The Importance of the Right Tools and Processes for Value Delivery
Aligning project governance with value delivery tools and processes ensures that all teams, at every level, focus on one critical goal: delivering measurable business value through strategic initiatives and the projects that support them.
Creating a clear connection between these teams not only enhances project value delivery but also drives the achievement of an organization’s strategic goals. Strong project governance, underpinned by the right tools and processes, is key to this success.
Components of Outstanding Project Governance
To establish exceptional project governance, it’s essential to construct and understand the roles of:
- Investment Board
- Portfolio Management
- Project Board
- Project Sponsor
- Steering Committee
- Program and Project Managers
- Project Teams
While organizational size may influence specific details, the core principles remain the same.
Tools for a Value Delivery Mindset
Having the right tools to support a value delivery mindset is crucial. By adopting value delivery management processes, tools, and models, governance teams are linked logically and intuitively, fostering outcome-focused thinking at all levels. The primary focus becomes delivering measurable business outcomes and benefits, while still maintaining attention on cost control. However, the true purpose of project investment is to create value for the business and achieve strategic goals.
We recommend and utilize TOP processes, tools, and models because they are teachable, learnable, and repeatable—ensuring sustainability within your organization.
Our Expertise
We provide the following services to help you embed value delivery into your organization:
- Advising and training the PMO in business value delivery management.
- Reviewing current governance structures and advising on integrating a value delivery mindset using TOP tools and outputs.
- Training project teams, sponsors, and steering committees on the use of TOP tools and processes.
If you have additional needs, just ask—we’re here to help.
Business Value Delivery and Project Governance
Governance is the foundation of how things are done. A well-structured governance framework simplifies decision-making, planning, and the execution of strategy, business initiatives, and projects.
The TOP Four Lenses model provides a comprehensive view that connects strategy, technical delivery, and business results.
The project team—the “bottom two lenses”—is responsible for managing costs and cost control.
However, many organizations still place cost management as the primary focus of their governance activities, which compromises business value delivery.
Too often, a Cost-Benefit approach is taken when, in fact, it should be Benefit-Cost.
This misplaced emphasis can lead to decisions that prioritize cost over business value, reducing the potential impact of the project.
Without incorporating the business value and investment strategy lenses into project governance, organizations lack the direction needed to drive project activities effectively.
The drivers of successful project delivery originate from the top, through the investment strategy and portfolio lens.
The Path Forward
- Governance: Steering committees and project sponsors must steer toward value delivery, equipped with the right tools. Their primary job is to ensure that the project delivers 100% of the expected business value and benefits—anything less is considered a failure.
- Project Prioritization: Portfolio management, project boards, investment committees, and capital investment boards need objective tools to select the right projects and measure value delivery throughout the project lifecycle, from inception to the realization of final benefits.
- Pre-project Analysis: Business cases must rigorously assess the purpose, benefits, costs, and risks of each project. This data feeds into objective project prioritization and ongoing tracking to safeguard your investment.
- Senior Management: C-level executives, directors, and general managers must embrace the competitive advantages of a value-focused culture. Their expertise can drive change and elevate the organization’s approach to project delivery.
- Project Managers: With all of these elements in place, project managers can focus on delivery without getting bogged down by unnecessary bureaucracy. They need to understand and adapt to a value-driven culture to optimize their role.
The TOP Value Equation: The Engine for Success
At the heart of exceptional governance and value delivery is the TOP Value Equation—a set of structured processes and tools that generate the primary data needed for business cases and provide continuous measurement and management of a project’s progress and value realization. These processes are teachable and cultivable, creating a culture that aligns business improvement with value-driven outcomes.
By engaging relevant staff in the analysis stage, the TOP approach fosters alignment and ownership, turning stakeholders into active agents of change.
How Does Your Organization Govern Value?
Take a moment to reflect on how your organization measures success in relation to projects. Are success metrics based solely on cost control, or do they align with strategic goals and business value? Is a successful project simply one that is delivered “on time and within budget,” or one that delivers the desired business outcomes and benefits in full?
Evaluate your current governance tools and processes—are they designed to drive business value, or are they overly focused on costs and technical execution? Remember, cost control dominates the governance models of many organizations, but few have recognized or adopted the alternative perspective of focusing on business value and investment strategy.
TOP: The Ultimate Framework for Value Delivery
TOP is the only set of tools, techniques, and processes built entirely on the four-lens model. This is what we use, and this is what we do:
Create sustainable and exceptional project governance that delivers real business value.
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