DECISION-MAKING AND MANAGEMENT OF PRE-INVESTMENT IN A PROGRAMME OF PROJECTS

Owing to ever-increasing business pressures and the resulting requirements of organisations, individual projects rarely fulfil all expectations; so it is quite often necessary to implement a programme of interdependent projects. In such programmes the matter of pre-investment (investing effort or money before the project results are required) is a recurring theme amongst programme managers. However, very few decision-making techniques or management guidelines on the topic of pre-investment are available. In this paper a framework is proposed to assist a programme or project manager in the decision-making and management of pre-investment in a programme. The framework is based on pre-investment propositions with high levels of support from a Delphi panel, in the context of a multi-billion Rand petrochemical programme. The results of the research are three matrices that provide guidance on the timing of pre-investment, tools and information required, and benefits of pre-investment. These guidelines all relate to four aspects of pre-investment: context, systems and procedures, timing, and scope. Even though the work was done in the context of a specific case, the preinvestment guidelines should be applicable in various industries.


1
The author was enrolled for an M Eng (Project Management) in the Department of Engineering and Technology Management, University of Pretoria.

INTRODUCTION
The standards of yesterday hardly fulfil the requirements of today.Due to the 'continuous improvement' expectations of businesses and customers, solutions to their problems are also becoming increasingly complex.Stretched targets of companies in a competitive environment require more ingenious and complex solutions.This suggests that one single project rarely meets all the business/client requirements, and therefore has to be combined with other projects to meet all expectations.Simply executing individual projects without exploiting synergies will rarely suffice.The solution's whole needs to be more than the sum of its parts; and so logic dictates that the projects need to be linked interdependently to achieve these stretched targets.Such inter-dependent projects are commonly known as programmes.Pellegrinelli (2002) supports this by stating that programmes provide a bridge between projects and the organisation's strategy.
For the sake of clarity, two definitions for a programme of projects are quoted: Pellegrinelli (1997) in Waddell (2005) defines a programme as: "projects managed in a coordinated way, either to achieve a common goal, or to extract benefits which would otherwise not be realised if they were managed independently", while Ferns (1991) describes programme management as "the coordination of projects to gain benefits that would not be possible to obtain were the projects managed separately".
Understanding the fundamental differences between project management and programme management is crucial to all managers who are moving from a project management arena to a programme management arena.One aspect that has a direct impact on the economics of the programme and of the company is the issue of financial pre-investment.The principles of time, value of money, and opportunity cost can lead to significant capital savings when the investment strategy and timing within a programme is optimised.
It is therefore necessary to identify when pre-investment would be required during a programme, and to have guidelines available to assist one in pre-investment decisions.Before continuing further, the term 'pre-investment' should also be clarified.The concept is illustrated by the following example: When a newly-wed couple buys a four-bedroom house while thinking of starting a family in the future, it is considered pre-investment.Even though the couple only needs a one-or two-bedroom house, they invest financially in a larger property before they need the additional space.
For the purposes of this paper, 'pre-investment' is defined as: "The act of investing a portion of time, money, or effort before that particular portion of the investment is required, i.e. pre-emptively".
As a rule, resources and time can normally be expressed in monetary terms; therefore, in this study, only financial pre-investment was investigated.

Research objective
A literature review conducted for this research revealed that the subject of financial pre-investment on programmes of projects is not sufficiently addressed in the literature.This implies a lack of guidance when decisions need to be made regarding pre-investment during the lifecycle of a programme.The objective of this study is therefore to establish a guideline to determine when pre-investment would be required on a programme, which factors would indicate the requirement for preinvestment, and what the benefits of such pre-investments would be.

PRE-INVESTMENT
When journal papers were reviewed to search for pre-investment related topics, no unified theory that addresses the approach (and consequences) of pre-investment in both projects and programmes was found.The literature study, which included the PMBOK (Project Management Institute, 2004), the Project Management Institute's (PMI's) Standard for Programme Management (2006), and a number of journal papers, revealed no direct mention of pre-investment as described earlier in this paper, nor of any pre-investment models.However, the literature review did indicate indirectly that there are various issues that could influence and complicate pre-investment decisions on projects and programmes.Such indicators were (for example) factors such as the form of the programme (Maylor et al., 2006), characteristics of the projects within the programme (Dietrich & Lehtonen, 1995), timing of investments (Wambach, 2000;Joaquin et al, 2001), and project selection decision tools (Hamilton, 2002;Ghasemzadeh et al., 2000;and Shen et al., 2002), to name but a few.
The lack of guidance on the topic of pre-investment, combined with the direct monetary impact on business, clearly indicated that some management model, theory, or method is required.Since the surveyed literature did not address the issue of pre-investment, the researcher had to rely on inferred information and knowledge, and utilise a logical deductive approach to form a new set of propositions regarding pre-investment in a programme of projects.
Despite the lack of information on pre-investment in journals and the PMI's guides, issues, tasks, prerequisites, and reminders were mentioned in the published articles that, even though the literature did not focus on pre-investment, did manage to shed some light on pre-investment aspects.From the literature survey, financial pre-investment issues can be categorized into the following four aspects: 1. Context (of the programme and the particular pre-investment decision) 2. Systems and procedures (i.e.governance) 3. Timing/planning 4. Scope (i.e.size and complexity) It is possible to create more classifications, but for the sake of simplicity, these four categories were used as the basis for this research.Based on these categories, 57 propositions relating to various aspects of pre-investment were developed.The validity of the propositions was tested by means of the Delphi technique (discussed later).
The purpose of this research was to expand the present knowledge base of preinvestment and to provide guidelines for managerial decision-making.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This inquiry into the phenomenon of pre-investment posed exploratory research questions, which called for a case study approach.Furthermore, a case study is the preferred research strategy for examining contemporary events when the relevant behaviours cannot be manipulated (Yin, 2004).The petrochemical programme investigated presents all the conditions required for the application of a case study approach: (1) the author has no control over events, (2) the focus of the programme is current (i.e.contemporary), and (3) the research raises exploratory research questions.
A multi-billion Rand programme of interdependent projects was executed to expand the total capacity of a specific petrochemical plant.The projects included in the programme encompassed the whole value chain, from raw material to delivery of final product to retailers.The scope of facilities and capital values of the subprojects also stretched over a considerable range, from simple piping modifications costing a few hundred thousand Rand, up to multiple reactor installations costing over a billion Rand.
Case study research relies on many of the same techniques as historical research, but requires two sources of evidence: direct observation and systematic interviewing.A number of interviewing methods exist, one of which is the Delphi method.Given the limited amount of information available on the topic of preinvestment, it was clear from the outset that the research method and approach would lend itself towards an exploratory study as well as the accumulation of expert opinions through the use of the Delphi technique.
With the choice of a case study underpinned by the Delphi technique, the following research plan was followed: 1. Review of literature regarding programme management and pre-investment 2. Highlighting the fundamental factors that influence financial pre-investment 3. Developing propositions relating to the various facets of pre-investment 4. Performing Delphi evaluation Round 1 to evaluate correctness of propositions 5. Performing Delphi evaluation Round 2, inherent to the Delphi process 6.Data analysis -evaluate the pre-investment propositions from the information gathered through the Delphi technique 7. Reaching conclusions on the applicability of the propositions on preinvestment, using the Delphi results to develop a pre-investment framework.
The Delphi technique is a qualitative research method, and therefore many criticise it as not being empirically verifiable.In order to understand better the Delphi technique as research method, and its applicability to this research, a literature review was done on the technique.The objective of the literature study was (1) to confirm the suitability of the Delphi method to test the validity of a number of preinvestment related propositions, and (2) to assess the various aspects of the Delphi process.After evaluation of the process, it was applied as prescribed by Delbecq et al. (1975).Key aspects of the Delphi process were: • The content of the questionnaire was based on the propositions developed from the literature review.

•
The panel of experts consisted of a wide range of disciplines and expertise.Fifteen respondents were approached, and 13 took part in the first round.

•
The first questionnaire asked individuals to assess the validity of 57 preinvestment related propositions (forced Likert scale), followed by three open ended questions.

•
The second questionnaire incorporated the feedback from the first questionnaire.Owing to the relatively low number of participants, it was possible to customise the second round of questionnaires for each participant.

•
Both consensus and disagreements on the various propositions were valuable to the formulation of a pre-investment framework.

•
From the data analysis a unified pre-investment decision guideline was formulated and discussed.
The panel of respondents were selected based on their extensive experience in the field of project and programme management, and relevant qualifications.Their positions within the company ranged from junior management to executive level, with more than 12 decades of combined work experience in the field of project/programme management.The approximate combined value of projects and programmes currently under their leadership is in excess of R60 billion (about $10bn).All panel members are graduate engineers, with the majority of them having a secondary qualification such as an MBA or engineering masters' degree in technology management.

RESULTS
During the two-round Delphi process, the participants were asked to evaluate the correctness of 57 pre-investment related propositions, developed as part of this research.

Data gathered
The raw data gathered were in the form of a Likert scale rating of the 57 preinvestment propositions, as well as three paragraph answers from the open-ended questions.
Results obtained from the first Delphi round were analysed on a high level to assess the level of consensus amongst the Delphi panel members, before continuing with the Delphi process.If the data from the first round had been entirely divergent, a different approach to the research study would have been considered.Fortunately, the first round promised good results, and a second round of the Delphi process was executed.The response rates for both Delphi round questionnaires were as illustrated in Table 1.
• When pre-investment is required, including the difference between preinvestment on projects vs programmes.

•
What information and decision tools should be in place to be able to make good pre-investment decisions.

•
Understanding the quality and type of benefits of pre-investments.
As described earlier, the literature indicated that the following four aspects are vital to the successful management of pre-investment: (1) Context in which preinvestment is made; (2) systems and procedures (i.e.governance); (3) timing/planning; and (4) scope (i.e.size and complexity).
It was only logical that guidelines regarding decision-making and management of pre-investment had to be divided into the same categories when answering the three research questions listed above.To enable a programme manager (or project manager of a project within a programme) to make the best possible pre-investment decisions, the various pre-investment aspects and research questions must be presented in a way that easily guides the manager in his/her decisions.A preinvestment decision and management guideline in the form of three matrices was developed to illustrate the pre-investment aspects relevant to the research questions.
The information used for the pre-investment matrices was based on both literature study and analysed data.These data were mapped on to the tree research questions to address the following items: Factors influencing aspects of pre-investment, relevant to the particular research question The final resultant matrices for decision-making and management of pre-investment are provided in the Appendix.
The decision and guidance matrices provide insight into the subject of preinvestment.These three matrices contain a substantial amount of information, yet are simple to use during decision-making.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A literature survey uncovered a deficient knowledge area, viz. the subject matter of pre-investment.This study offers some insight into the subject of pre-investment, and provides frameworks that are easy to utilize in decision-making.
The end result of the research is captured in three practical decision and guidance matrices, which include knowledge on a number of aspects of pre-investment.
Though the research was based on a case study within a petrochemical programme, the research results seem to be applicable in other project environments.This arises from the fact that the proposed guidelines contain no reference to the specific organisation or systems.
In a few areas within the matrices (such as pre-investment timing guidance from company governance) information is still lacking.These deficiencies resulted either from the case study context or from the nature of the particular combination of fields.This can only be clarified by future research.Another topic for future research is to verify the extent to which these results can be generalised in industries other than the petrochemical industry.