Clients' Responsibilities for Successful Delivery of Projects

The principal role of clients is to ensure that they achieve a solution to their business goals and to do this they have to:

• Apply effective leadership and governance
• Create the project environment for success
• Create interdependent roles and identify their responsibilities
• Provide relationship management (internally and externally)
• Provide strategic thinking, intent and approach and
• Set priorities

Key Tasks & Activities for Clients

The role of project clients is multi-faceted and complex. However, they should focus on following key tasks and activities:

Business Case

Clients should have a clear vision and delivery strategy from the outset. Clients need to identify the business requirements that a proposed project will fulfil and determine how the project sits within their overall business strategy. A clear vision for a project, which states the objectives and outcomes, is critical in justifying it in terms of investment and building the business case.

The objectives and outcomes should be tested as the project progresses to check that it is still on track and that assumptions made in the business case remain valid. The gateway reviews, which some clients use to check the status of their projects at different stages of their maturity provide the opportunity to verify and validate that a project still meets the requirements of the business case.

The Client Brief

The Client Brief should define what the client needs the project to achieve in order to deliver the success and values identified by the client’s vision for the project. The Client Brief should also be anchored by the business case and should set objectives that are clearly within the envelope justified by the business case.

Governance

The term ‘governance’ is used to describe the way in which a project is authorised, conducted and overseen by the client organisation and significant interested parties. It is a mechanism for engaging the client organisation in a project, for securing buy-in of key players and for driving executive decision making. The governance process includes establishing appropriate and effective delegations of responsibilities.

There is no ‘one size fit all’ governance structure. Project governance needs to be appropriate to a project and client organisation specific. Clients typically establish a ‘project board’ to fulfil the governance function. Where an organisation carries out multiple projects, a ‘programme board’ might be established, with project board reporting to it.

Research has shown that a governance process is at its most effective when all interested parties are actively involved and can communicate constructively in an open environment.

Budget and Best Value

Clients should ensure that the budget provided in the business case is realistic and deliver the best value. They should use ‘whole-life costing’. Sustainability and health and safety aspects should also be considered for a project. Value engineering is a tool which should be considered throughout a project to ensure that the most economically advantageous methods and materials are used that the appropriate quality is being maintained.

Programme

Clients should also set a realistic and reasonable programme in the business case, which is likely to be attractive to the marketplace and attract competitive prices. The programme should identify all interdependencies as soon as possible so that the effects (e.g. delay or acceleration) can be identified immediately.

Risk Management

Clients should work on understanding risks and explore opportunities. The risk allocation, risk management and maintaining a risk register is also important. Clients should operate a ‘live’ risk management process which in large organisations is facilitated by risk managers. The risk management includes:

• Eliminating the risks, if possible
• Reducing the likelihood or consequences of negative events
• Identifying the opportunities that would have a positive consequence
• Identifying and understanding complex multiple cross-organisational risks
• Supporting cost control
• Developing best value through optioneering
• Providing visible and auditable governance across all levels of an organisation
• Protecting reputation and stakeholders’ confidence.

Managing the Programme and Change

For many clients their biggest risk is adherence to programme. The project programme is an important tool for clients and is under constant scrutiny. Client should therefore ensure the programme is properly developed at the outset and in doing so make some risk-based assessment for programme contingency or float.

Change is almost inevitable in any project and can be imposed from either internal or external sources. Clients should be able to deal with this and also have change-control procedures in place.

Controlling Cost

Many factors have an influence on cost. Clients should set up projects with factors that will make costs more controllable and give more certainty on outcome. The factors include:

• Strong leadership
• Clear objectives
• Whole life costing
• Realistic budget with adequate risk and contingency pots
• Achievable programme
• Integrated team
• Incentivisation
• Change control
• Risk management
• Interface management
• Non adversarial form of contract.

Communication

Proper communication internally and externally is quite important to run the projects successfully by the Clients.

Stakeholders Management

Stakeholders’ management satisfying the requirements of all parties with an interest or concern in a project is one of the keys to successful delivery of the projects by the Clients.

Lessons Learnt

Last but the not the least, learning from other projects and from working closely with other clients, both within the organisation and in the wider industry is any important task for the Clients. It could be managed by running lessons learnt workshops periodically.