Project assurance and approval process

Overview

As a Government entity investing public money,part of HNO’s value proposition we mustseek to have robust decision making processes in place to give our investors, citizensinvestor colleagues, partners and external stakeholders full confidence in the investment decisions that we make. make. We aim for our decision making processes to be streamlined and transparent to enable us to effectively deliver our key services to our customers.

QualityWe want to demonstrate that we are a high performing business with a reputation for great investment decisions and a ‘safe pair of hands’. The more robust the decision making means we:process becomes, the greater HNO’s reputation will be for our implementation of the process. This will be reflected in a higher level of trust in HNO to deliver efficient, safe and responsible highway solutions for our customers.

• identify and pursue those investments on the state highway that will provide the best solutions
• robustly debate and consider trade-offs and risks in our investment making decisions at each business case phasestage
• have clear significance/risksignificance/risks thresholds for our investment making decisions and associated escalation processes
• arebe fully auditable and transparent in all our decision making. 

The project assurance and approval process has been developed to support quality decision making.achieve this purpose. It aims to provide the tools and the guidance for HNO teams to make investment decisions fully auditableundertake and transparent. It does not set out technical requirementsrecord engagement internally and obtaining approvals for each phase of the business case. For this information, see each phase page in the Processes section or each subject page in the Technical disciplines section. development and delivery phases.

The core principles to be applied for using the project assurance and approvalPAA process are as follows: are:

1. The projectbusiness case manager needs toshall maintain an auditablea good record of the engagement undertaken and decisions made in accordance with delegations, significance and risk parametersthe approvals obtained on the project file on the forms provided.
2. NZ Transport Agency'sAgency’s significance policy has been applied 
3. A 'no surprises' approach to engagement with project stakeholdersshall be considered through the business case phases, and advisors. 

Key elements

Summary of engagement - project managers must record engagement throughout the business case process. This form is one way to do this if another record is not already in use for the project. It becomes useful for transitioning project phases. 

Price level adjustment - the form used to request price changes for a project. 

SHPRC resolution - record of resolutions of the State Highway Programme Review Committee. Where there are specific actions or decisions associated with a particular funding request or the investment or issues are significant to document individually. 

SHPRC bulk resolution - record of resolutions of the State Highway Programme Review Committee. Generic bulk approval where the are no issues.

Activity reporting (BUDMT/VAC/NLTP) template - adaptive template which provides project managers with a framework to address the necessary questions that decision makers are seeking at the different phases of the project lifecycle throughsignificance assessment recorded on the forms provided.

It is expected that this guidance will be updated on a quarterly basis for the first year as feedback is received from users, and as the process becomes embedded. Business case managers should refer to the online documentation frequently to ensure they are using the most up to date forms and guidance.

See the next phase. PAA process overview for more information.