Portfolio, Program, and Project Management Business Process Re-engineering

ThemeCountry / regionPartners
Public Sector Capacity DevelopmentMENAMouchel (Lead)
Edward Carroll
PROJECT TITLE: Strengthening the governance of strategic initiatives, programmes, and projects in the Ministry of Energy

The Client

Engaged by an international management consulting firm in the Gulf, our Antylles Expert lead the complete re-design of the Portfolio, Program, and Project Management business processes for a Ministry responsible for Local Government. The overall transformational program aimed to align the Ministry’s business practices with international best practices in governance, project investment and risk management, strategy execution, portfolio management, program management, project management, and PMOs.

The Challenge

As part of the country’s ongoing efforts to modernise its public sector, the Ministry responsible for Local Government saw fit to re-design its management and support business processes. Because the Ministry was responsible for the deliver of a +$1 billion portfolio of municipal infrastructure projects, the division responsible for delivery was found to be in need to better ways of making decisions, engaging stakeholders and delivering its projects.

The Solution

This project deployed seven major deliverables:

  1. PM Maturity Assessment (AS IS) and documentation of the current and future states.
  2. PM Policy framework and operating model setting out the PM and investment lifecycle standards
  3. Detailed design of all investment, portfolio, program, and project management (TO BE) processes and all supporting forms, templates etc.
  4. Initial training and briefing of staff on the new approaches.
  5. Organisation design of all strategy and PMO structures including recommended staffing, skills, roles, and responsibilities.
  6. Documented the training/mentoring plan, transition plan, and change management plan.
  7. Evaluated and selected Microsoft Project and Project Server for adoption.

Assess Phase: In this phase our Antylles’ expert met with Ministry staff to build a shared understanding of the management of programmes and projects in the Ministry. Using the PM Maturity Model (PMMM), PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge, and the UK Treasury’s Green Book (”standard”) for Project Appraisals as the framework for the assessment, the strengths and weaknesses of the current state were assessed.

Design Phase: Once the plan had been reviewed and approved, our Antylles’ expert led a team to support the Head of Programme Management to co-design and plan an ideal future state for his function to establish the portfolio, programme, and project management organisational business processes, and the structures, roles, responsibilities, and authorities required to operate them.

Deliver/Empower Phase: Once approved, this phase operationalised the project management framework, functions, and processes; published the standard operating procedures as part of the project management manual, briefed staff on the new approaches, and managed organisational change.

Embed/Improve: Due to the requirement to train and mentor staff in Arabic, the engagement did not cover the Embed phase, instead, our expert documented the training and mentoring strategy for the Ministry to implement using their internal training resources. This enabled them to continue to embed the changes into their day-to-day operations, assess performance and define further improvement opportunities.

The Result

The programme was the first major reorganisation of the way the department performed its work. It created a new baseline for its strategy execution and project management capabilities and created a firm foundation for the next phase of modernisation projects such as a Project Management Information System (PMIS), continued staff training and mentoring, implementation and certification of ISO 9001 Quality Management standard, and an Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) system.


Contact our expert with direct experience in this case study: Edward Carroll.