• Translate the strategy into operational goals;
• Communicate the strategy and link it to corporate, executive and individual performance;
• Validate the business plan against the performance measures of the strategy; and
• Leverage feedback and insights to adjust the strategy to the reality of the business.

 
Performance Management
Our project Performance Management process integrates Earned Value and Technical Performance Management. The result provides our clients with the ability to:

• Forecast future programmatic performance by integrating project cost, schedule and technical performance.
• Connect product requirements and their quality through an integrated master plan that establishes the baseline measures of technical performance.
• Measure objective progress through physical deliverables using indicators of product quality with cost and schedule performance.

Risk Management
Managing programmatic and technical risk involves more than making lists and checking them twice. It means actively mitigating risks with the same project management processes used to deliver the project.

Risk management involves four categories:

• Variation – by simulating scenarios of timing, duration and cost variance, the project manager can identify buffers that isolate completion dates and budget caps from these naturally occurring variances.
• Foreseen risks – requires alternative paths through the project plan with supporting budget and intervention strategies.
• Unforeseen risks – constantly probing for emerging risk enables the project management team to react quickly with alternative plans.
• Chaos – a fundamental change to the project cannot be handled by an alternative plan. It requires a complete redefinition of the project. An “Options” based analysis approach must be applied.

Because all four of these risk types can coexist on an enterprise IT project, the Lewis & Fowler Risk Management approach provides specific tools to address each type. These tools include Monte Carlo simulation, Real Options Theory, Decision Trees and continuous verification of the original project hypothesis.


Technical Performance Management
Technical Performance Management (TPM) is a concept absent in most project management processes, yet it is critical to the business success of any IT project. Cost growth and schedule slippage often occur when unrealistic technical performance goals are required. Managing the technical performance of IT projects is part of both programmatic and technical Risk Management.

Our approach to TPM starts with establishing performance measures during the planning phase of the project, which will then guide the project management processes along the path.  Achievement of TPM, at specific times in the project, is an indication of increasing maturity of the project deliverables.