Project Assurance

We monitor progress and quality, shed light on the risks and help management make the right decisions. This prevents delays, additional costs and points the way to opportunities in order to achieve a successful end result.

A comprehensive IT project, strategy projects, mergers, spinoffs or change pathways; for many organisations, monitoring the quality of these kinds of complex pathways is not an everyday task. As is often reflected in the execution – projects take longer than planned, costs overrun and ultimately the end result does not meet expectations.

Before the start of the project, managers often have difficulty judging whether they have thought of everything and whether the business case is realistic. Subsequently, it is a challenge to truly keep a grip on progress. In many cases, it is not properly clear what the project mandate is and the project steering group lacks the clout to make the right choices.

Yet the success of these kinds of complex projects is often crucial for an organisation. Not just in order to be able to continue performing properly, but also in order to be successful and avoid reputational damage. As an executive, you therefore want assurance that the project organisation is functioning the way it is meant to and that all the project risks have been identified. After all, only then can you take properly informed decisions.

With Project in Control, KPMG offers that assurance and grip, by looking over the shoulder of the project team as a critical, independent outsider. With the help of our project framework, comprising seven critical success factors, we make sure that all the relevant project aspects are addressed at every step of the process. One way we do so is with a risk log. This is a clear breakdown of the areas of focus on which managers can act after every step in the project. In addition, we can act as a project risk manager, being continually involved and mitigating project risks as far as possible.

The Project in Control team primarily works for organisations in financial services, healthcare and government. For instance, we helped successfully manage a complex IT project for a pension provider after costs had overrun by millions of euros. And in a wide-ranging project for a large hospital, our team helped create support among the many stakeholders. We can also be continually involved, for example coming to your location one day a week for project meetings, interviews with stakeholders and documentation review. This allows us to compile a weekly issue/risk log that we then discuss with the steering group on a weekly basis.

KPMG has a long record in the areas of Project Quality Assurance, IT auditing and risk management. The core team behind Project in Control consists of people with diverse expertise: from data scientists and IT auditors to privacy experts, legal specialists and ethicists. We are critical, independent and above all consider the human dimension and the added value a project needs to yield. Moreover, with over 155,000 colleagues in 144 countries, we always have the right expertise on hand to match your specific assignment.