Project Governance

Corporate Governance and Projects?

Corporate Governance relates to accountabilities and responsibilities for the management of the performance of an enterprise. Following recent well-publicised events, Directors responsibilities of Governance have been extended, for example, in the area of provision of corporate performance information, particularly financial.

Governments and regulatory authorities have amended laws and strengthened codes, to make responsibilities of Governance more explicit, and to introduce new requirements and standards relating to the production of financial and other data. In many organisations, this will include project data, creating a direct link between key project management information and Corporate Governance.

Other areas also relate Corporate Governance directly to Projects, e.g.:

Use of Corporate Resource: modern rules of Governance require controls to ensure effective use of Corporate Resource
Risk: Sarbanes Oxley, for example, requires that organisations implement an ‘Enterprise Risk Management Framework’, as a key element of Corporate Governance. Few areas of business carry more risk than projects.

What is Project Governance?

Project Governance extends the principle of Governance into the management of individual projects. Today, many organisations are developing ‘Project Governance Structures’. A Project Governance structure is different to an Organisation Structure in that it defines accountabilities and responsibilities for strategic decision-making per project. This can be particularly useful to project management processes such as change control and strategic (project) decision-making.

What should Project Governance achieve?

So, what should effective Project Governance achieve? One important example would be: no project that is clearly exhibiting commonly accepted characteristics of project failure should be allowed to proceed to their next phase without clear resolution of those issues.

In most organisations today, this would be an important step up in their competence at managing internal corporate or business projects.

Governance of Project Management?

It is also argued, that since Corporate Governance now places responsibilities on Boards' to monitor Enterprise performance, there is a further responsibility of 'Governance of Project Management'. This encompasses the need to control and demonstrate:

assurance that projects are being managed well and in accordance the requirements of Governance across the Enterprise;
assurance that portfolio management is optimising the return from corporate resource and maintaining alignment with strategic objectives;
assurance that strategic projects are not exhibiting (well publicised) conditions of project failure.

Governance and Key Relationships with Project Management

The following table demonstrates a number of key relationships between Corporate Governance and Project Management Processes:

Achievement of Strategic objectives: The Management of Strategic Projects - Benefits Planning & Management
Accountabilities: Project Sponsorship & Governance; Benefits Planning & Management
Performance Mgmt & Controls: Project Performance Measurement
Effective use of Corporate Resource: Portfolio Management
Enterprise Risk Management: Project Risk Management

Executive Presentation: Corporate Governance and Projects

PMIS has an Executive level Presentation: Corporate Governance and Projects and would be happy to work with you to deliver this to your organisation.

Email today to find out more on Project Governance or the Governance of Project Management.

Links, Downloads and References

For more information on Corporate Governance and related topics:

UK APM: A guide to the Governance of Project Management

Office of Government & Commerce (OGC)

Corporate Governance Concepts and IT

Related Pages

Project Governance Training Course

Project Management Training Courses from PMIS

About PMIS:

PMIS is a leading specialist provider of project management training, Prince2 training, APMP training course, project risk management training, and benefits realisation training. Whether you are looking for public or tailored project management training, PMIS provides first-class earned value training, project management courses, IT project management training, and project manager certification.