EPM5620 Project Governance: Checklist for Effective Auditing

This report provides a comprehensive overview of project governance, emphasizing the integration of corporate governance principles to ensure successful project initiation and completion. It explores key principles such as fairness, responsibility, accountability, and transparency, and addresses critical issues like stakeholder engagement and risk management. The report culminates in a detailed checklist designed to facilitate compliance with good project governance practices, covering initiation, planning, execution, controlling, and closing processes. Effective involvement of stakeholders, risk mitigation strategies, clear communication channels, and defined roles and responsibilities are highlighted as essential elements for achieving excellent project governance. The project manager's role in guaranteeing good governance is also underscored. Students can find more resources like this, including past papers and solved assignments, on Desklib.

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PROJECT GOVERNANCE
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Introduction
Successful completion of projects often requires the application of specific techniques
that guide various project stages. Project governance involves all the major success elements of a
project. Project Governance is a concept used to refer to the set of responsibilities, procedures,
processes, functions regulations and policies through which projects are initiated, managed and
controlled (Ahola et al., 2014). It is the framework through which critical decisions regarding
portfolios, programs and projects are made in a repeatable, robust and logical manner. This
report is focused on developing a checklist for project governance.
Corporate governance principles that can be used in project management
Corporate governance refers to a system through which organizations are controlled and
directed. Corporate governance is intended to ensure organizational success (Bebchuk and
Weisbach, 2010.) Some of its core principles can also be applied in the context of project
management to ensure their successful initiation and completion.
Fairness

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Any project has people who are directly or indirectly affected by its initiation and
execution. Stakeholders are people who can directly affect or be affected by a project’s activities,
outcomes and decisions. They can be individuals, groups or organizations both from within and
without the organization sponsoring a project. Examples of critical stakeholders are senior
management, employees, project leader and team members, clients of organization
subcontractors and members of the community among others. These groups should be involved
in the project management stages through appropriate dialogue. Interests, of all stakeholders and
shareholders, should be respected and taken into account in all project stages (Bebchuk and
Weisbach, 2010).
Responsibility
Responsibility in this context refers to the state of an individual or group being
answerable for something that is within their power. The project team and project manager are
usually given authority to undertake a project on behalf of the project sponsor. They are therefore
required to be entirely responsible for the power and authority exercised on a project. They
should oversee the initiation, implementation and evaluation of a project in a way that the best
interests of the project sponsor are upheld (Joslin and Müller, 2016).
Accountability
Accountability refers to the obligation of explaining reasons for actions taken in the
course of an undertaking. Accountability principle can be applied to project management through
frequent communication to the project stakeholders by the project team, concerning the progress
of a project and how it is achieving its objectives. By being accountable, the project team should

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establish and maintain appropriate project control and risk management mechanisms
(Hjelmbrekke, Lædre and Lohne, 2014).
Transparency
It refers to the willingness to provide precise information to project stakeholders and
shareholders. The project team should keep all project stakeholders informed about primary
activities involved in a project and any potential risks involved in the implementation of the
project. Additionally, it should carry out its activities transparently and in a fair manner that can
withstand scrutiny by stakeholders (Crawford and Helm, 2009). Transparency can make
stakeholders and shareholder more confident in the ability of the project team.
Issues that need to be addressed in to ensure proper project governance
Transparency and Accountability
Transparency is an essential issue for the success of any project. Major decisions on a
project should at all times be arrived at transparently and in a manner that is consistent with
established rules and regulations. All information relating to a significant decision should be
freely available for all stakeholders in and be presented in forms that are easily understandable.
Failure to address transparency issue can cause serious problems between the project team and
project stakeholders. For example, the process of choosing suppliers for essential materials or
project subcontractors must be carried out in a way that is transparent and all information
regarding the process made available to all stakeholders (Guo et al., 2014).
Stakeholder engagement

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Participation is also a vital issue that needs to be taken into consideration. All
stakeholders involved in a project must be identified. This is important failing to engage any
project stakeholder can derail the implementation process, causing a detrimental impact on the
project. Stakeholders should be involved throughout the project cycle from the definition of
project scope, Project planning, implementation and handover (Too and Weaver, 2014).
Risk management
The fact that no project can be said to be risk-free requires adequate preparation to deal
with any potential risks. While predicting what's going to occur in a project might be difficult,
failure to prepare in advance can make the situation worse. It is therefore essential that before the
project is implemented all stakeholders agree how to identify, classify and prioritize risks
(Zwikael and Smyrk, 2015). Risk management could involve creating a supplementary budget
to cater for unforeseen adverse occurrences on a project.
Project Governance checklist
1. Initiation Process  Initiation
2. Planning Process  Scoping
 Creating Schedule
 Budgeting
 Risk planning
 Communication planning
 Quality Planning
 Procurement Planning

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 Formation of a project team
 Development of project management plan
3. Execution process  Execution of project plan
 Team Development
 Procurement
 Communicating
 Quality Assurance
4. Controlling Process  Change Control
 Project reporting
 Scope control
 Risk Control
 Schedule control
 Cost control
 Quality Control
5. Closing Process  Contract Closeout
 Administrative Closeout
Recommendation
Numerous strategies can be employed to ensure good governance in a project. A project
can be assured of excellent governance through effective involvement of its stakeholders
throughout the project cycle, establishing sufficient risk mitigation strategies, defining of the
duties and responsibilities of various parties involved in a project directly or indirectly,
establishing clear communication channels for engaging project stakeholders and shareholders,

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establishing project management control processes and defining project governance models (Too
and Weaver, 2014). By adhering to these deliverables, a project can be assured of good
governance. The project manager is tasked with the most significant responsibility of
guaranteeing good project governance.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Project governance is an integral aspect of the success of any project. This,
however, does not exist in isolation since it can apply principles of corporate governance to
facilitate successful implementation of a project. Some of these principles include fairness,
transparency; accountability and responsibility. To facilitate proper project governance, issues
such as stakeholder engagement, risk management and promoting responsibility and
accountability also need to be addressed. Managers can also use a checklist to facilitate
compliance with good project governance.

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References
Ahola, T., Ruuska, I., Artto, K. and Kujala, J., 2014. What is project governance and what are its
origins?. International Journal of Project Management, 32(8), pp.1321-1332.
Bebchuk, L.A. and Weisbach, M.S., 2010. The state of corporate governance research. The
Review of Financial Studies, 23(3), pp.939-961.
Crawford, L.H. and Helm, J., 2009. Government and governance: The value of project
management in the public sector. Project Management Journal, 40(1), pp.73-87.
Guo, F., Chang-Richards, Y., Wilkinson, S. and Li, T.C., 2014. Effects of project governance
structures on the management of risks in significant infrastructure projects: A comparative
analysis. International Journal of Project Management, 32(5), pp.815-826.
Hjelmbrekke, H., Lædre, O. and Lohne, J., 2014. The need for a project governance body.
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 7(4), pp.661-677.
Joslin, R. and Müller, R., 2016. The relationship between project governance and project
success. International journal of project management, 34(4), pp.613-626.
Too, E.G., and Weaver, P., 2014. The management of project management: A conceptual
framework for project governance. International Journal of Project Management, 32(8),
pp.1382-1394.
Zwikael, O. and Smyrk, J., 2015. Project governance: Balancing control and trust in dealing with
risk. International Journal of Project Management, 33(4), pp.852-862.