Why Conduct Programme Health Check Reviews?
Conducting a Project or Programme Health Check Review is all about assessing whether a project is on track, identifying risks, and finding ways to improve delivery. It’s a structured way to step back and see what’s really going on – this can be like a “pulse check” or a more, formal “assurance review”.
Key reasons for undertaking health checks include:
- To increase the chance of a programme delivering success.
- To receive advice, external challenge and an independent viewpoint.
- To increase visibility of likely process failure and major risks so that senior managers are aware and can mitigate.
- To review the effectiveness of the current processes and controls within existing programmes.
- To review existing programme management capability and prioritise areas for development.
- To conduct due diligence on the processes and controls applied to key programmes.
- To address the greater regulatory need to report on a broader range of governance and controls.
Typical situations that managers may face include:
- Existing programme is failing to deliver results, overrunning and overspending.
- Senior executives or stakeholders need an accurate and objective assessment of whether or not a programme is being managed effectively.
- Previous history of programmes overrunning in terms of cost and time.
- Senior executives are concerned and frustrated with the organisations inability to deliver programmes.
- Absence of formal documentation surrounding projects and programmes.
- Lack of standardised project/programme management methodologies in use.
- Multiple, uncoordinated programmes.
Key benefits of a review should include:
- Provides independent and objective verification on the health of a programme and the degree to which the programme is on track.
- Helps reduce likelihood of failure through the identification of ineffective processes, controls and early warning of issues and risks to delivery.
- Provides a clear, prioritised checklist of areas for improvement.
- Provides a comparison with best practice benchmarks and/or access to knowledge and lessons from other programmes.
- Addresses the need to demonstrate effective control and risk management both internally and externally.
- Provides accurate and detailed reporting which is not subject to internal bias for over-optimism.
- Onward requirements identified, such as capability building or programme turnaround.
Approach to Programme Health Checks
Your approach should be designed to minimise the total time and effort spent on the review, whilst the final report should be focused on forward looking actions to enhance confidence in delivery of the programme. There are 5 key steps to undertake a programme health check review:
Here’s how to do it:
1A. Plan the Health Check (Assurance) Review
- Allocate 5 – 10 days in total to complete the review, depending on the size and complexity of the programme under review (see Figure 5 for a major programme)
- 1 hour review assessment with the programme sponsor and manager, including initial programme complexity assessment
- The programme team provides the reviewer with key programme documentation for review
- Structured interviews of 5 – 10 key stakeholders for the programme
- Workshop with key stakeholders to agree the findings, recommendations and actions in the draft health check report
In total, a typical health check requires the following time from the programme team:
- 2 hours for the programme sponsor
- 3-4 hours for the programme manager
- 1 hour for each of the other programme stakeholders interviewed
- 2 hours recommendations & actions workshop participation
1B. Define the Scope of the Review
Why you’re doing it: Is it a routine check, a response to issues, or a phase-end review?
What you’ll review: Time, cost, scope, quality, resources, risks, stakeholder engagement, etc.
Who’s involved: Project manager, team members, stakeholders, possibly external reviewers.
2. Gather Key Project Documentation
Pull together things like:
- Project or programme charter
- Project or programme plan and schedule
- Risk register
- Issue log
- Budget reports
- Status reports
- Change logs
- Deliverables
3. Conduct Stakeholder Interviews or Surveys
Talk to:
- Project sponsor(s)
- Project manager
- Core team
- Key stakeholders
Ask open-ended questions like:
- What’s going well?
- What’s not working?
- Where are the biggest risks?
- Do you feel informed and involved?
It really helps to have an effective health check framework, such as the one below, which is accompanied by a pre-prepared stakeholder interview questionnaire:
4A. Analyse Project Performance
Compare actual vs. planned:
- Scope: Are we delivering what was agreed?
- Schedule: Are we on time?
- Cost: Are we within budget?
- Quality: Are outputs meeting requirements?
- Risk: Are risks being managed?
- Resources: Are skills and capacity sufficient?
- Stakeholder engagement: Is communication effective?
Use RAG (Red-Amber-Green) status indicators to simplify the visual view.
4B. Identify Key Findings
Highlight:
- Successes and best practices
- Issues and bottlenecks
- Misalignments or scope creep
- Hidden risks or concerns
4C. Make Recommendations
Provide actionable suggestions:
- Re-plan certain aspects
- Improve communication or governance
- Reallocate resources
- Adjust scope or timelines
5A. Document & Present the Review
Create a Project Health Check Report that includes:
- Answers to specific questions and lines of enquiry requested by the programme sponsor and team.
- A management summary outlining overall assurance RAG status and key issues.
- Recommendations and actions for the programme team to take forward, organised by theme.
- Provides evidence and details to support the findings and recommendations, documented either within the report and/or detailed notes within the health check review tool.
- Next steps
Present it in a meeting or workshop with key stakeholders.
5B. Follow Up
Monitor implementation of recommendations.
Schedule the next health check if it’s an ongoing review.
Next Steps
If you are an executive responsible for projects/programmes and have:
- recognised the issues and risks of complex programmes and /or identified a specific challenge relating to current or planned programme delivery.
- understood any internal limitations concerning capacity, experience, capability and degree of independence required.
- stated an interest in undertaking a programme diagnostic / health check and the associated rigour of programme assessment.
The next step can be to discuss the specific terms of reference and speed with which Namaste Management can complete a programme health check review for you (usually within 5 -10 days.) Naturally, as you would expect, we have a dedicated toolset to ensure this is as swift and effective for you as possible:
