Developing a framework to assess the portfolio governance, risk and compliance of Abu Dhabi Government entities in the UAE

Abstract

Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) is a methodology used to improve a company’s decision, both tactical and strategic. It also directly helps an organisation to fully understand the risks it faces. Portfolio project management, on the other hand, refers to the successful centralised management of project portfolios in order to achieve the strategic objectives of an organisation. This study aims to develop a framework by combining the elements of Portfolio, Governance, Risk and Compliance for public organisations in Abu Dhabi to achieve maximum organisational success. This study will provide Abu Dhabi Government with the framework to reduce the failure of projects by controlling risk, guaranteeing project compliance and, most importantly, ensuring governance on each project under the umbrella of GRC. Thus, the aim of the study is to propose a conceptual framework for Abu Dhabi government entities to implement Portfolio Governance, Risk and Compliance (PGRC) in their Projects, Programmes and Portfolio. To achieve this successfully, an in-depth literature review was done to identify the elements of PGRC and a conceptual framework was developed. In order to test the validity of the framework, research interviews for the case study were utilised and these comprised PGRC related data and details that were gathered from the perspective of PPM, GRC and overall project management approaches. The researcher analyses the case studies from various perspectives and outlines the leading aspect of the entire research, which is PGRC. The researcher also enumerates the benefits, risks, barriers and good practice regulations of development of PGRC for entities in Abu Dhabi. The researcher revisits the framework to add further elements that were identified during the course of the research. This led to the formulation of a complete framework that is applicable universally.