We are getting closer to having an approved program. The end of the approvals process is in sight! We will soon be allowed to do what we do best: deliver projects!
It may feel like we have been selling the program for months already, but now is the time to sell the final program. You should be solid on your costs, benefits, details, and rationale. The word “final” can start appearing in your document file names as you approach the end. You may feel like the iteration phase was getting approvals, but socialization is an informal series of efforts to get leaders on board. Things get trickier when you ask them to formally sign off on what you are asking for.
Selling a program starts and ends with Finance. Yes, the other leaders are necessary too, but this is ultimately a financial activity you are looking to do. The more money you are asking for, the higher within Finance you will be going. Most of the time, a real estate program is going to be big enough to get the CFO’s attention. She is going to have a process she will put you through to get to her for review. Usually, it is going to be advisable to jump through whatever hoops she needs you to go through. As with all things politics in a business, you never know whose opinion is going to matter on a given topic.
Stick to the facts as you sell the program. You should summarize your answers to these questions into as short of a presentation as possible because you will have to present all of this a few times.
- What are you going to deliver? (This is more a financial question than a list of projects, which may also be needed.)
- How much are you going to save? (How much money are you returning to the business?)
- How much is it going to cost to deliver that savings? (How much money do they need to set aside that cannot be spent on other things while your program is running?)
- How confident are you in your ability to hit the program as defined? (It should never by 100% because things happen. Detail the things that could happen.)
- What risks do you need to manage to meet the program targets? (You will have to track these as part of your ongoing program management. Really think through the material risks that leaders are going to care about two years from now.)
- When will you be providing ongoing updates on status?
Everyone you go to for approval from this point forward should have some familiarity with what you are asking for. They all should have been part of the stakeholder groups from the Iteration phase before this. Their feedback should be incorporated in ways that you can point to in order to demonstrate that you have listened and adapted. Generally, leaders will feel more positively about programs that can show they incorporated those leaders’ feedback.
The approval process will likely be largely outside of your control as you need to be part of standing Steering or Operating Committee meetings. Depending on the organization, this could be an entire process unto itself. Your goal is to fit within organizational norms because you are asking for a lot of money to do a big thing. As part of the iteration phase, you should have laid enough groundwork that no one is surprised when you ask for time for formal approval.
Your numbers should be absolutely locked in. The only way they should change now is if the program will not move forward without a significant change. You have already gone through heavy analysis, heavy review, and final consolidation. If there was going to be changes to the numbers, it should have been caught before now.
Do not get rattled when leaders start pushing hard on the numbers during this phase, even though you need to keep them locked down. Your job is to defend the program as designed, as you have been through all the reviews. Some of these leaders may not recall that they have provided feedback. Some may have given feedback that was impossible to incorporate. And others are pushing to demonstrate that they are not simply giving blind approval to the program, even though they fully support it.
Be confident in your process that has gotten you to this point. If the program was a bad idea or had bad numbers, it would have been caught well before now if you have taken the steps outlined. Trust your process and your team. Do not be afraid to push back when necessary. This will not be the last time you have to push back during the program. It will be good practice in setting the tone.
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