Approximately 70% of major projects and programmes fail to achieve their objectives!

The Rationale 

Although current prescriptions and best practices for both change and programme management are helpful, they are not sufficient to ensure that the majority of programmes succeed. Further research and development is essential to understand the reasons why some projects and programmes are more successful than others.

Increased capabilities benefit both ‘project businesses’ and their clients

With ‘compliance’ as the main emphasis in many managers’ current approach to project and programme management, it cannot be the source of that superior capability. Improved approaches which lead to increased capabilities benefit both ‘project businesses’ and their clients. Our research, over many years and with many organisations, has shown that many of the problems faced in delivering projects and programmes are caused by the context in which managers are required to work. Strategic decisions within the organisation, its customers and the supply chain are a major contributory factor. Therefore improving programme and project management is very much reliant upon a larger business transformation.

The New Approach

Our research has resulted in new approaches to the management of projects and programmes. Providing a framework to support managerial decision-making at a business level, the new approaches fill the crucial gap between strategy and implementation which exists in most organisations. Additionally, it advances the boundaries of programme management beyond a reliance on processes and tools, to where it is an integral part of organisational strategy.

Deployment of the new approach requires a long-term transformational change in any organisation, which must be strategically planned, championed and managed at the business level, if it is to be successful. 

We believe that successful project and programme management is fundamental to delivery of both core business and major change in organisations. Key to successful delivery are "intelligent” relationships, where organisations and providers selectively draw from best practices to design and execute programmes fit for their context and purpose. Our approach delivers this by: 

  • integrating projects and programmes with business strategies 
  • building the knowledge and culture for mature risk-based decision making 
  • understanding the challenges and complexities in project-based businesses 
  • focusing on the practice and processes that facilitate 'fit for purpose' project and programme delivery.

Unique in the way we work

We see our research as the first step in a development process that results in realised benefits. We work with industry partners to identify gaps in knowledge and to understand the causes of those gaps, in order to develop and test solutions to their programme management problems.

Combined Expertise

Research alone is not sufficient to fill these gaps. It requires the combined expertise of world-class researchers and lead practitioners to design and provide a range of management processes and products that are practical, focused and relevant to organisations’ needs. 

This website will tell you more about who we are and what we are doing. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss what we can do for you.