Scottish Government

The Scottish Government has identified the following principles that all Scottish Government programmes and projects must adhere to. The approach, tools and techniques used to address each principle should be proportionate to the scale and nature of the programme or project.

Programme and project governance

• Our approach to managing programmes and projects is proportionate, effective and consistent with recognised good practice.

Business case

• We secure a mandate for our work; identify, record and evaluate our objectives and options for meeting them; and ensure that we secure and maintain management commitment to our selected approach.

Roles and responsibilities

• We assign clear roles and responsibilities to appropriately skilled and experienced people and ensure their levels of delegated authority are clearly defined.

Benefits

• We record the benefits we seek, draw up a plan to deliver them and evaluate our success.

Risk

• We identify, understand, record and manage risks that could affect the delivery of benefits.

Planning

• We develop a plan showing when our objectives will be met and the steps towards achieving them, including appropriate assurance and review activities, and re-plan as necessary.

Resource management

• We identify the financial and other resources, inside and outside the organisation, required to meet our objectives.

Stakeholders

• We identify those affected by our work and engage them throughout the process from planning to delivery.

Project closure

• We ensure that the transition to business as usual maximises benefits and that operational delivery is efficient and effective.

Lessons learned

• We record lessons from our programmes and projects and share them with others so they may learn from our experience.

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