Moving Forward: Governance

In the section on Working With Others we look at involving stakeholders, and working with professional advisers such as architects to ensure that your project is inspirational, imaginative, creative and practical. You also need to make sure that the project actually happens, is delivered on time and within budget, that the systems and features you want are really possible and will be available when you need them, and that it will all actually work. These 'hard' aspects of the project will be handled by the management structure you establish. At the highest level this will involve having the project as a regular agenda item on the governing body and executive meetings of the organisation.

You need to set up a committee, or group, to take overall responsibility for the planning and delivery of the project. It is likely that this overview steering group will need one or more sub-groups to deal with detailed matters of the building programme, the fit-out, and the operation of the facility on completion.

Related infoKits

 Project Management
 Risk Management
 Change Management

You will also need a project methodology to ensure that the stages of the work are documented, progress can be tracked, risks are identified and mitigated against, changes are controlled (so as not to delay or divert the project or raise costs), and that the project is a success. JISC infoNet has developed a Project Management infoKit providing information and templates to help you manage a project, regardless of size. Associated resources also cover Risk Management and Change Management.

We suggest the project needs a dual approach with two parallel sets of meetings - one formal within your management and governance structure and a second that is formally constituted but with a brief to produce and develop the imaginative ideas needed to ensure that the project has high impact. These two sets of meetings have different purposes but should overlap (through some common memberships and sharing of minutes) and interact with one another. This arrangement might look something like this: