM tool for project and portfolio management

Five tips for master plan management - project expert level

💡 The levers to activate to improve your level of project management at this stage :

• Methodology : Challenge the alignment of portfolios with challenges strategies
• KPI : Implement indicators on portfolio alignment with the roadmap (proportion of innovative projects, market share acquired, digitalization, etc.).
• Governance : Expand the scope of the PMO function through the corporate PMO, which guarantees compliance with strategic commitments.
• Comitology : Establish a regular review of the operational translation of the roadmap and its challenges by the corporate PMO, with Top Management.
• Tools : Use a corporate PPM tool to project assumptions onto portfolios.

For a player in the ready-to-wear sector, we had worked on a large volume of projects. We set up a global capacity plan for the company. To do this, we worked with each business director to identify the capacity required for each project. By consolidating the capacity to do with the projects to be planned, we prioritized the projects. We went from 220 projects to 130 priority projects.

Céline GUIHOU - Steering and PMO BU Director - Noveane Groupe Scalian

Project Monitorproject portfolio management tool, allows you to easily manage your master plan.

Project Monitor is project portfolio management software. Suitable for structures with more than 50 employees, it enables you to manage more than 100 active projects and gain an overall view of your project portfolio. The software's functionalities enable you to :

• Break down your IT master plan into projects and gain a comprehensive overview of your IT portfolio
• Use dashboards to monitor the progress of CIO projects at a glance.
• Optimizing resource workloads
• Easily plan costs and track actual expenditure on your projects

All functionalities are centralized within the software: time tracking, Gantt, Kanban board, workload planning, budgets, reporting, dashboards...

Noveane Groupe Scalian, a firm specializing in digital transformation, helps you manage your master plan

Noveane Groupe Scalian provides comprehensive, innovative solutions and expertise for managing transformations. The "Digital Transformation Office by Noveane" is a modular, adaptive approach. The DTO is a combination of people, processes, metrics, methodologies and tools, which enables you to centrally pilot and manage your organization's digital initiatives.

Our experts can support you in the following areas in particular:

• Customer relationship management
• AMOA Consulting
• Project management
• Service automation
• Organization modeling
• PPM implementation
• Marketing for CIO
• Change Management
• Secure purchasing

Questions / Answers

A PMO role/position has a cost: what are the arguments for defending an ROI, apart from the fact that "we'll be better able to see how projects are progressing"?

The first thing to do is to identify the terrain: the bottlenecks in project management that may justify this function. On this subject, Virage Group has published two white papers, available as free PDF downloads: Comment structurer sa cellule PMO and Quel ROI attendre d'un logiciel PPM.

The level of maturity of the structure (particularly in the local public sector) was not addressed. If the structure is not sufficiently mature, should a training program be proposed, especially for executives and top managers?

Sometimes, in fact, it is necessary to support executives and top managers in order to bring about a successful transformation. Noveane Groupe Scalian has built up a skills grid by profession and provides coaching to give more keys and areas for improvement to profiles such as PMOs and managers.