Independent assurance gives the sponsor of an SAP programme a view from someone who is not paid to deliver the work. Done well, it tells the sponsor what is really happening, in plain language, early enough to act. These are the questions we are asked most often by sponsors thinking about it.
What is independent assurance on an SAP programme?
It is a review of the programme carried out by people with no stake in its delivery. They look at the plan, the business, the data, the governance and the benefits, and they report to the sponsor. Their job is to say whether the programme will deliver what the business case promised, and if not, what needs to change.
It is different from a project audit. An audit checks that the programme is following its own processes. Assurance asks whether those processes will get the organisation where it needs to go.
Why can the delivery team not provide this themselves?
They can provide a great deal of it, and good teams report honestly. The difficulty is position. The people delivering a programme see it every day, which is a strength and also a blind spot. On most large programmes, the forecast to complete is built by the people doing the work. However honest they are, it can become an opinion dressed as a calculation.
A sponsor needs at least one view that does not come from the supplier, or from the team who will be judged on the result.
Who can provide it?
In the UK, assurance usually comes from one of four places: internal audit, the risk practice of a large accountancy firm, an independent specialist consultancy, or experienced individual contractors.
Each has strengths. Internal audit knows the organisation but may not have deep SAP delivery experience. Large firms bring scale, though it is worth checking whether the same firm is delivering SAP work elsewhere in your business. Specialist consultancies tend to bring people who have run these programmes themselves. Individual contractors can be excellent, but you are relying on one person's judgement and availability.
Whoever you choose, ask one question first. Have the people doing the review led an SAP programme of this size from the client side? Reviewing a programme you have never run is a very different thing.
What should the review actually look at?
Five areas matter most. The plan, and whether its critical path allows time for the business to make decisions. The business, and whether the right people have been released from their day jobs. The data, and whether its quality has been tested against what the new system needs. The governance, and whether decisions are being made in the forums set up to make them. And the benefits, and whether each one still has a named owner who believes in it.
A useful signal sits in the steering committee papers. If the committee mostly receives updates and rarely makes decisions, the real decisions are being made somewhere else.
When should we bring it in?
Most organisations ask for assurance when something already feels wrong. By then the review is half a recovery. It works far better at fixed points, agreed at the start: when the delivery partner is about to be appointed, when design is ready for sign-off, ahead of testing, and ahead of cutover. A short review at each of those points costs much less than fixing a programme that has drifted.
How long should a review take?
Short enough that its findings are still true when the sponsor reads them. A long review on a fast-moving programme is out of date before it lands. The scope should be agreed in advance, with a fixed end date and a fixed price.
What should the sponsor receive?
A report they can read in one sitting. Red, amber and green ratings only help if each one comes with the evidence behind it and a named owner for the action. If the report needs a workshop to explain it, it is too long.
The best reports also say what is going well. A sponsor who only hears problems from assurance will start to treat it as noise.
What happens if the review finds serious problems?
The sponsor decides what to do, with the delivery team and the delivery partner in the room. Good assurance makes that conversation easier, because the facts are agreed before anyone discusses what to do about them. Where a programme needs more than course correction, the review becomes the starting point for a recovery plan.
Is assurance a sign that we do not trust our delivery partner?
No. Most experienced delivery partners welcome it, because a well-informed client makes faster decisions. Assurance looks at the whole programme, including the client side, and that is often where the most useful findings sit.
Where does Limelight fit?
Our RunHealthy Assessment looks at a programme from the client side and tells the sponsor what we see, plainly. Our directors have led SAP programmes from both sides of the table. Where a client wants that view continuously rather than at set points, we work with them inside Prism, so the sponsor, the client team and our team all look at the same evidence.
If you would like an independent view of where your programme stands, book a Readiness Review. It is a 45-minute conversation with one of our directors. You can book one HERE
