CONGRATULATIONS on your recently approved real estate program!
Making it to this step means that you have an approved program to deliver. You have some targets to hit. You have big commitments to live up to for the next few years. You have a lot of eyes watching to see if you do what you said you would do.
Unfortunately, the long slog of designing that program and then getting it approved may be the easiest part of the entire process. Now you have to rally your team to push, push, and push some more to get the program over the line. They should already know what you have been planning and have been involved in various aspects. Nothing should be new to them, but suspecting it is coming is different from the reality of a new way of doing things.
Going from the concept of a program to delivery of a program is a big transition that needs to happen quickly. It is time to start finalizing detailed business cases for every project that needs to kick off in the next six months. It is time to start getting detailed project approvals from those leaders who blessed the program and getting them to live up to supporting the change that is coming. It is time to create detailed program and change management governance processes to ensure nothing falls to the side that needs to be part of the final delivery.
The problems will begin when your team asks for the specific projects that have been approved and how much they get to spend. The reality is that you now have to start an entirely new process to identify projects again from scratch. You have a good view of what SHOULD happen based on your opportunity reviews, but now you need your delivery teams to finalize what WILL happen. What this really means is selling your team on all the same details you just got the business to agree to.
As an aside, this part has always been the most frustrating part of a program for me as a program manager. The amount of certainty required to say “we will hit these numbers” is directly inverse to the level of uncertainty of “these are the projects that exactly get us to those numbers.” Every week is a fact-finding adventure to push every project as far as it can go. The more that every project achieves at the start, the less pushback that later projects have, and the less exposure the program has to market moves.
Your key to transitioning into effective program delivery is to have an independent program manager to keep the delivery team aligned with the program goals. This could absolutely be a person on your existing team who has both a relationship with you and the delivery teams. It could also be a part-time third party. The primary reason you want an independent program manager is to ensure every single project is designed within the program parameters with acceptable financials. Often, this means pushing back on initial project plans to ensure that more aggressive approaches are being considered. If a project is being delivered in a way that is comfortable to everyone, it is leaving opportunity on the table. Especially at the beginning of the program, there will be a natural hesitancy to push the business as hard as they need to be pushed. The role of the program manager is to ensure that the push happens every time as aggressively as is necessary.
This is particularly important because projects will not be designed like they have been in the past. If you were sticking to the same standards as before, there would be no need for the program. Additionally, sometimes the big cost bucket available to the program can be seen (especially when the program is just getting started) as a fund to give the business wish list items that they simply want to get them on board with the project. Sometimes this is a good decision. But other times it is better to push for straightforward approval with no enticements. The delivery team may not be best positioned to make those calls. And the head of real estate may want an independent person in the middle to ensure that small and mundane decisions are not constantly escalating to them without reason.
Another role for the program manager is to keep a constant update on the delivered financials and projects of the program. This could mean reviewing new and old leases to validate new costs. It could mean working directly with accounting to understand depreciation impacts. It could mean weekly updates with delivery teams to remain linked to all of the plans they are building, considering, and preparing to ask for approval on. Showing control of the financials early in a program is a way of building significant credibility with senior leaders that everything is going to plan.
Not everything should be changed simply because of the program. Existing processes should be used as much as possible to maintain consistency in delivery. Project financials should largely remain the same, with maybe a few small adjustments to account for required program metrics. Holding to as many existing processes as possible will ensure that the delivery team can run as quickly as possible.
It is important to show success quickly. The more projects you can successfully get implemented with the new workplace strategy, the more word will get around that the real estate program is doing good for the business. People fear unknown change much more than they fear change that has been done to others first.
But delivery is what real estate people do. It may be the hardest part of the whole thing, but at least it is a familiar challenge.
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