Project Management Training for UK Charities

What are the advantages of specialist training for charities?

Managing IT projects can be difficult for all organisations, but charities have unique challenges. People working on projects may wear several hats; stakeholder management is complex, coordinating the activities of volunteers can be difficult, budgets are usually constrained, it may be difficult to demonstrate value to donors and there may be a fixed deadline. A failed project can have a severe impact on a charity. In the worst-case scenario, its existence could be put at risk.

Off-the-shelf training programmes rarely cover issues faced by charities. You need specialist training that understands the unique challenges and opportunities of your sector. An example is selecting and using the right methodology. Charities have specific requirements in selecting and using IT project management methodologies. The gaps between the standard methodologies and the requirements of charities can create real issues. Pathway is a specialist in selecting, training and implementing pragmatic methodologies that work for charities.

Traditional approaches assume full-time resources, substantial contingency budgets, and established governance structures. Charities operate differently, and your training should reflect this. In our courses we include the requirement to view each project holistically and use the approach that will give you the highest probability of success.

Why specialist charity training is more effective

Specialist training takes the following factors into account:

• Project initiation for a charity project must consider the differences in funding between a typical corporation and a charity.
• Working with stakeholders may be more complex on a charity project due to the number and types of stakeholders. Donors, beneficiaries and regulators are examples of additional stakeholders. 
• Resource constraints and the impact on scheduling and the overall project timeline.
• Risk management is critical on charity projects, and the training should include pragmatic risk management principles and tools that work in your sector.
• How to agree on and measure critical success factors that are meaningful for all stakeholders. Please remember to include social benefits as well as return on investment.

IT methodology – Gaps and project failures 

Delivering IT projects is extremely difficult, and this is proven by the high failure rate. At least 65 per cent of projects terminate before the cutover, exceed the budget, or fail to yield the anticipated benefits. So, what are the root causes of the failures?

Pathway has been working on rescuing business-critical projects and programmes for many years. This experience provides a unique insight into the core reasons for the failures. There are multiple reasons projects aren’t delivered, but the common threads are:

1.  Poor project initiation.
2. Project budget issues.
3. Not defining critical success factors and benefit management.
4. Issues with the communication plan.
5. Quality assurance failures.
6. Issues that aren’t discovered in standard testing phases.
7. Lack of preparation for cutover.

These are also the areas that standard methodologies pay the least amount of attention to. (If they are covered at all.)

There is a direct relationship between the gaps in methodology and severe project issues. The failure rate of 65 per cent may sound high, but many experienced project managers will have worked on projects that have been restarted several times. It’s not a coincidence that so many projects are named Phoenix!

Let’s look at the seven common threads and the associated training requirements in more detail.

Essential elements of charity-focused training

1.     Understanding key elements of project initiation

Professional project initiation is essential for charities. A London-based consultancy found that problems with project initiation were responsible for 80 per cent of project failures.

Your training should cover the common issues with project initiation including the following items: 

• Lack of focus on dependencies and constraints.
• Underestimating effort. (Tasks typically take twice as long as the estimate.)
• Overestimating project team and third-party resource availability.
• Not allowing adequate time for the first use of development tools or implementation of new technologies. 
• Insufficient focus on training, non-functional tests, data quality, and security.
• Not including business and cutover dress rehearsals in the plans.
• Lack of alignment with the organisation’s strategic objectives.
• Not including critical success factors.
• Unrealistic timescales and budgets.
• Not preparing detailed plans on projects/programmes that require them. 

These are examples; there are many more potential issues with project initiation.

The project initiation phase must be given the time and attention required. There may be a hard deadline for delivery, but don’t skimp on project initiation. Please remember that the level of documentation for this phase must be commensurate with the size of the project or programme.

Please don’t overlook activities in the initiation stage. As you move through the project lifecycle, the cost of correcting omissions increases exponentially. This scenario applies to both Agile and Waterfall projects. For instance, neglecting security requirements at project initiation could lead to alterations in the product and infrastructure.

Key activities in project initiation

The following are example key project initiation activities. The Project Initiation Document (PID) should contain the following sections:

• Background.
• Project definition.
• Project budget.
• Managing GDPR.
• Social impact measurement and outcomes-based reporting.
• Alignment of the project with your charity’s objectives and grant requirements.
• Project objectives, including critical success factors.
• Project methodology.
• Project scope.
• In scope.
• Out of scope.
• Deliverables.
• The project resource responsible for the deliverables.
• Constraints.
• Dependencies.
• Assumptions.
• Quality assurance.
• Risk management.
• Test approach.
• Dress rehearsals.
• Cutover planning. 
• Post go-live support. 

Other items may need to be added or removed depending on the type and complexity of the project. This is a critical document; allocate the appropriate amount of time to prepare the PID.

2.    Project budget issues

Please remember that activities take, on average, over twice as long to complete compared to the estimate.

On some projects you will be given a budget to work to, and on others you may be asked to provide estimates and work with the stakeholders to agree on the budget. If you are involved in setting the budget, ensure the estimating process is rigorous. This is critical; you don’t want to go back to the project board for additional budget. This undermines confidence at best, and in the worst-case scenario, additional budget is not available, resulting in the project being cancelled.

However, we all know that things in the real world can impact projects. Agree on a reasonable contingency percentage based on your confidence in the estimates.

Managing project budgets is critical for charities. The training must include estimating the budget, agreeing on contingency, managing the budget throughout the project lifecycle and budget reporting. 

3.    Benefits management plan 

The key to a benefits management or critical success factors plan is being able to measure the outcome of the project. This section of the document should contain the following information:

• Descriptions of the critical success factors.
• The methods for measuring and reporting the factors.
• Stakeholders and business owners that will be involved in the review of the project.
• Project owners responsible for delivering the required outcome.

4.   Communications plan

In many cases the communications plan isn’t delivered at the start of the activities, and this is a mistake. It is critical to keep the team and stakeholders updated from the beginning of the project. Such communication builds confidence in the management of the tasks and prevents people from making assumptions on progress.

Please ensure that you are delivering relevant messages to the different stakeholders. The IT teams will have different communication requirements compared to the senior stakeholders. 

Align the communications and reporting to the dates of the programme board meetings. Furthermore, please don’t use IT jargon or acronyms in communications to senior stakeholders.

5.    Quality assurance

A quality plan is an essential component of a successful project. How many times have you heard the following statement? ‘Quality assurance is just part of managing a project.' Please push back on this. A document with the following is required to ensure that you deliver a quality project:

• Quality standard principles. You should adhere to principles that are relevant to the project you are managing.
• The individual or individuals accountable for meeting the predetermined quality standards.
• Quality standard measures. (Data quality, training satisfaction, reduction in manual effort, delivery of critical success factors, risk score, IT and business cutover readiness, dress rehearsal results, etc.)
• Quality reviews.
• Quality reports.

As with all documentation and activities, take a pragmatic approach. This doesn’t need to be a long document, but it will be beneficial to prepare a quality plan and communicate it to the project team and stakeholders.

6.   Issues that aren’t discovered in standard testing phases

There are several serious issues with the standard approach to testing on IT projects, and these can have serious implications for charity projects. They include:

• Test coverage. Scripts and scenarios may not represent the complete business process.
• Assumptions regarding timings. It's possible that issues won't surface until after the cutover. This is a particular risk for complex business processes with multiple steps.
• Limited user participation. When a relatively small number of people test for the entire organisation, issues may be missed, including data issues that can cause severe disruption.
• Lack of exposure to the new systems is a problem if you have a limited number of users involved in testing.
• Using data that does not reflect BAU after cutover. This can cause issues on any type of project, but the problems can be acute on finance or safety-critical systems. 
• Security testing may not be scheduled at the appropriate time. Updating the security configuration may take considerably longer than anticipated. In addition, third-party organisations may have a long lead time for retesting.

These issues are the reason dress rehearsals are invaluable. 

Dress rehearsals

Dress rehearsals reduce risk substantially, and they do more than any other activity to prepare the organisation for go-live. They can be included in any project, work with all methodologies, and provide a high level of cutover assurance.

Let’s look at two types of dress rehearsals: business scenario dress rehearsals and cutover dress rehearsals. Let’s start with business dress rehearsals.

What are business scenario dress rehearsals? 

In this activity, users complete core business processes in an isolated environment to provide the highest level of assurance for cutover and BAU. The business decides on the key business scenarios with advice from the project team, if required.

What are the principles of dress rehearsals? 

• Users run their critical business processes in a dedicated environment to prove readiness for go-live.
• The mindset of the dress rehearsal participants is that this is the first day of go-live.
• The business scenarios are agreed upon, and the users run them exactly as they will in BAU.
• Test scripts are not used.
• The dress rehearsal sequence is based on business priority and level of risk. The most critical ones are completed first. Please note that multiple scenarios may be run in parallel.
• Superusers assist the participants, and the support team is on call in case there are any issues.
• People responsible for the role after go-live should complete the activities in the dress rehearsal. They could identify system or data problems that the test phases overlooked.
• Run at least the first week’s BAU activities and additional weeks if possible. (One full month is recommended.)
• Include any additional priority activities, such as critical reports, and so on.
• Dress rehearsals are not a rerun of UAT or any other test phase.
• Ideally, production data should be used for the dress rehearsals to ensure data quality and to confirm the validity of the dress rehearsals. Run real-life scenarios using live data wherever possible. For example, processing a full day’s worth of transactions.
• Roles and permissions are validated to ensure they will support BAU processing.
• Run integrations using the production schedules and BAU volume data to prove timing.

7.    Lack of preparation for cutover

A failed cutover is an unmitigated disaster for a project team and the charity. After all the work during the project lifecycle and the effort of achieving approval to go live, aborting the cutover over the weekend is soul-destroying. The result is additional work for the team, concerned stakeholders and disappointed users. This is not the result any project manager wants.

What’s amazing is how often people claim that simply walking through the runbook with a paper-based exercise will ensure everything goes smoothly during the cutover. Please don’t take their advice! The stakes are too great to depend solely on a plan review.

The only way to have the assurance you need is to complete a cutover dress rehearsal. You may hear dissenting voices explaining all the reasons why this can’t be done, but please push back on this. You may have been told that there aren't enough resources, they don’t have a suitable environment, the data isn’t ready, security settings haven’t been signed off or any number of other excuses why the cutover dress rehearsal is impossible.

Please do everything possible to run a cutover dress rehearsal. If you are close to cutover and critical data and security activities are outstanding, demanding a rehearsal will focus minds and ensure completion before cutover.

This is a critical activity, and quality project management training for charities will include cutover management.

Please find below an overview of cutover dress rehearsals.

What Are Cutover Dress Rehearsals?

Cutover dress rehearsals are specifically designed to verify your readiness for go-live by simulating every task in the cutover runbook. These rehearsals take place in an isolated environment or, ideally, in your To Be production setup. Here’s what makes them special:

• They focus on executing all technical tasks, such as data migration and integrations, exactly as they’d happen during the actual cutover period.
• They include communication protocols, ensuring everyone involved knows what to do and when to do it. 
• They address data quality assurance. Using production or mirrored data lays bare any hidden issues that could derail your go-live.

Cutover rehearsals create a safety net, capturing potential problems before they have real consequences.

Key Principles of Cutover Dress Rehearsals

1.     Follow Every Step in the Runbook

The cutover runbook is the reference document. The purpose of rehearsals is not only to complete tasks but also to ensure that each step is feasible and within the allocated timeframe. If you can’t meet the timings, please find out why and adjust.

2.     Treat Time as a Constraint

Timings dictate the success of your cutover. Will an eight-hour data load really complete in that timeframe? Can integrations activate without bottlenecks? Dress rehearsals let you refine and perfect these timings.

3.     Prioritise End-to-End Practice

From initial notifications to final system checks, every detail matters. Ensure members responsible for their respective roles during cutover are also the ones performing these duties during rehearsals. This continuity boosts confidence and reduces uncertainty.

4.     Validate Data Quality

Use real data wherever possible. This not only uncovers data migration issues but also ensures end-to-end integrity across systems.

5.     Include Communications

Cutover rehearsals aren’t just technical exercises. They also test your communication plan. Simulate conversations between stakeholders and test how effectively updates are shared during each phase.

Project examples that show the value of these activities 

Every project is different. Understanding how to view each one holistically and add the required actions is critical. You need proven principles and actions that work with any methodology.

A few examples include:

• A leading charity introduced a new system to enhance support for hundreds of remote staff. This complex digital transformation initiative was a major cultural change that replaced manual processes. At the beginning of the project, there was considerable concern regarding the level of transformation. Effective communications, quality training, and dress rehearsals with 95 per cent participation resulted in a smooth go-live. A senior manager called a meeting to discuss his concerns about the ‘low level of system usage’. He based this assumption on expected support calls to the help desk. There were very few calls, despite everyone at work using the application. He was very pleased with the transition to BAU and said that the results proved the benefits of dress rehearsals.
• A major programme for a prestige car company required professional project initiation and management. There was a hard deadline and fixed budget on this multi-year programme. Work packages were used to define deliverables, resource requirements, dependencies, budget, start/completion date, objective and success measures. The work packages were used as building blocks for the detailed plan. They were also used extensively for reporting to senior stakeholders. The project was delivered on time and £10K under the original budget. On average, projects of this type went back to their boards four times for additional funding.
• An insurance company with over 5 million customers replaced their legacy systems with a leading claims management system. The cutover was complex and time-constrained. It required detailed planning with tasks at no more than 15-minute intervals. The estimates for data migration were incorrect. After a change in strategy and a cutover dress rehearsal, the team confirmed the timings. This allowed the system to go live successfully.

Summary

Pathway IT Consultants Ltd offers specialists project management training courses and consultancy for project initiation, dress rehearsals, and cutover management for charities. The principles taught in the courses have played a crucial role in the success of major programmes for leading companies in the media, automotive, insurance, banking and charity sectors in the UK.

The Pathway IT project management courses are pragmatic and provide invaluable insights that will allow you to deliver complex projects with certainty. They are available in Milton Keynes or at your location anywhere in the UK as instructor-led or self-study courses. 

Best of luck with your projects!