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Peter Again you seem to have got the hang of this quite quickly. My only comment is to say that as a marker I can only give you five sets of 10 points, so your opening paragraph fantastic as it is, won't earn you any extra marks. Did you do this open book? As we approach the exam you will need to practice closed book. Also did you manage to download those documents from the APM website?

This took longer 20 mins but hope ok! Describe five of the key principles of project governance? Make sure you include five clear points in your answer, describe what governance is and why it is important. Try to illustrate each point with any example where possible. 1. Project Governance ensures that there is clear oversight of all projects within an organisation and any gap between the projects and the board of directors is met. It is important to ensure clear lines of responsibility are established and policy is set for the whole organisation, to minimise the risk of projects failing and not meeting their objectives. 2. A key element of good project governance is that there are clear lines of responsibility in place and that the organisation has clearly defined roles such as who is the project sponsor and if they will have a programme manager for example to manage more than one project. The roles and people across the organisation such as the project manager and any team and the users understand the reporting structures and methods. 3. A key principle of project governance is that all project need to have an approved project plan in place containing what and when the stages are that authorization is required to continue. This would for example be relevant to a gate review where the project plan has been developed during the definition phase and needs full agreement and sign off before the implementation phase begins. 4. It is important part of project governance to ensure that all project plans and programmes meet the organisations aims and objectives. This will enable an organisation to make the best use of its finance and resources and not waste time and effort on carrying out a project that will be of no benefit to the organisation or it’s stakeholders. This is also sometimes achieved via a robust portfolio management where for example the portfolio manager can ensure that all the projects and programmes within the portfolio meets the objectives of an organisation and can decide which may be in or out as required. 5. The organisation should always foster a culture of open and honest disclosure that aims to continually improve the organisational learning from what it has done. This could for example mean that a project manager feels able to say when the project is not going so well and may be failing to meet its key milestones dates. This will enable prompt action to be taken if required by the sponsor and the learning from the mistakes made and also the successes can be used in future projects as ‘lessons learned’.

The purpose of project governance is to fill the gap between the project environment and that of the organisation. Good project governance should address such questions as: •Who appoints the sponsor? •What methods will be used on the project? •Who will carry out project assurance? •Are project sponsors competent? •Does the organisation have a culture of open and honest reporting? Project governance has a significant bearing on the success or failure of a project and its absence could place the project at risk. Project governance is not designed to replace organisational governance, but to link with it to provide an effective framework within which the project can operate. Five principles of project governance include: 1.The Board of Directors have overall responsibility for Project Management governance. This means they have to set policy and define overall responsibility for projects. In practice this may mean at senior management meetings time is dedicated to defining this policy and role responsibilities within the governance structure. 2.The roles, responsibilities and performance criteria for project governance are clearly defined. This will be reflected within all key documentation that supports the project plan, for example the Project Management plan, business case and job descriptions. Without senior management spending time on this (see point 1), completing this principle is impossible. 3.Disciplined governance arrangements are in place that are supported by appropriate methods and controls applied throughout the project lifecycle. This requires for an agreed and implemented reporting system that delivers consistency across projects. In practice, this often requires a member of the programme team to take on the role for project governance, using the methods and reporting processes to communicate adherence to project governance standards. Where non-compliance exists, this can be communicated appropriately to the project team, programme office or senior management as necessary 4.A coherent and supportive relationship is demonstrated between the business strategy and the project portfolio. In practice, the senior management team should review projects within the portfolio with their sponsor to ensure risk is being managed and the business case will be achieved 5.All projects have a plan containing authorisation points at which point the business case is reviewed and approved. Decisions made at these points should be recorded and communicated, for discussion in principle 4 (see above) or for feedback and guidance from key stakeholders as appropriate.