Public sector

Harmonising the project management practices of a public institution

Give a public institution a shared project management framework, so that projects become comparable and trade-offs possible.

PMO
Project management
Governance
Practice harmonisation

Modular structure made of identical repeated elements

Context

A public institution running many projects at once, carried by separate directorates. Each directorate had built its own method, its own vocabulary and its own reporting formats. The projects were being tracked, but separately: nothing allowed them to be compared, or overall progress to be judged.

The challenge

To build a common framework without adding one more layer of bureaucracy. It had to be light enough to be genuinely applied, structured enough to make projects comparable, and flexible enough to cover technical projects and organisational ones alike.

What AXENEO did

The work we carried out

01
Stocktake and methodological framework
- Inventory of the projects under way and of the steering practices, directorate by directorate
- Analysis of the gaps between methods, and identification of a realistic common base
- Definition of a shared project life cycle: phases, milestones, expected deliverables
- A typology of projects, so that the level of rigour matches what is at stake
02
Tooling and indicators
- Document templates: scoping note, project plan, steering committee minutes
- Common tracking indicators — progress, risks, dependencies, decisions pending
- A single reporting format, readable by project owners and by senior management alike
- A consolidated portfolio view, fed by the projects themselves
03
Governance and take-up
- Definition of the bodies: perimeter, frequency, participants, nature of the decisions
- Clarification of the roles between business owner, delivery and steering
- Training for the project managers, and support on their real projects
- Support over time, with the framework adjusted through the first cycles

Results

What the set-up changed

Results are described qualitatively. We do not publish figures we would not be able to document.

A shared project management framework, applied across the different directorates.
A common vocabulary and common milestones, which make projects comparable.
A consolidated portfolio view, fed by the projects rather than rebuilt.
Steering bodies with clarified roles, where trade-offs are documented.
Project managers trained in the framework and supported on the projects they are running.