Prioritisation Matrix and Transformation Plan for Cumberland Council

Case Study 2 – Supporting the development of a shared vision for transformation

Local Partnerships have supported a variety of councils, and transformation projects through the LGA’s Sector Support Improvement programme funded by the UK Government. These case studies explore the key activities and learnings from these projects and highlight both best practice and common challenges.

Prioritisation Matrix and Transformation Plan

Cumberland Council is in the process of developing its Transformation Programme Management Office (PMO) following Local Government Reorganisation. Local Partnerships supported the Council to:

• Develop a prioritisation matrix: to help the Council consider the relative priority of the transformation projects in the portfolio and support effective resource assignment
• Develop a transformation programme plan: to clearly set out the work to be undertaken and critical path and dependencies.

The challenge

As a newly formed authority Cumberland is undergoing significant transformation. The transformation PMO is less than a year old and had already undertaken significant work to set up the transformation programme of activity across the Council. However, work still needed to be undertaken to support the Council’s decision makers to manage the transformation workflow, manage resource effectively between different projects, and to and understand dependencies between different services. Additionally, a significant portion of transformation activities are underway reducing the capacity available to the PMO to undertake longer term forward planning.

The solution

The team engaged with leaders across the Council to understand the key priorities and most significant risks for the Council. This was used to inform the development of a prioritisation matrix, a tool which helps structure decision making about transformation projects. The purpose of the tool is not to provide a threshold over which projects are taken forward, but instead to facilitate a discussion about how well different projects achieve priority objectives, to enable limited resources to be allocated effectively.

Once the matrix had been developed we worked with various service areas to better understand their short and longer term transformational activities and key risks followed by detailed 1-1 sessions with the PMO leads to map out the Council’s agreed transformation projects, milestones,  critical dependencies, and associated risks.

The impact

This work has supported the PMO team to understand the volume of work being undertaken across the council and to develop a mechanism to agree the prioritisation of different activity as part of the councils transformation governance. In parallel, the programme plan provides the PMO team with a three-year view of pipelined  activities and the relevant capacity required. The plan has also informed interdependencies and current critical blockers which will enable the team to influence stakeholder engagement and shape the relevant discussions required.   

How is the new approach being sustained?

The transformation plan will be reviewed regularly as part of the existing PMO team work  by a nominated owner, ensuring that it remains accurate and up to date.

Lessons learned

Developing a prioritisation matrix can provide a key framework for discussion of how to allocate resources and which projects require most focus.

A programme plan which seeks to go beyond the short term activities and map critical dependencies can help support stakeholder discussions, risk management and feed into allocating capacity.

More transformation case studies

Can we help with transformation?

As part of the public sector we can be directly procured. Do you have a project you would like help with, or could we answer a question about our services?

Please message Sarah-Joy, use the ‘Can we help’ form on this page or use our contact us page, it would be great to hear from you.