Business Implementation offering helps clients gain project success

RGP has developed an offering which, according to the consultancy, provides for the elements needed to gain programme and project success.

Based on reviews of troubled projects around the world, the International Project Leadership Academy recently identified 101 common causes for project failures. An analysis of the list shows that the majority of the causes are business owned; only a few fall within the responsibility of external stakeholders, such as system integrators, third party vendors or advisers. The top 10 Project Failures highlighted by the research:

• Poor software fit/inadequate requirements
• Business leadership is not committed to the implementation
• Insufficient team resources
• Lack of accountability to make timely, high quality decisions
• Lack of investment in change management
• Insufficient training/support
• Insistence on making new solution look like legacy
• Insufficient data cleansing
• Insufficient funding
• Lack of testing 

The researchers conclude that projects are significantly more likely get into trouble if the business does not take ownership of tasks, like managing the business change, or ensuring sufficient data cleansing and user acceptance testing. One of the stakeholders commonly blamed for subpar implementation execution is the systems integrator. On the matter, the study highlights that while systems integrators are specialised in designing and building solutions, they are not in a position to lead business engagement to ensure project success. 

RGP’s Business Implementation offering

In a bid to help managers at organisations with successfully running their programmes, RGP has developed an offering, dubbed ‘Business Implementation’, that nutures and embeds business ownership into programmes. The approach, which is customised along the lines of client specifics, builds on five key pillars: project management, change management, data management, quality assurance and test management. According to the firm’s decade long experience in the field – the consultancy serves 87 of the Fortune 100 and says it boasts a 100% retention rate at its top 50 clients – RGP states that through leveraging the approach, clients can enjoy improvements in project success leading to tangible gains in bottom-line results. 

An overview of four testimonials from RGP’s ‘Business Implementation’ offering:

Project recovery and quality assurance

RGP recovered the client’s various IT projects, while maintaining the organisation’s €70 million IT budget. RGP:

• Developed and led the Program Management Office (PMO).
• Performed a system review.
• Project managed the client’s SAP re?implementation and roll out.
• Performed Quality Assurance (QA) tests.
• Provide end?user training and post?go live support.

Development and deployment

At a large client, RGP implemented and lead three separate PMOs (IT, Operations, Servicing).

• Supported full life cycle of building multiple systems.
• Gathered requirements.
• Supported creation and review of functional specifications.
• Led project management of offshore development team.
• Planned and conducted user acceptance testing (UAT).

System selection

The client engaged RGP to evaluate potential HR solutions to identify a solution that would best meet their business needs. RGP:

• Captured the system requirements.
• Worked with the client to prioritise issues and requirements.
• Created the vendor RFP and narrowing down the initial list of vendors.
• Supported the Client on vendor calls and helped review and score the RFP responses received.

Data migration

A multinational life insurance firm needed to migrate master data and transactional data from middle and back office operations into its new investment operations and accounting systems. RGP:

• Planned and designed data transformation approach with client.
• Supported data cleansing and validation.
• Led data conversion and reconciliation cycles, including variance monitoring, analysing root causes and recommending solutions.
• Provided post go?live support to adjust data?variance as a “true up” process and developed data dictionary for on?going reference.