Senior Responsible Owner Tasks

Contribute to and approve the decision on what action to take.

There are only a limited number of options in reality, the change can be ignored as it is believed it will not have any impact,  it can be monitored to see if it develops into something more serious or immediate action can be taken.

A key consideration for the SRO is the impact on your own programme and business performance.

Contribute to and approve the decision on what action to take.

You are the most likely source of ideas for change; they may have come from your programme or business areas, where opportunities or threats have been identified.

More serious changes may affect the risk, cost and benefit profile of each of the programmes. 

Provide advice on which programme the idea may sit within.

At this point there may not be clarity about which programme the idea would fit into, or it may fit into a number.

Interdependencies will be a key consideration when selected the delivery route, so it would be worth flagging those that occur to you up now.

Ensure that the organisations that will be required to deliver the changes are included.

This is the board that you will chair and the organisations that will be supporting you in the delivery. Care needs to be taken to ensure that the people on board carry the authority to make decisions.

Check that the executive team are supporting you.

You are going to be accountable for this document so you must be comfortable with the contents.

It needs to be specific enough to give you and the programme direction but pliable enough to respond to changing circumstances.

The achievement of the Vision Statement and the brief should be one of your personal objectives. From now on, you will own the content and the aspirations of the Vision and brief on behalf of the Portfolio Board, so getting their endorsement would be very sensible.

Present Mandate detail as required to the governance boards and ensure that any recommendations are actioned.

You are likely to be asked to present your Mandate to the Portfolio Board to ensure that all bases are covered. Consider taking your Senior User to the board with you to cover the operational issues and benefits that are being faced.

Approve the financial performance assessment of your programme.

A large contribution to the financial performance will be from your individual programme expenditure, so it is  essential that the numbers being presented reflect your understanding of your own performance.

Options to address situation and implementation.

Approve the programme benefit forecasts.

Ultimately the benefits will be coming from your programme, so you must be content that you can achieve the forecasts.

As part of the programme boards benefits should be under regular review so the numbers should all look familiar.

One of the risks to be wary of is double counting, ensuring you are not also accounting for benefits that are included in another programme is always a wise move.

Approve statutory compliance  performance assessment for your own programme.

Your own programme will be one of the contributing factors to the assessment, so you must be confident that the risk profile and risk register are up to date.

It is worth considering having some independent assurance on the quality of the risk management between your programme and the projects from time to time.

Your business operations are the places where the non-compliance will occur, so the programme should be managing operational risks that are being created within the envelope of the programme and transition.

Produce programme [and project] performance reports and illustrate the impact of change.

This assessment is with your executive team as well as SRO hats on and relates to the stability of the business during the achievement of the outcomes and associated transitions.

It is important to report the lessons learned from a business perspective so that transition and change can be improved going forward.

Authorise the closure process and lead the communications.

You have a number of things to consider as part of initiating closure. Your Portfolio Board will have been consulted on your decision to close the programme, so you should now be looking for backing in acclaiming its success. The other big issue for you to consider is the sustainability of the change and existing processes. It is essential that if the programme is not holding things together and the issue will not come to light until programme closure, this is a significant risk for you to watch out for. The closure communications will be the difference between you being seen as a success or a failure and needs ample focus from you to ensure this is the case. It is also worth considering whether the programme team can be fully objective whilst undertaking the closure, they may have already emotionally moved on, so consider a change if you have doubts about this, the Portfolio/Programme Office could be a good source of support.  

Organise assurance to ensure that all aspects of closure governance have been achieved 

You should keep an eye out that you do not haemorrhage key resources as part of enacting closure. If you lose the knowledge and experience too early this may negatively impact the lasting image of the programme. It is really important that the programme ends on a positive note, even if it closes early. Premature closure is often more courageous than a lingering death. The Programme Review is a critical part of this as it should capture the many positive developments that have happened as such you must lead it.

Authorise the closure

You should remain in place to oversee the formal close down of the programme and to sign off that it has finally closed.

Feed in business analysis information to support evidence and identify new opportunities.

This is about accountability as SRO for what you have achieved. In discussing next steps, you will also input with your executive team hat on.

The evaluation will identify opportunities to improve the effectiveness of change and where and how benefits can be released now that the performance improvements are demonstrated by evidence.

Accountable for the benefits realisation report produced for your programme.

This is the point where you claim the benefit that your programme and change has delivered.

The metrics and indicators should have been identified at the outset and monitored, so it should be relatively straight forward. Baseline performance established at the outset.

The benefits should have been risk rated to so the proportion of the benefit being delivered  will be a key lesson on the effectiveness of this calculation.

Check that the executive team are supporting you

You are going to be accountable for this document so you must be comfortable with the contents.

It needs to be specific enough to give you and the programme direction but pliable enough to respond to changing circumstances.

The achievement of the Vision Statement should be one of your personal critical success factors. From now on, you will own the content and the aspirations of the Vision on behalf of the Portfolio Board, so getting their endorsement would be very sensible.

Ensure key stakeholders understand the evolving model implications.

This is a critical activity so ensure the team have all the information and direction they needed from you. There are going to be a number of options for the ‘To Be’ state, keep them open to avoid early de-selection of options that may become more attractive as the programme moves forward.

Engage the execs who may have projects stopped to explain the reasons

Realignment of projects will not be popular with some of your peers, this will need to be managed sensitively to avoid political resistance. The negative impact will need to be balanced against the benefit of clearing the decks of distracting projects and cost savings.

Ensure the Business Plan priorities are reflected in the Tranche end points. This may involve engaging with execs whose projects should be stopped.

Realignment of projects will not be popular with some of your peers.  Manage this sensitively to avoid political resistance by explaining the rationale behind the culling of certain projects.  Emphasise the benefit of clearing the decks of distracting projects and cost savings involved.

Ensure that the tranches align with other changes in the organisation to coincide with the organisation’s direction and allow you to maintain control.

Assurance of the options will reduce your personal risk at this point

You should lead this process and fully satisfy yourself that the recommendations are deliverable and meet the needs of the Portfolio Board. This is a good point to de-select the least attractive options and select a front runner.

Authorise the programme to continue.

You are now signing up to leading and delivering the programme into the next phase, and launching some early projects. This would be a good point to re-validate your brief and Terms of Reference from the Portfolio Board. It is essential that you gain their endorsement for the way forward to ensure that you are not too personally exposed.

Check all options have been considered. 

This is an opportunity to gain some quick wins if some early projects can be mobilised, without compromising the programme integrity. It is also an opportunity to save resources from unaligned projects by terminating them before of alienating your senior colleagues. Some of the projects that are being closed may well be pet projects of your colleagues. Having a structured approach to analysing and prioritising projects will help your argument.

Check that all the roles have clear defined authority limits and objectives.

The Governance arrangements must give you adequate control and visibility of opportunities and potential threats from all directions. If the strategies are well defined and the processes work, your job will be a lot easier. You should also make sure that it is clear how far your accountability goes, and how much of it can be shared with your colleagues on the Portfolio Board.

The plans need to be balanced and coherent, ensure they reflect reality and risk

You need to be comfortable that the plans are realistic, achievable, and based on good estimation.  Make sure there is no optimistic bias based on over enthusiasm. Using reference sites that have done similar programmes before can provide a useful benchmark and sense check. Plans are invariably over optimistic or fail to make allowance for risks and of course, your time, so be cautious about the plan and the estimates that are used to establish it.

Check that any assumptions have been tested thoroughly and that the business can still cope with this level of change.

It is important during re-validation to ensure that the programme is not too ambitious for the organisation, and that you have the capacity and capability to deliver it before you authorise its launch.

Ensure that the key stakeholders will be involved in supporting the launch.

Be aware that there is about to be step change in competence required as you move from concept and design into setting the pace of delivery and keeping conflicting priorities balanced.

Authorise new projects and any major changes.

You should be looking for assurance from the Programme Manager and the BCMs that the right projects are being launched. There are likely to be problems that you will need to intervene in or provide advice. Don't get too actively involved but beware, failure often starts here.

Ensure appropriate decision making is in place and you are authorising major changes.

Ensure that appropriate controls are working optimally to maintain control.

It is most likely that the programme costs will run out of control at the project level.  You should not be involved with the day to day activities of the projects, but you should be keeping a close eye on costs in relation to the delivery of the outputs to construct the blueprint. Maintain sight of the direction of travel for the programme to ensure it is in line with business strategy.

It is important that you do not get dragged down into the detail as problems will be arising. The Programme Manager should resolve day to day delivery issues (however you being available to offer support is key). A weekly briefing from the Programme Manager and the BCM's is good practice and will help you keep your finger on the pulse of the programme.

Organise an assurance review of the strategic direction to ensure it is still valid.

Lead the review of programme performance to date.

Ensure that the key stakeholders will be involved in supporting the launch of next Tranche.

It is important for your confidence that there is a thorough review and you are being tasked with an achievable programme. If you have doubts, these should be fed into the review, as should reasons why you believe it is unachievable. If the programme is losing its strategic context or momentum or the organisational direction is changing, it is essential that this is considered during these steps.

You have been leading the programme and your impressions, positive or negative should be fed into the review to ensure that areas of weakness are improved and your confidence is increased.

Be aware that there is a change in competence required as you continue to set the pace of delivery and keeping conflicting priorities balanced.

Authorise the programme to continue

You are now signing up to leading and delivering the next wave of your Sponsor colleagues. This would be a good moment to have your terms of reference ratified and ensure you still have their confidence.