Selection processes for execution partners tend to reward presentation quality. That is a poor predictor of delivery, because presenting is not the same discipline as running faculty logistics, content approval cycles and reconciliations under a fixed date. The following questions test the operating layer.
1. Who runs it, day to day?
Ask to meet the person who will hold the programme, and ask what else they are holding in the same weeks. Capacity, not capability, is the usual failure mode.
2. Show me a close-out pack
A redacted close-out pack from a completed programme shows whether documentation is a by-product of the way the work is run or something assembled afterwards. It is the single most informative artefact in a selection process.
Ask for the close-out pack, not the case study. One is produced by the process; the other is produced by marketing.
3. What happens when a date moves?
Programmes change. The useful question is procedural: who decides, who is told, what gets re-approved, and how the change is recorded. A partner without an answer will improvise, and improvisation is where compliance exposure enters.
4. Where does accountability sit?
- One owner across planning, content and logistics, or three separate ones with a coordination layer?
- Who signs the scope, and who signs the final report?
- What is escalated to you, and what is resolved without you?
Fragmented accountability is affordable while everything runs to plan. It becomes expensive in exactly the week it matters.
Have a programme in the diary? Send a scope, a timeline, or just a question.
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