Project Assurance is a newly established assurance function within King’s College London that provides independent assurance for major projects across the university. Based within the Department of Business Assurance, we work closely with both the university’s enterprise portfolio and King’s Portfolio Office (KPO) to ensure a focus on the projects that are both important to King’s and benefit most from independent review. To reflect this position, work completed by Project Assurance is typically reported through both King’s Project Governance Arrangements (PGA) and the Audit, Risk & Compliance Committee (ARCC).

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Project Assurance mainly undertakes three different types of review:

• Project lessons learned exercises: we typically undertake these exercises on projects that have been particularly successful, have been especially challenging, or are expected to provide helpful information for subsequent, related projects or programmes. These independent lessons learned exercises are designed to complement those undertaken by project teams, providing third-level assurance. They complement the lessons learned reviews undertaken by Internal Audit on operational areas in King’s.
• Benefits realisation reviews: after completion of major programmes and projects, we undertake an independent assessment of how well the benefits described in the business case have been delivered and to learn lessons from the benefits management approach followed by the project. We recognise that benefits typically accrue sometime after the work has been completed and the team has been disbanded and are well-placed to undertake benefits realisation reviews on this longer timescale.
• ‘Deep dive’ reviews: for projects that are still ‘in-flight’ and are experiencing delivery problems, we offer an independent, neutral review into the causes and make recommendations for remedial actions. In these reviews we listen to the views and perspectives across the project team and with the most important stakeholders to form a rounded view of the project and tailor recommendations for improvement to project processes and / or practice to the needs of the project and team. Additionally, we undertake ‘deep dive’ reviews on specific aspects of project, programme, or portfolio management (P3M or PPPM) across the university to support their on‑going development.

Both our lessons learned exercises and ‘deep dive’ reviews can either take a broad, holistic view of the project, or can be focused on the aspects that the sponsor and portfolio consider to provide the most valuable insight, learning, and improvements.