Assurance services are one of our main services as it provides us the opportunity to use our experience in developing some of the world leading best practice in organisation performance (P3M3) and programme delivery (MSP). 

One of the main benefits we can offer is helping to set up an Integrated Assurance Strategy so that you have the right checks at the right stage of the programme.  We integrate the use of best pracitce methods like OGC Gateway, UK National Audit Office (NAO) Delivery Environment Confidence Assessment (DECA) and P3M3 to provide sharp and incisive reviews that help to give you confidence in your investments

The intent is for a review to be a positive experience, not an inquisition, therefore we empahsise the positives as well as looking for potentially vulnerable areas. We are also doing this to help minimise the risk of failure for you, not only will we provide an honest appraisal, but we will also seek to share knowledge opnely on how we think an aspect could be improved, not just provide lists of recommendations.

On an assurance review we approach it from two angles:

• we look at the documentation to understand the programme and to see how well it is being managed.
• we interview or survey the people involved to find out how they perceive it.

On the first review we recommend undertaking a more detailed approach. This enables a good understanding of the concepts and a more detailed report, otherwise each review tends to throw up things that were missed at the start. A lighter touch can then be deployed at key points to check the direction of travel. The number of interviews depends on the size of the programme. We would expect to interview the sponsors, programme board and the team leaders from around the programme, pulling this information together with the documentation review.

Why not have a look at our article on developing and  Integrated Assurance Strategy for your organisation

Review Areas:

• Programme and project governance
• Programme and project controls
• Requirements and benefits management
• Planning techniques and standards 
• Stakeholder and communications management
• Risk Management
• Financial management
• Resource managements

Outputs:

• Management summary of the result with a status rating for each topic
• The areas for celebration - where you are doing well
• The areas for concern - where you can improve
• Main recommendations - we focus on the priority areas
• A detailed report outlining our conclusions for each heading
• Any  additional recommendations for each heading