Theme 3, Article 1: Why integration determines project, programme and portfolio performance

This is the first article in my third series on transformation, the theme of which is Designing an Integrated Delivery System.

There is a version of transformation delivery that looks right on paper.

The projects have plans. The programme has a governance structure. Risks are logged. Milestones are tracked. Boards receive reports. Responsibilities have been allocated.

Yet the transformation can still struggle to deliver the outcomes expected of it.

Why?

Because well-managed components do not necessarily make a well-integrated delivery system.

The integration problem

Projects do not deliver transformation independently.

They depend on other projects. They consume shared resources. They produce outputs that other parts of the programme depend upon. Their risks can affect other delivery areas. Decisions made in one part of the system can create consequences somewhere else.

Programmes, in turn, do not operate independently of the wider portfolio or the organisation.

This creates a fundamental distinction between managing the components of delivery and integrating those components into a system that can perform as intended.

Integration is therefore not simply about coordination.

It is about the relationships between the parts.

When those relationships are weak, information can become fragmented, dependencies can be missed, decisions can be delayed, and problems can remain within one part of the delivery system until their consequences appear elsewhere in the system.

The individual components may still look healthy.

The system may not be.

Integration is a performance issue

This is important because project, programme and portfolio performance are often assessed largely through the performance of their individual components.

• Is the project on schedule?

• Is the programme within tolerance?

• Are the risks being managed?

• Is the portfolio delivering its planned investment?

  
  

Those are necessary questions., but they are not sufficient.

• A project can be on track while another project is falling behind and creating a dependency that has not yet been recognised.

  
  

• A programme can report green while a decision required from another governance level remains unresolved.

  
  

• A portfolio can appear balanced while several programmes are competing for the same scarce capability.

The problem is not necessarily poor management within the individual components.

It can be a failure of integration between them.

Integration has to be designed

It is tempting to treat integration as something that experienced programme managers and good governance will create during delivery.

That is unreliable.

The relationships between projects, programmes, portfolios, and the wider organisation need to be considered deliberately.

• What information needs to move between them?

  
  

• Which dependencies matter?

  
  

• Where does accountability sit when an issue crosses organisational or programme boundaries?

  
  

• Which decisions belong where?

  
  

• How does information move when something changes?

  
  

• How are consequences in one part of the system made visible to those who need to act elsewhere?

These are design questions.

They cannot be resolved simply by adding another meeting, another report or another layer of governance.

The system matters

The performance of a transformation is therefore influenced not only by how well its individual components are managed, but by how well those components work together.

That is the starting point for this series.

The next article will explore what this means in practice: moving from a collection of methods, projects, programmes, and governance arrangements towards an integrated delivery system.

The central proposition is straightforward:

Transformation performance depends on more than the performance of its individual parts. It depends on how effectively those parts are designed to work together.