MSP Practice Blog

Setting up a Programme Office?

Have you heard of P3O?

Project, Programme and Portfolio Office (P3O) is the latest guidance from OGC. It will be published this Autumn and will be accompanied by a qualification scheme. This new guidance - aligned to OGC's PRINCE2, MSP, and MoR - will bring together in one place a set of principles, processes and techniques to facilitate effective portfolio, programme and project management through enablement, challenge and support structures.

P3O is a strategic approach that is gaining favour more and more among organisations in the 21st Century, where a P3O gives coordinated support and scrutiny for all change, at whatever level in an organisation, thus improving significantly the return on the investment in change through programmes and projects.

pearcemayfield is proud to announce that it is one of the very first training organisations to become accredited to provide training leading to a qualification in P3O management. Patrick Mayfield, Chairman and Founding Director of pearcemayfield said, “I was impressed when I read this new Guide. It integrates a lot of change approaches we already offer our clients, and it helped frame some of my past roles earlier in my own career. If I had had this guide then I could have made more of a difference.”

Why not get in touch to find out more?

Call 01235 227252

So, you're a Business Change Manager...

...and you do not know what to do!

One of your key responsibilities, according to MSP, is to "Maintain the focus on realising beneficial change". Another one is "Preparing the affected business areas for the transition..." But how can you do that, what techniques do you have to help you?

How are teams and individuals going to react to these changes, and what about the organisation itself, does it have a good or a bad history of implementing change? Are you prepared to lead this change through? Do you even think that anyone can lead change, or does it just happen when it happens?

There seem to be more questions than answers, so let me suggest something that might help.

Our 3-day Principles of Change Management Workshop explores all of these questions of change, and helps you to think through some of the ways that you can tackle the task of being a Change Manager. One of our recent delegates said:

"The course has been incredibly useful to me as I’m now being thrown in the deep end supporting change on several large organisation-wide projects..."

The workshop is perfect for anyone who is working with change - why not take a look?

Two New Stars in the Programme Management Training Firmament

We got the news this morning that two more pearcemayfield trainers - Nathalie Collister and Richard Rose - have now qualified as APM Group-approved MSP (Managing Successful Programme) trainers.

Nathalie wrote to me today:

"I can tell you that I have a big smile on my face"

Both Nathalie and Richard seem to have their own fan clubs of past delegates from courses they have delivered such as PRINCE2 for Practitioners, so this will come as welcome news if they are considering taking the MSP Practitioner course course.

Richard is currently pioneering new modules in Process Mapping and Financial Management for Project Managers, as well as having just authored our Creative Problem-Solving course.

Nathalie - who charms delegates with her french accent - is now coaching the rest of us in advanced accelerated learning techniques.

Transition: From one state to another

John Edmonds writes:

One of the elements of MSP that is often overlooked in practice is the Transition Plan. Yet  managing the transition from the old to the new is essential if we want the changes to ‘stick’, outcome to ensue and benefits to be realised.

There is much useful literature available to the programme team to enable them to get a better perspective on this inevitable transition period.

One of the most well-known thought leaders in this area is William Bridges (see his book ‘Managing Transitions'). Bridges helps us to consider a number of things:

• That for many, this period is one of chaos – emotions may vary tremendously and anger depression and confusion may prevail.
• That is a special (and necessary) time in which the old ‘rules’ no longer apply, and new ‘rules’ have yet to be established. Transition requires its own rules, and this may include specific transition job roles and structures.
• That as we move into transition people will need to mark the end of the ‘old’. Grieving is a natural part of this and needs to be accommodated.
• That transition will not last forever. It is not the new way of doing things – that is still to come (hopefully soon). It is often useful to give a positive name to the time of transition that will point us to the future, and at the same time encourage creativity and ownership.

Going from the old to the new overnight? Forget it – plan and manage the vital phase of transition.

Benefit from a sigma Breakfast

Are you a fan of 'Heroes'? In the first series one of the characters had a phrase: "Go deeper."

We are often asked by delegates  to 'go deeper' on the benefits realisation management theme and its associated techniques. We glad to do that beyond the course, particularly when we can call up Gerald Bradley and his colleagues in sigma-uk

We have strengthened our strategic partnership with sigma-uk, the benefit realisation management (BRM) specialists whose approach has been recommended as “best practice” by the Home Office. We are jointly promoting each other’s complementary training and education services, commencing with a free breakfast seminar on BRM to be provided by sigma-uk at the Institute of Directors (IoD), Pall Mall, London from 08:00-10:30 on Tuesday 20th May.  For more details click here. .

Do come along. It would be good to meet you. We can 'go deeper' into benefits realisation over a croissant.

Terminal 5 gets rid of the baggage quickly

Terminal 5 at Heathrow was opened today by the Queen. In interview with the BBC this morning, the CEO of British Airways, Willy Walsh, described how this £4.3 billion terminal was designed around one process - shortening the check-in and boarding time for passengers.

Source: BAA Heathrow

This is quite a feat. In programme management terms the architecture, design and build was all orchestrated towards achieving this one performance objective.

In MSP such a capability is described in terms of:

• Process and Functions,
• Organisation structures and competencies to operate the facility,
• Assets (e.g. building, IT and so on), and
• Information requirements.

Usually for a programme of this type, it would be approached as a construction challenge. Walsh is right to be excited about such a facility that is capable of handling 30 million passengers a year without too much discomfort.

See a video of the project here. And here's a virtual tour:

 

Source: Patrick Mayfield's blog

Brain friendly training shows its superiority to rote learning, death-by-PowerPoint and cramming

Yesterday I was absolutely delighted to be told that our pass rates for MSP(tm) Practitioner have outstripped the national average. Since the new exam regime has been introduced we have achieved a pass rate of 92.2% compared to a national average of 74%, and this without doing what several of our competitors are known to do - obsess about passing the exam to the detriment of bringing the subject to life.

The new OTE (objectively tested exam) has created its own challenges in leading exam-based classes, where we are careful not to allow too much focus on the exam.

Again and again, partners and customers tell us of bad experiences with this or that training organisation. This week I heard of one PRINCE2(tm) trainer who's technique was solely to get delegates to highlight great chunks of the manual. Boring! Now this technique does have its place, but only as part of a more balanced and variegated learning diet.

So these results are a vindication, not just for pearcemayfield but also for the brain friendly techniques we employ. Clearly, our delegates are assimilating more, enjoying more and integrating new knowledge more, than in other learning experiences. Also we find that application of learning after training is more likely to be successful (although we mainly have anecdotal evidence for that.)

Last week I was co-leading an MSPP course with my colleague, Tony Watts. I took some photos and sent them on to the delegates . Today, one of these delegates kindly sent in return this photo they took:

Now doesn't Tony (the guy seated on the floor) look like a guru? He's even sitting like one! Also, in the foreground note the apple one delegate no doubt had prepared to give to the great man later...;)

Source: Lessons of a Learning Leader

del.icio.us Tags: brainfriendly,accelerated,MSP,PRINCE2,training,deathbypowerpoint,rote,cramming,exam,passrates

Technorati Tags: brainfriendly,accelerated,MSP,PRINCE2,training,deathbypowerpoint,rote,cramming,exam,passrates

Be skeptical about programmes

I think we should. Despite being an advocate of programme management and having the privilege of co-authoring the latest edition of Managing Successful Programmes, I feel there is some risk in what I am promoting. Understanding the nature and and potency of a programme as a vehicle for transformational change is not something that is easy for everyone. However, when people do 'get it', I often find that they can go overboard with the idea, particularly when a senior management team 'gets it' together.

About eighteen months ago I was consulting to a not-for-profit organisation. It had limited funds, barely able to meet its operational targets, but was blessed with some innovative leaders. After taking their senior management team through the benefits, concepts and nature of programme management, they were quick to identify no less than five programmes that they wanted to push for over the next two years. I tried to suggest that this might be beyond their capabilities but their bandwagon of enthusiasm had already left the station; I was too late.

In this case I should not have been unduly worried. Over the next six months common sense prevailed and their early experience helped pare this back to a more realistic two programmes.

My concern is that this kind of response can lead to the wrong kind of skepticism: that programmes are a fad and programme management theory is essentially vacuous. In a very real sense I see that part of my job is to manage the early expectations until this kind of management response becomes embedded as part of the normal geography of leadership and management.

The Add Value principle in MSP does encourage everyone to be skeptical of any so-called programme identified, and it is a principle that should be applied throughout the life of the programme. "Is this really a programme?" "Does the business can look rather more than the mere aggregation of its constituent project business cases?" These are valid questions.

So yes, whilst I'm an advocate of programme management, I have to remain skeptical about programmes. A programme must earn its keep, justify its place in the world, otherwise we promote useless bureaucracy.

(Source: Lessons of a Learning Leader.)

Technorati Tags: Managing Successful Programmes,Business Case,program management,Add Value,skepticism,Identifying

The inconvenient truth of beginning change

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 2, verse 37.

Throughout the change management literature we find that most models for changing things do not begin with the solution. Instead, they begin by generating some kind of debate, 'unfreezing' a sense of complacency, or injecting some kind of dis-ease with the way things are; or at least where things are heading if matters aren't attended to with some intention and urgency.

From a leadership perspective this is sometimes described as the leader holding up a mirror to the organisation, of defining current reality in vivid terms.

For example, in the environmental debate we can see this happening through what Al Gore has been doing with his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth". And as we see with Mr Gore - quite apart from being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - it is not always a pleasant process.

Mr Gore has been the subject of vilification and personal attack for his whole engagement in this debate. When my wife and I were visiting friends in the States recently, mention of Al Gore brought the response that he was a hypocrite, living in an energy-consuming mansion, and that he still had future political ambitions for making this movie. I won't on such personal issues about a public figure here, but I would ask that even if these things are true, would they in themselves undermine his thesis and conclusions? I note that people pick a a few factual errors in the movie, an argument for some to exclude the movie from being shown in UK schools; as if this casts doubt on the overall conclusion that global warming is a now an established fact.

But my point here is that if we engage with creating this dis-ease within any community, we must be prepared for this kind of treatment. It gets rough. It can get personal.

The inconvenient truth of beginning a change process is that, if it is done correctly, it will be unpleasant, unpopular, resented and painful for everybody involved. It requires honesty and courage. In the actual communication itself, as John Kotter illustrates in his Heart of Change, and as Mr Gore illustrates, must be creative and make a primarily emotional connection.

In the new edition of MSP we made sure that there is now a discussion of the 'Do Nothing Vision'. This is a statement of the clear and present dysfunction or deficiency and what affairs might be like if we don't do something. Up until this third edition, MSP could have been rightly criticized from a change management perspective that it focused exclusively on the solution and how to achieve it. Now, with the Do Nothing Vision, there is a recognition that effective change needs to begin by looking intently together into the first inconvenient truth: we simply can't stay where we are.

Technorati Tags: change management, vision, urgency, solution, communication, leadership, program management, programme management, MSP07

Source: Lessons of a Learning Leader

Delegates play the cards dealt to them with MSP's Transformational Flow

Is it possible for programme managers to work out the logic of the processes within the new version of MSP (MSP07) without being talked through them first? It seems they can.

This week I was facilitating an Advanced Programme Management Workshop for a client in the transport sector. One of the modules in the workshop was 'Framework' where we considered the lifecycle of a programme. Although this particular client has not formally adopted MSP, I decided to try an experiment.

In MSP07 there is a Transformational Flow that contains six processes:

1. Identifying a Programme
2. Defining a Programme
3. Managing the Tranches
4. Delivering the Capability
5. Realising Benefits
6. Closing a Programme

Under each of these are a number of activities, and mostly the Manual does not prescribe the sequence in which these more detailed activities should be undertaken.

For the exercise I produced one laminated card for each major process, with its own signature colour. (This is fast-track version of a well-established game we use on our MSP Practitioner course.) On the reverse side of the card was a brief description. First of all, I asked the delegates in two teams to put the cards in some sort of logical order. This they did quite successfully with one group legitimately discussing how 'Realising Benefits' should continue after programme closure.

Then I asked them to build floor maps with the activity cards - again with brief descriptions on the back of each card - each card having been printed in the signature colour of its owning  process. In particular cases the sequence was a little at variance with manual but not chaotically so.

For me this illustrates two things:

1. yet again how practitioners with some experience can make some quite significant inductive leaps without any formal instruction.
2. the new Transformational Flow helps programme managers make sense of how they order their journey through a programme.

We were able to round off the session with a good discussion about where the result did or did not mirror their own programme experience and what the implications of these gaps might mean.

Technorati Tags: MSP07, Transformational Flow, program management, programme management, processes, framework, game, learning, cards