1. Governance and leadership
Strong governance provides the structure for effective oversight and informed decision-making throughout delivery. Clear roles, accountability and escalation processes that reflect the project’s delivery and operating environments are essential.
An SRO’s leadership sets the tone for effective governance. SROs are accountable for delivering project benefits, communicating the project vision, and fostering a culture of transparency, accountability and collaboration. Clear leadership and accountability are critical to successful delivery.
In practice, delivery teams often struggle when key governance roles, such as the SRO, lack clarity, authority or consistent engagement. Without a clear mandate and sustained involvement, governance bodies may be slow to make decisions. This can lead to misaligned priorities, weaker accountability and lost delivery momentum.
Key lessons
SRO authority and capacity
Effective governance requires an SRO with the capacity and authority to lead. The SRO must be able to escalate major issues and resolve them through clear and well-defined processes, ensuring timely decisions and maintaining effective oversight.
Real life learning
A large and interconnected, enterprise-wide program benefited from integrated governance where the same vision, objectives and goals were managed together under one umbrella.
This improved oversight across the program and gave leaders visibility of how projects were connected. It also supported better management of interdependencies, risks, issues, changes and critical resources across priorities and work streams.
Risks and lessons learned were communicated more consistently across projects, helping reduce delays and avoid duplicated effort. Having one integrated governance approach also made it easier to initiate, redefine, accelerate or stop work in line with the program's overall strategic goals and intended benefits.
"I like being a full-time SRO on a program like this, I don't think it would work having someone as an SRO that wasn't able to dedicate their time to the program."
Related actionable insights:
1 - Assess strengths and gaps | 6 - Strengthen governance | 7 - Know the business case
Business and ICT alignment
Strong delivery relies on governance that brings together business and ICT. Integrated governance and planning improve decision-making, risk management and coordination across projects.
Real life learning
A project with high-impact to regulated entities, established structured strategic engagement early to bring business and ICT stakeholders along on the journey and secure buy-in. This included three dedicated working groups: an Industry Reference Group to help resolve implementation challenges, a Technical Working Group to work through technology and testing issues, and a Vendor Working Group to support collaboration and system integration.
These groups created regular and trusted forums to test assumptions, resolve issues early and build shared understanding across business and ICT. This helped support implementation and reinforced that projects with significant external impact need formal structures to engage stakeholders early and often.
Related actionable insights:
2 - Build support networks | 3 - Partner with stakeholders
Safe reporting culture
Projects were more effective when a culture of reporting a project as “Amber” or “Red” was seen as a signal for increased delivery support. It was treated as a trigger for timely decisions, intervention and course correction.
Real life learning
An enterprise data warehouse modernisation project encountered issues it could not always resolve internally. External expertise, including technical SMEs, independent board advisors and assurers were brought in to help the team work through systemic issues and identify practical solutions. In some cases, this required a short pause in delivery while analysis workshops were undertaken, which overall, improved problem resolution and supported better decisions.
Related actionable insights:
4 - Promote safe reporting | 5 - Seek support early
Strategic assurance
Independent assurance providers were more valuable to the project when used as a strategic partner. Assurance is not just an audit. It can provide crucial advice, and guidance, particularly for large or cross-agency programs. Investing in the relationship helped to gain fresh perspectives and support for better decision-making.
"It's important to recognise the role of the assurer is providing the SRO with a fresh set of eyes and guidance. Often, we think of assurance as auditing, but it is practical, relational and interactive, providing a depth of guidance."
Related actionable insights:
Actionable insights
Understand your strengths and gaps early.
Take the time to assess your own capabilities and comfort zones. Identify areas where you may need support and proactively augment those gaps with the right expertise. This could include a self-evaluation tool, engaging an independent board member or SRO advisor, identifying a trusted critical friend who can identify blind spots and provide support, or attending formal leadership training."A really important part of supporting the SROs to do their job is to work out as early as possible ‘what are their strengths’, ‘what areas are they comfortable [in]’, ‘what are their gaps’, and ‘how do you augment those gaps?’"
Practitioner perspective"There's kind of this impression of the SRO, because of the seniority, is an expert across all the things – it's a load of rubbish. No one person can know everything, these things are so complex now they can't."
Practitioner perspective- Build a strong support network.
No SRO succeeds alone. The role can be isolating without organisational backing and structured support. Build a network of people who complement your strengths, share the delivery load and support sound decision-making. - Build a leadership partnership with your senior stakeholders.
Make sure you and your senior partners have the authority and capacity to lead. Use governance documents such as terms of reference to define roles, responsibilities and decision-making clearly. Foster a culture of safe reporting and honest dialogue.
Encourage open, honest communication where team members can raise issues, test ideas and deliver difficult messages without fear. Make it clear that honestly reporting risks and issues is expected and valued."I cannot stress how much that [culture of reporting] has to be a culture across the organisation as well as in the program. It is giving the confidence of the team to go ‘you're not going to get sacked or yelled at if you tell the truth, we actually want you to raise things.’"
- Normalise imperfection and seek support.
Leadership does not mean having all the answers. Create a culture where it is safe to ask for help and work through challenges together. - Make governance meaningful.
Governance should be clear, fit for purpose and adjusted throughout the project lifecycle. Use practical tools, processes and reporting that reflect the real state of the program and support timely decisions. Limit the number of attendees to boards, to ensure the right people are included to make decisions and ensure senior executives can be reached quickly when key decisions are needed. Know your business case inside out.
Do more than review it. Write or co-author key sections where possible. This gives you a clear understanding of the commitments and helps you lead decisions, provide direction and respond to challenge."I had a colleague who was responsible for the first draft of the business case and even though I had reviewed it, it's not the same thing as writing it. The second version I substantially wrote myself, and as a result I know it inside out."