Large Projects can make you excited, as they provide opportunities for growth, new skill development, and a significant sense of accomplishment upon completion. But they are involved in big projects, multiple teams, and depend on many decision-makers sometimes. So without the right structure, projects may quickly turn into problems like missed deadlines, cost overruns, or confusion about responsibilities.
So what helps to manage this? The answer is “ Governance”. It means keeping control of the project: making sure it delivers value, stays compliant, and is managed responsibly. Some of the structured project management methodologies, like PRINCE2, PMBOK, or Agile frameworks, help organizations put that governance into practice. Let’s look at how they do it in this article.
What is Governance In Project Management?
Let’s consider governance as the traffic rules for a project. Without rules, everyone drives their own way, creating chaos. With rules, roles, and checks, the project runs smoothly, safely, and reaches the destination (success).
Why We Need Better Governance:
A survey from the Standish Group International found that only 16.2% of projects are completed on time, on budget, and with all promised features. More than half either go over budget, are late, or fail to deliver promised quality.
As per a Cornell University report, there are 1,355 public-sector IT projects that showed average cost overruns of more than 25% in 18% of projects. In many cases, projects also took about 24% longer than planned.
These studies show that project failure isn’t a rare one, it’s the most common thing.
The high cost, waste of money, reputational damage, and missed opportunities all happened due to poor governance. So here, structured governance helps reduce those risks.
Case Studies:
Let’s look into the two case studies.
London Heathrow Terminal 5 (Systems Engineering Case)
London Heathrow Terminal 5 was built largely on time and on budget and met structural goals. But when it opened, its systems didn’t work well: baggage systems failed, many flights got delayed, etc. Even though the structure was “successful,” operational governance was weak.
What lessons were learned from it: Strengthening governance must cover not just planning/building, but also commissioning, operations, and post-launch. It’s not enough to build right; you must ensure everything works and integrates well.
Public Projects in Norway (Stages, QA & Accountability)
In Norway, the public sector is run with clear governance guidelines which include stages-gates (checkpoints during each phase of the project) and project boards , as well as sponsors, and independent quality assurance.
These measures make the project process more transparent and help ensure transparency. The researchers found that when they set specific limits, such as the time when risks or costs go above a certain amount, issues were identified early. This helped avoid major surprises and decrease spending.
How Structured Methodologies Solve Key Problems:
Here are common problems in large projects, why they happen, and how structured methodologies address them.
|
Problem |
What causes it |
How structured methodology helps |
|
Cost |
Poor risk forecasting, unclear decision |
Stage-gate reviews, risk registers, and |
|
Confusion |
Multiple stakeholders; unclear decision |
Use of defined roles: sponsor, project |
|
Lack of |
Inconsistent reporting; missing checkpoints |
Standardized reports, regular milestone |
|
Low |
Miscommunication; objectives not aligned |
Clear business case; frequent check-ins with |
Where Structured Methods Helped:
What You Can Do: Practical Steps for Better Governance
Here are the steps to apply structured methodologies in your projects so governance improves and risk drops:
1. Choose or define the right methodology:
Whether PRINCE2, PMBOK, or Agile hybrid, pick one that matches your project size, risk level, and organizational culture.
What you need to do: Tailor it, NOT everything works for every project, adapt where needed.
2. Define clear roles & decision rights:
Find the answers to these questions: Who sponsors the project? Who approves budgets or changes?
What you need to do: Use RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) to make roles clear.
3. Set up phase gates or milestone reviews:
At each major phase, hold decision meetings. Check progress, risk, cost, and alignment.
What you need to do: If something is off, this is your chance to pause or change course.
4. Use risk registers & monitoring tools:
Identify risks early. Assign ownership for risk mitigation. Track them continually.
What you need to do: Use dashboards or regular reports so leaders can see issues early.
5. Measure performance & benefits:
Define KPIs not just for time/cost, but for quality, stakeholder satisfaction, and alignment with strategy.
What you need to do: After the project ends, do “lessons learned” reviews. Feed that learning into future projects.
For professionals seeking to build a career in structured project management, consider enrolling in PRINCE2 Foundation training. This improves governance in large projects through defined roles, consistent processes, and control points, ensuring accountability, proactive risk management, regular reviews, and strong senior management oversight.
Conclusion
Governance failures cost organizations big, both financially and in trust. Structured methodologies offer a way to reduce risk, increase transparency, and deliver large projects more reliably. With real-world examples and data showing how often projects go off track, and how well-governed ones do better, you have seen both the problem and what works.
If you are leading large projects, applying these steps, clear roles, checkpoints, risk monitoring, and performance measurement can mean the difference between costly failure and trusted success.