Project Governance Consulting

Project Governance

WA Power & Gas Consulting is a team of highly experienced consultants having extensive knowledge and understanding of the power, gas, and energy industries.

WAPGC provides reviews and advice for improving project delivery outcomes.

Project Governance

Project governance is about having and applying systems that assist the business to select good projects and implement them well.
Part of good project governance is implementing independent checks along the project journey, from inception to handover.

Project Health Checks (PHC)

Project Health Checks (PHC) are one of the tools recommended as part of your project governance system. Project health checks are typically carried out at "gate movement" or approval phases of a project. Typical milestones where PHC's are applied would be:

Gate movement from Appraise to Select
Gate movement from Select to Define
Gate movement from Define to Execute
Where any of the above phases are broken into sub-phases, such as Execute-1, Execute-2 etc.

It is not necessary to wait for a gate movement milestone to carry out a PHC. If there is a reason for concern or there is uncertainty surrounding the performance of a project, then a PHC can be used to obtain a snapshot assessment of the project's health and status.

A WAPGC Project Health Check comprises two elements:

a document review
a set of interviews.

From these information collection activities, we produce an easy to read snapshot of the project, identifying areas at risk and providing recommendations for intervention.

Business Framing and Peer Reviews

WAPGC provides Business Framing and Peer Review workshop facilitation.

The Business Framing workshop is a useful tool and is employed at the start of a project, in the Appraise phase, and can be repeated toward the end of the Select phase.

The purpose is to ensure that the correct Business Objectives are set, and that all relevant elements of the business are involved early in the appraisal of the Business Objectives being targeted by the proposed project. The workshop is used to review the project for its suitability for meeting the Business Objectives. It is an holistic approach, designed to identify the benefits and potential negative impacts of the project on the business.

Once the Business Objectives are set and agreed, these become the reference point and foundation for all project framing applied to that project.

Peer Review workshops are another important tool used as part of a good project governance system.

Peer Reviews are typically carried out when you have enough information to reasonably define the key elements of the project. This would typically be during the Select phase of a project. There will be uncertainties around the project definition during Select, so Peer Reviews are often repeated during the Define phase.

The makeup of a Peer Review workshop is important. It must comprise those that have relevant experience with appropriate breadth and depth. The key to an effective Peer Review is to exploit the knowledge and wisdom of others to avoid pitfalls and to realise best practice.

WAPGC provides planning and facilitation of Business Framing workshops and Peer Review workshops.

Value Improving Practices (VIPs)

Value Improving Practices (VIPs) are used in projects to:

Provide clarity with respect to business objectives
Provide clarity with respect to project objectives
Improve safety
Reduce cost
Improve schedule
Reduce start-up time
Increase reliability
Reduce maintenance costs
Improve stakeholder alignment

WAPGC can assist with the identification of the VIPs that will add value to your project. We can facilitate VIP workshops to ensure that value is obtained from the VIP process.