Procedures – Doing the Right Thing the Right Way

Development Proceedures

Doing the right thing the right way? What does that mean?

It involves ensuring you get what you want – schemes that really do deliver the outcomes you are seeking. In other words, it being fully effective.

It also involves getting those outcomes with the minimum wastage of time, money and materials. In other words, it is being efficient.

Effectiveness and efficiency – doing the right thing the right way – is our constant focus, where we are always seeking improvement. Here are some of the ways in which we may be able to help you improve your efficiency and effectiveness.

HATC’s DevProMM

The successor to our OPMP (Online Project Management Procedures), DevProMM is short for Development Project Management Method. It’s a flowchart-driven layered wiki-based procedure guide developed with Orbit Homes, Genesis HA,  Four HG & Newlon HT, suitable for all Development & Regeneration schemes, large and small.

DevProMM is simple and easy to use. The flow diagrams are really useful in providing an overview of each step while allowing you to ‘dip in’ to those parts of the process where you need more detail.
Diana Bernhardt

Project Manager, Brighton & Hove Seaside Community Homes

This powerful new tool provides:

  • Development procedures that strike the visual/textual balance you require;
  • Advice and guidance for less experienced staff on professional good practice;
  • Comment boxes on each page for your staff (the) Users  to suggest changes and improvements;
  • Easy updating – no more  expensive consultant-only updating costs. Anyone who can use Word can be quickly trained to edit DevProMM

We can provide a standard process map in flowchart form as the basis for your new procedures which you can then tailor yourselves. Alternatively, we can map your existing processes and produce a wiki tailored to your specific requirements which you can then easily maintain.

Developed with Orbit Housing, Four Housing Group and Genesis HA, it is proving popular and successful.  As Chris Jones (Divisional Director for Orbit Homes) says:

“I love it so much it hurts”.

Process reviews, process maps

Development and regeneration – everybody does it differently, but there are huge areas of overlap. We have wide experience of different affordable housing providers systems.

We can map your existing processes, but more importantly, we can offer advice on process improvements in the light of our knowledge of funders’ compliance requirements, professional good practice and the preferred ways of working of Development & Regeneration teams.

Compliance Audit and pre-audit reviews, compliance health-checks

Our deep understanding of the HCA’s compliance requirements doesn’t just stem from decades of work in the regulated sector. We re-wrote the Capital Funding Guide for the Housing Corporation in 2007.

Clients find it very helpful when we can explain clearly not just what has to be done, but the underlying reason. It helps everyone to focus on the important issues without getting too tangled up in the bureaucracy.

Technical internal audit – stress-testing key internal controls

Good governance demands strong internal controls particularly of those teams that expose the organisation to significant financial and reputational risk. Our thorough understanding of compliance issues helps here, but even more useful is our understanding of professional project management good-practice and project/programme control. We can also bring experience of the Board-member and Audit Committee perspective. Clients tell us that this is very hard to find anybody else with such a holistic perspective.

Recent clients in this field
Orbit Homes, Newlon HT, Ocean Housing, Aldwyck Housing, Riverside, Four HG, Genesis HA, Barnet Homes, Connect Housing, Brighton & Hove HT, Yorkshire HG, Thrive Homes, St Mungos, WHG (Walsall Housing Group).