Program Health Check

Definitions and structures

Vision definition

The Vision Statement provides a customer-facing definition of what to expect from the transformed business – its capabilities, service levels, costs and so on. The changed business might be to deliver a particular service, to perform the same service but in a more efficient way, or to be better than the competition.

Blueprint

The Blueprint defines the structure and composition of the changed organisation that, after delivery, should demonstrate the capabilities expressed in the Vision Statement. The Blueprint is a detailed description of what the organisation looks like in terms of its business processes, people, information systems and facilities and its data. It is used to maintain the focus of the programme on the delivery of the new capability.

Programme Mandate

The Programme Mandate is the trigger for the programme. The programme mandate should describe the strategic requirements of the programme and clearly map back to the overall strategic plans of the organisation.  It must describe the business changes that will result and how these impact existing services and strategies

Business case

The Business Case is used to obtain management commitment and approval for investment in business change, through rationale for the investment. The Business Case provides a framework for planning and management of the business change. The ongoing viability of the programme will be monitored against the Business Case at least at the end of every key stage within the programme.

Benefit profile

The benefit profile provides a full description of each benefit. The identification, monitoring and measurements of benefits are a fundamental part of successful Programme Management.

Benefit realisation plan

The Benefits Realisation Plan is a complete view of all the Benefit Profiles in the form of a schedule defining when each benefit or groups of benefits will be realised and any handover activities that are required. This plan will be developed alongside the Programme Plan and Business Case to ensure close alignment between delivery of capability and realisation of benefits against associated costs and risks.

Programme Brief

The Programme Brief is developed in Identifying a Programme Process and is the starting point for the programme definition. The purpose of this document is to provide an outline justification for the programme including its objectives, risks, cost, timescale and effort estimates. The creation of the Programme Brief avoids having to spend a large amount of time and effort on the full definition prior to deciding whether to continue or not

Stakeholder & communication

A stakeholder inventory is a useful way of mapping the various stakeholders against their interests in the programme and its activities and outcomes. On the basis of this inventory a communication-plan need to be setup.