Complex programme assurance at the BBC
- OverviewRead more
The BBC commissioned Moorhouse to lead an assurance 'Healthcheck' of its London 2012 project. The project presented a huge opportunity for the BBC in terms of audience engagement, but also significant delivery and reputational risks. Our client-consultant team delivered the Healthcheck over a five-week period. We devised a framework that combined key elements of the BBC's existing model with best practice P3M3 dimensions, that was developed into a reusable Healthcheck 'toolkit' for future BBC use. We based our findings on the London 2012 project on extensive documentation review and interviews with over 20 key personnel across contributing BBC Divisions. We made a number of recommendations that were aligned to business outcomes, end-to-end delivery, governance, and project management processes. All our recommendations were endorsed by the BBC Executive and Trust and we left the BBC with an enhanced focus on project objectives, clarity on risks and issues, and improved management processes.
- Our client's challengeRead more
On behalf of the BBC Trust and Executive Board, the BBC PMO commissioned Moorhouse to lead an independent assurance 'Healthcheck' of its London 2012 project – considered one of the most complex and strategically important ever undertaken by the Corporation. As well as a one-off opportunity for the BBC to make unparalleled gains in reach, quality and impact in audience engagement, the project also represents significant reputational risk: large elements of the project – such as fulfilling the BBC's Digital and Legacy aspirations – have never been attempted on this scale, and call for new ways of working.
- Our responseRead more
Moorhouse led a combined client-consultant team to deliver the healthcheck over an intensive five-week period. A purely 'mechanistic' assurance framework was considered inappropriate for this review. Instead, Moorhouse devised an assurance framework that combined the key elements of the BBC's existing model with additional best practice P3M3 dimensions to develop key lines of enquiry befitting the unique characteristics of L2012 Project. Healthcheck findings were developed through documentation review and interviews with key personnel across project workstreams and contributing BBC Divisions (News, Sport, Digital, etc) – and external stakeholders (e.g. LOCOG, British Council).
- The value to our clientRead more
The joint Moorhouse – BBC review team developed a healthcheck report with key findings, recommendations and action plan aligned to the four key dimensions of the assurance framework:
- Business Outcomes: validating the achievability of the project vision, benefits realisation plan and value for money.
- End-to-End Delivery: assuring the project dependencies, capacity and resource plans and overall deliverability confidence
- Governance: reviewing the organisation structures, financial and decision-making governance processes, and effectiveness of partnership working.
- Project Management Processes: evaluating the effectiveness of the project's performance monitoring and control regime, including implementation of lessons learned from NAO reviews.
All recommendations from the healthcheck report were endorsed by the BBC Executive and Trust and the project team has made significant progress in implementing the proposed action plan.
The BBC L2012 project team has confirmed a number of benefits:
- Increased clarity and focus on project objectives;
- Clear understanding of the key delivery risks and issues to be addressed in the build-up to 2012;
- Greater confidence and capability in the application of project assurance techniques;
- Improved management and reporting processes, giving senior management clearer visibility of key risks, issues and dependencies.
In parallel with conducting the L2012 healthcheck, Moorhouse also developed a repeatable, 'light-touch' assurance process which the BBC has applied to subsequent project and programme reviews.
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