Opportunity Management

This stage covers the actual commissioning of the change. This happens once the idea has reached the point where it has completed incubation or is initiating in response to a specific requirement that has arisen.

Key decisions are required, primarily which investment period the change will be deployed in. Investment periods will vary between organisations, these can vary from quarterly in organisations that are in fast moving markets, to annually in large utility sectors, these can be up to 5 years.

So depending on a range of factors, it could be this investment period (IP), or IP+1, IP+2 or IP+3 depending on how your organisation plans. An essential consideration is the scale and complexity of the change, this will help to decide whether the change should be classified as a programme or project and how the governance model and lifecycle will be applied.

The factors that should be considered are largely covered by the themes in Align, but some headlines to consider:

• How quick is the return on investment?
• Have you got the money to invest?
• Has your organisation got the capacity to cope?
• Has your organisation got the capability to deliver it?
• What is the level of risk in terms of how likely it is to achieve its full potential?

This stage is used by the portfolio to decide what approach to take and covers the high level milestones that takes the change, develops a more detailed understanding for the complexity of the requirements and selects the best governance and delivery model.