Minimising Programme Management Risks for Executive Interim Managers & Consultants

Executive interim managers and consultants are often involved in the delivery of complex programmes. Take for example the enterprise-wide implementation of an ERP system comprising of a number of specialised and sophisticated modules.

Normally such programmes are decomposed into a number of smaller elements and executive interim managers and consultants are likely to be involved throughout the programme as members of the various project teams. One team might research the pros and cons of the various ERP solutions offered at macro level. Other teams will be dedicated to the configuration and implementation of particular modules. Another team may be involved in running training sessions and another team may be involved in providing resources for the programme. However one of the key issues often overlooked is ensuring the accuracy of data to be uploaded into the system. If owners aren't identified whose role is to ensure the accuracy of data uploads for each module, the old "garbage in - garbage out" rule becomes a critical issue, and ultimately the credibility and usability of the entire system is called into question.

Secondly, it's often also true that module implementation teams will be focused on just getting their part of the system up and running, and in doing so tend to settle for more generic configurations; overlooking the extremely important chance to optimise the configuration of software modules for the business' specific needs and longer term benefit.

In their September 2003 article in the Harvard Business Review, Matta and Askenas say that "Managers use project plans, timelines and budgets to reduce what we call 'execution risk' - but they inevitably neglect these two other critical risks - the 'white space risk' that some required activities won't be identified in advance, leaving gaps in the project plan, and the 'integration risk' that the disparate activities won't come together at the end". Executive interim managers and consultants involved in complex programme management like ERP implementations, should be very wary of such risks.

Matta and Askenas go on to explain that complex programmes benefit from what they refer to as 'rapid-results initiatives'. These are projects each staffed with a team responsible for a version of the hoped-for overall result in miniature and each designed to deliver its result quickly." If executive interim managers and consultants approach complex programme management in this way it can eliminate white space and integration risks, as well as execution risk. Their approach appears then to argue for at least a one module pilot (and debrief) before any big-bang solution is attempted in the case of an ERP roll-out.