Insights
Independent assurance is most valuable when it changes an outcome, which means timing is everything. Commissioned at the right moment it can save a programme; commissioned too late it can only document the wreckage. Yet most organisations call for assurance only once a programme is visibly failing, by which point much of the value has gone. Here is how to think about when to bring it in.
By Christopher Fagan
Before approving a business case, before a go live decision, before committing the next tranche of funding. An independent view at a decision point is assurance doing its most valuable work, because there is still a real choice to inform.
Assurance at mobilisation, checking that the plan, governance and approach are sound before momentum builds, is cheap and catches design flaws while they are still easy to fix. Few organisations do this, and they should.
Periodic assurance across a programme’s life, at gates or at set intervals, catches drift early and repeatedly, rather than relying on a single review to spot everything. For a large or long programme this is the most effective pattern.
When a sponsor senses that the confident reporting and their own instinct have diverged, that instinct is usually right and worth testing early, before the divergence becomes a crisis.
Assurance commissioned only when a programme is already red can still help, but its role shrinks from prevention to damage limitation. The decisions that could have changed the outcome have often already been made, the time to act on findings is short, and the exercise becomes about salvage rather than success. It is still worth doing, recovery follows from it, but it is a fraction of the value the same review would have delivered months earlier.
Organisations hesitate to commission assurance early because the programme “looks fine” and assurance feels like a vote of no confidence. Both concerns are misplaced. A programme that looks fine is exactly when an independent check is cheapest and most useful, and framing assurance as routine good governance rather than a response to failure removes the stigma. The programmes that resist assurance most are often the ones that need it most.
Commission assurance at decision points and on a cadence, not in a crisis. If you are only thinking about it because the programme is in trouble, bring it in immediately, but treat the lateness as a lesson for next time. See what an assurance review covers and project recovery.
Get in touch to discuss the right assurance approach for your programme.
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