BPUG Members Annual Conference, 11-12 November 2009

By Melanie Franklin, CEO at Maven Training

Best Practice User Group Members Annual Conference took place at the Mercure Holland House Hotel & Spa, Bristol on 11-12 November 2009. The Conference Theme was 'P4: People, Portfolios, Programmes and Projects'.

Conference delegates enjoyed two days of valuable discussions, presentations and ideas generation across the whole range of OGC PPRM guidance, with special emphasis on 'people' aspects. Past delegates of BPUG conferences have praised them for their wide spread of topics, the quality of the session leaders and the opportunity to network amongst others in similar work circumstances.

I gave a presentation on the importance of emotional intelligence in achieving project success. There was broad agreement in the room at the start of the presentation that building capability and being able to answer the question ' how do we things well' is more important these days than sorting out 'what we do' which results from the implementation of methodologies. That is not to say that the methods offered by PRINCE2 and MSP are not important for project and programme management, its just that many organisations have implemented these now, and are looking to upskill their workforce for successful project delivery, and not just successful following of a methodology.

Interpersonal skills and technical skills combined deliver this 'how to' knowledge. Excellence in interpersonal skills are a result of developing 'emotional intelligence' which involves self awareness - an unflinching assessment of our strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes and how we demonstrate these through our personality and self management - a willingness to tailor some of our personality traits to the situation. We discussed how emotional intelligence grows over time, as we learn from our mistakes, and therefore, it is essential to constantly ask ' how could i have done that better' when engaging with people. We all agreed that we would never get anything done on a project if it weren't for the people around us, so increasing our ability to inspire, motivate, delegate and manage is not optional, its mandatory.

There were a number of questions at the end including the importance of building personal relationships if we are to get the most out of some of our more impersonal meeting formats such as teleconferenes, virtual teams, webinars and email. The removal of face to face communication presents us with even greater challenges for which emotional intelligence gives us a number of solutions

If anyone attended the conference over the two days it would be great to hear your thoughts!

London Project and Programme Management Forum

By Melanie Franklin, CEO at Maven Training

The event was the London Project and Programme Management Forum. This even happens twice each year and on this occasion was hosted at the London Borough of Lewisham. The event is designed to bring Project and Programme Managers from London Local authorities together to share ideas, best practises and success stories. The focus was on Change Management and there were about 90 people in attendance most of whom are from Local Authorities, Met Police and the Fire and Ambulance Services.

I was really pleased to be asked to speak at this event, as embedding change is a subject we are repeatedly asked to design workshops for. Many of our clients are currently planning and implementing change programmes and are keen for practical guidance on how to make the change relevant to all who are impacted by it. It is this relevance that drives their involvement enabling individuals to see a reason for becoming involved and for adopting the change for themselves.

In my presentationg I explored a range of different perspectives that individuals typically take when evaluating an organisational change. The first evaluation is always how it will impact them and their position within the organisation, with pessimists often seeing the change in a negative light, seeing it as a criticism of the work they do today. Optimists can see the change as a way to fix current problems and provide them with new career development opportunities, but can sometimes lose heart when they realise the change does not offer them all of the advantages they had originally associated it with.

In order to address these extremes of view, and all points in between, all activities and communications about the change need to target how people learn, their preferences for receiving information and where they are in their own 'cycle of change' remembering that some people adapt to change very quickly, constantly seeking out the next change and how they can become involved in it, and others will be slower as their resistance to change is much greater.

During my presentation there was lots of notes being taken and at the end there were a number of questions about how to practically address those that resist change, clearly indicating that this is the biggest challenge that we face in change programmes.

Other speakers included Barry Quirk – Chief Exec at Lewisham, Steve Gough – Director of Programme Management and Property at Lewisham, Stephen Jenner – Director, Criminal Justice I.T, Tim Ellis – Kensington and Chelsea and Richard Caton – LB Hackney. Outperform also gave an update on the London Programme Management Methodology.

Project Challenge Review

By Nicholas Tipping, Marketing Executive at Maven Training

I attended my 4th Project Challenge last Wednesday the 30th September (2nd in Olympia) as a Maven Training exhibitor and I have to say it turned out to be a great day with many interesting conversations. I managed to get to the exhibition around 8:30am and so had a chance to grab a coffee and have a little walk round and chat to some familiar faces. As the time was approaching for the grand opening at 9:30am, everyone awaited in anticipation for the delegates to come rushing in through the door. Unfortunately people can only access the exhibition by the lifts and I heard through the grapevine that queues were mounting outside! Apart from that there were no other hiccups and after half an hour or so, anyone and everyone who wanted to come were safely inside the building.

As the day ran on, I spoke to some of our long term clients and discussed how our current partnerships are progressing; this was met with some fantastic feedback and it is great to see how organisations are reaping the benefits from project and programme management implementation techniques we have worked on together. With our unique approach to building capability and capacity in organisations, we have developed many collaborations and tailored services to which we can work with different organisations with. If you would like to take a look at our range of services please visit our Business Solutionswebsite section which will give you a great insight in to what we can do.

It was interesting to hear from a lot of individuals who had come to the exhibition in search of more information on changes in the industry. There seemed to be a fair share of project managers attending to catch up with the latest news in the project world and attend the seminars to sound out new angles on the subject. At 12:15pm on the Wednesday, our CEO Melanie Franklin presented in Zone A on ‘Building Business Capacity in Project and Programmes’. This presentation was met with loud applause and many delegates I spoke to in the afternoon had great words to say about the presentation which focused on building individuals and organisations capacity to produce maximum productivity (email info@maventraining.co.uk if you would like further information on the presentation).

Other conversations were also based around delegates who had taken mainly PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner courses and were looking at up skilling by attending additional courses. These were usually in the form of the MSP Foundation and Practitioner and Change Management courses in which we received a high response to. It is great to know in this economical downturn that people are still looking to increase their skill set and qualifications and tie in other methodologies with the project management methodology to give them a greater overview and understanding of the subjects. Whether this is for people needing to combine the skills for their jobs or have the qualifications for their CV, it is very popular to have 2/3 of the courses under your belt nowadays and this trend was very apparent.

All in all a fantastic day and by 5:00pm everyone looked pretty tired and worn out. We hope everyone enjoyed this event and if anyone has any feedback on it, on us or any presentations it would be great to hear about it.

See you all soon

Project Challenge Exhibition

On the 30th September and 1st October Maven Training will be exhibiting at Project Challenge in Olympia, London.

With around 80 exhibiting organisations, and more than 40 free presentations, this un-missable event provides an unparalleled opportunity to learn from leading industry experts. You will get right up to date with the latest tools, solutions and services at this project event.

If you have previously taken a course with Maven Training, it would be great for you to come and meet us and talk about how everything has been since implementing what you have learnt from your course into your organisation. We can discuss different issues in your organisation at present and find solutions to your needs, just come to stand 29 for a chat about what we can do for each other.

On the 30th September at 12:15pm Zone A, our CEO Melanie Franklin will be presenting to an audience (so get there early) on 'Capacity Building in Project and Programme Management'. This lively, interactive and engaging presentation will focus on increasing individual capacity and maximising available resources to reach and exceed expectations. Then Melanie looks at developing capacity for an organisation as a whole and bringing it all together.

Come and take a seat for an innovative approach to buildiing capacity within organisations where you can hear her views on increasing individual productivity and maximising output.

PPSO SIG Conference

In 2008, P3O, the new Portfolio, Programme and Project Office framework was launched to thePMO community. In September 2009, the ppsosig launches its new conference "From Acorn to Oak: PMO Maturity in your Organisation, Your Team and You" focused on the next steps in growing your PMO.

This two day conference, being held on the 16th & 17th September 2009, will move from awareness to a greater understanding of the current guidance and tools available to assess your organisational and PMO maturity.


Establishing a PMO Team

Melanie Franklin, our CEO at Maven Training identifies and reinforces the key issues in establishing a PMO team. Melanie’s engaging and high energy session will look at the goals of your PMO, roles and responsibilities, the work of the PMO, the skillsets required (hard and interpersonal), working arrangements, abilities and experiences and certification & training for the team.
The session will leave delegates with an overview of the challenges of bringing individuals together in a PMO and address the following topics;
• Support, encourage and control of the members
• Working with Programme and Project staff
• Focus of promoting the benefits of the P3O to the organisation stakeholders
• Developing P3O services and functions
• Developing the use and application of appropriate tools and techniques
• Training and development

Please make sure you register your interest pretty quickly for this unmissable event!

Benefits Realisation, Programme Management, Project Offices and all that jazz…

My Michelle Rowland, Associate Trainer

At the last the APM Group’s 7th annual Best Practice Showcase I attended several ‘Birds of a Feather’ sessions. Most of these covered subjects with which I was already very familiar such as ‘Benefits Realisation Management’ and ‘What’s wrong with your Project Office’. I also went to a session on ‘Tailoring MSP to transform performance’. What I found most interesting was that for me there was ‘nothing new’. I had hoped to glean a snippet of information or insight as to how to apply these methods that I had not thought of before, but in fact came away with the feeling that I knew at least as much as the other ‘experts’ in the room. A comforting thought!

I went to two interesting sessions, one on Portfolio Management – again nothing new but the speaker Craig Kilford, the author of the OGC’s guidance on the subject, was very entertaining and is definitely worth going to see if you can. You can download the guidance for free at the moment as a PDF file, if you are interested. In future, the OGC are considering producing it as a full blown book which will be available to buy.

The second interesting session was on the similarity between MSP and the new PRINCE2 2009 – ‘PRINCE2 and MSP joined up’, as presented by two of the authors of both guides. They focused their energies on looking at the Principles and how they have a similar ethos and presented the following picture, which I thought might be of interest:

Purpose
On PRINCE2: Business Justification
On MSP: Leading Change; Envisioning; Communicating

Focus
On PRINCE2: Productions
On MSP: Benefits

Flexibility
On PRINCE2: Tailored to suit
On MSP: Delivering a coherent capability

Governance
On PRINCE2: Manage by stages; Manage by exception; Roles and responsibilities
On MSP: Remaining aligned with corporate strategy; Adding value

PRINCE2 Launch – the video and interviews

Watch the action here!

Melanie Franklin, CEO, Maven Training, is interviewed by Sue Jermany of TSO.

Effective Project Delivery in Difficult Times

The Maven Training and Arras People FREE breakfast event, which will give you an overview of project management market trends in these difficult times, will happen again next Monday the 13th July.

Melanie Franklin , CEO of Maven Training, will be talking about personal and professional development and how you can get the balance right between accredited qualifications and skills-based development, as well as finding the right balance of organisational needs vs. individual needs.

John Thorpe, MD of Arras People will share his thoughts on current trends in the PM marketplace – recruitment and people strategies, and current benchmarking information.

Venue: Maven Training Centre Location and Map
Cost: FREE
Bookings: info@maventraining.co.uk

13th July 2009
08:00am - 10:30am
12:00am - 14:30pm

Limited availability, so BOOK NOW!

PRINCE2 Twitter Hour Part 2 - the results

Full Q&A session can be found on How to Manage a Camel

PRINCE2 Twitter Hour – Part 2

Two weeks ago our friends at Arras People ran a PRINCE2:2009 Twitter Hour with Andy Murray, the lead author of the refreshed project management method. This morning, Friday 3rd July at 11am BST they’ll be running Part 2.

Take part!

You can connect directly with Andy Murray and also the Camel. You can also join the PRINCE2 community on Twitter .

For more information, read full article here.

Effective Project Management Delivery in Tough Times

Due to popular demand, the Maven Training and Arras People FREE breakfast event, which will give you an overview of project management market trends in these difficult times, will happen on two dates: the 26th June (fully booked) and the 13th July.

On both events, Melanie Franklin , CEO of Maven Training, will be talking about personal and professional development and how you can get the balance right between accredited qualifications and skills-based development, as well as finding the right balance of organisational needs vs. individual needs, and John Thorpe, MD of Arras People will share his thoughts on current trends in the PM marketplace – recruitment and people strategies, and current benchmarking information.

Venue: Maven Training Centre Location and Map
Cost: FREE
Bookings: info@maventraining.co.uk

Date and times:

13th July 2009
08:00am - 10:30am
12:00am - 14:30pm

Limited availability, so BOOK NOW!

Best Practice showcase – the Maven Trainers’ point of view

Following the APM Group’s 7th annual The Best Practice Showcase, Maven Training’s Client Relations Director, William Franklin, has asked Maven Training Trainers, a community of experts, to take some time to reflect on the most relevant finding from the event and share them with you. Here are some comments from our dear trainers Susan Tuttle, Tiffany Childs and Paul de Havilland.

Susan Tuttle, who delivered four out of our five Birds of a Feather sessions on the next steps for Project and Programme Management, said that the two questions that were most posed by the attendees were: “Project Managers – to professionalise or not to professionalise?” and “I need a training course on how to manage my manager – managing up and how that affects the effectiveness of a Project Manager”

Tiffany Childs was surprised at the level of interest/general appetite for P3O – several government organisations were keen to discuss and debate their current situation and were particularly looking for suggestions on how to improve the structure of their Portfolio/Programme/Project Offices. Given the current economic climate, the focus of conversation was on the need to maintain the functionality and credibility of the support office(s) while working with reduced access to resource. She goes on saying that there was little discussion on the upcoming launch of the P3O Practitioner qualification, but it would still be interesting to see what the uptake of this qualification will be, nonetheless – people seemed to be searching for answers!

As I'm a member of the APM, Paul de Havilland often mentions to delegates on courses the moves towards chartered status for project managers. He said he has not yet come across a delegate who's heard of this before my mentioning it! In fact, I find it's a minority of delegates who are even aware of the APM, as opposed to the PMI which seems to have much wider recognition – especially with people from multi-nationals. He also said that he’s personally enthusiastic about chartered status because, amongst other things, it could help to change decision makers' perceptions of project management to that of it being a discipline in its own right, with its own distinctive set of skills. One upshot of this might be for organisations to be more selective about who they entrust projects to – no one would consider the appointment of a an accountant with no qualifications or experience, yet this happens all the time in project management (he’s lost count of the number of nervous delegates who say 'I've just been moved into a project management role and I have no idea what it entails'). However, given the increasing profile of PMI, will even chartered status be enough to make the APM the natural 'professional body of choice' for UK project managers?

What about you? what did you think of the event? Please leave your thoughts and comments here!

Self-awareness – Best Practice in action

By William Franklin, Client Relations Director at Maven Training.

Yesterday saw 750 people register for the APM Group’s 7th annual The Best Practice Showcase. Held at the QE11 Conference Centre next to Houses of Parliament, the juxtaposition of an industry constantly seeking to evolve and adopt Best Practice in project and programme management was stark when placed alongside the current MP expenses scandals rocking UK politics.

Alan Harpham, as Chairman of the APM Group, gave the delegates and exhibitors a multi-cultural welcome that reflected some of the many countries now adopting PRINCE2® and other Best Practice products. After that, delegates entered a whirl of their own as they tried to find the first of many 'Birds of a Feather' sessions planned throughout the day. This possibly led to the early negative feeling of personal project management capabilities (see later) as many got lost and ended up in the wrong sessions. That said, the sessions themselves were well delivered on the whole with limited 'plugging' of individual organisational capabilities.

From the marketing perspective, the opportunity to hold in-depth conversations with delegates was limited as many were hurrying between Birds of a Feather sessions. Maven Training was particularly innovative in capturing delegates’ views by asking the following question: "Does your organisation run an EFFECTIVE project methodology?" with the only answers possible being YES or NO. By getting delegates to address this question up front we were then able to take the temperature of the industry. As mentioned earlier, the initial confusion over format, combined with uncertain expectations of what the day could deliver led to 67% of respondents in the morning session answering NO. After lunch we started to see a swing towards 50/50 as delegates started to see that their existing knowledge base when benchmarked against others in the industry was in fact quite strong. However, at the end of the day, the final balance of those that had confidence in their organisational methodologies was 38% with regular comments being "...but my skills and those of my team are very strong".

So what subjects were of highest concern to delegates? Interestingly enough, there was little interest in the updated PRINCE2® (2009) with many delegates recognising this was purely an evolution rather than structural change. At the top of the list of interest was a desire for implementation services from companies that had the breadth and depth of capability to deliver methodologies, irrespective of source of the method. Maven Training was therefore delighted to be able to showcase our new Wheel of Delivery (see below) where irrespective of the client maturity or project stage, they could benefit from a range of scalable implementation services.

An additional delegate request was for the three Birds of a Feather topics we spoke on to be delivered directly to clients at their offices around the country. While an unforeseen outcome from the sessions, we agreed to a small number of additional sessions to be included in our Project Health checks that clients seek from Maven Training.

Overall, the 7th Best Practice Showcase delivered what it set out to – an opportunity for experts in the industry to share experiences and learn from each other to continue the development of Best Practice with project and programme management. We look forward to seeing you all next year.

The Wheel of Delivery™
Click on the image to enlarge it

Maven Training takes another step towards female professional development

By William Franklin, Client Relations Director at Maven Training.

Back in March 2009, Maven Training once again demonstrated its innovative approach to delivering the most innovative training solutions by offering PRINCE2 for Girls accredited training. This event came about from our partnership with Women in Technology and Women in Business, as well as because of our dear relationship with pm4girls, where not only their members access tailored courses such as the one above, but also they receive discounts on all Maven Training courses.

Following on from this success and keeping to a theme, Maven Training is proud to announce a new partnership with Women in Transportation. In a move that again addresses the under-representation of women in management roles, the WTS is aimed at promoting the skill base and career opportunities for women working in all aspects of the transportation sector. When I and our Marketing Manager, Joanna Burigo, met with Nicky van Domburg, Sponsorship Chair of the WTS (interestingly at Waterloo Station on the day of the TGWU strike!) it became immediately apparent that the work we had undertaken with WiT and WiB was directly beneficial.

Maven Training was then invited to the WTS Summer Party that had Baroness Jo Valentine, Chief Executive of London First, as key note speaker, who spoke about The Planning and Economics of Transport in London. Notable for the evening was the drive and passion of women within Transport for London, London Underground and CrossRail to name but a few. In a final slide from Baroness Jo Valentine, the major challenges and associated timelines facing London transportation were listed, the final one of which was getting the Boards of 51% of FTSE100 listed companies comprised of women… the timeline for which was 2100?!? Well, through partnership with Maven Training, we aim to ensure that this is achieved long before then, through application of professional skills development.

While still confirming details, we will be offering WTS and its members a series of benefits, including discounts on all Maven Training courses, key note speakers discussing the role and value of professional qualifications and naturally access to the Maven Training community of professionals that is growing at an ever increasing rate. Watch this space for next speaking engagements for Melanie Franklin.

Who was at the PRINCE2:2009 launch?

By Melanie Franklin, CEO, Maven Training.

Last Tuesday (16th June) I attended the PRINCE2:2009 launch event, which was sponsored jointly by the OGC, the TSO and the APMG. There were lots of people from these three organisations, along with the authoring team for PRINCE2.

Also there were Liz Berryman (who has built up a lot of knowledge in how to write OTE-style questions), APMG assessors Emmanuel Gianquitto (Quality), David Watson (Change) and AnneMarie Byrne (P3O), Colin Bentley (former PRINCE2 Chief Examiner) and Emma Jones (the current one). From the APMG, Richard Pharro (CEO) and Nikki Kelly, along with Collis Boucher (representing translations).

Mike Allen from BPUG was there along with Mike Acaster. From the OGC were there, along with Ray Frew (who is a PRINCE2 trainer) and Scott Spence (who flew over from Australia representing Crazy Colour).

Sue Vowler (P3O writer), Kate Winter and Elizabeth Harrin were also at the event.

There was a quick presentation about the changes to the method, and it was overall an interesting event. I had a chance to see lots of the community and was delighted to exchange some ideas about the market.

PRINCE2®:2009 – the official launch

Last night was a busy one for our CEO Melanie Franklin – she had dinner at the Women in Transportation Summer Event, where Baroness Jo Valentine, Chief Executive of London First, spoke about The Planning and Economics of Transport in London.

Before that, though, she attended the much awaited launch of PRINCE2®:2009. According to Andy Murray, the main author for the refresh, 150 people have been invited to attend – most of whom have been involved in the project in some capacity.

As we’ve already said on this very blog, the PRINCE2® manual gets updated every few years, based on current best practice, as well as any issues raised on the existing version. Since its launch (in 1996) it has been updated in 1998, 2002 and 2005 – the 2009 structure of PRINCE2 remains the same as the other versions, although there are some changes to the naming conventions. See further details about all the changes here.

Our dear friend Elizabeth Harrin, from pm4girls, has come up with a very special report on the launch – watch the video here!



Maven Training is proud to announce that we are already offering PRINCE2®:2009 courses on our schedule – the first one will take place in London on the 06th July; on the 13th July London and Nottingham delegates will be able to attend PRINCE2®:2009 courses and from the 20th July onwards all our courses will be PRINCE2®:2009.

More on Programme Management

By Melanie Franklin, CEO, Maven Training.

We are getting a lot of demand from clients to help them with their programme management at the moment.

For example, lots of Primary Care Trusts in the NHS are creating new programmes to delivery World Class Commissioning, which means reorganising their internal processes. Other clients are reorganising to save money, and they need to get things done fast.

One of our clients told me the other day "I am not worried about whether we are doing it right – I just need it done. How can we get a cost reduction programme underway and delivering benefits NOW?"

In response, we have created a series of three-hour 'Quick Fix' workshops that cover all the difficult topics – scope and strategic objectives of the programme, defining benefits, being an effective sponsor.

These workshops are defined to get everyone on their feet and contributing their ideas – see the pictures of the ‘workshop in action’!








Are you under pressure to deliver quickly, and are you getting the message that 'we don't mind how, just get it done?' I would love to hear your views.

Come to The Best Practice Showcase!

We’d like to reinforce our invitation to all our readers, trainers, partners and clients to come and spend the day at The Best Practice Showcase on Tuesday 23rd June at the QE11 Conference Centre.

The Showcase, which is in its seventh edition, is FREE TO ATTEND. Its interactive format proves a real hit with delegates, who spend the day discussing issues, talking to experts and sharing experiences with each other.

Maven Training will be hosting five Birds of a Feather sessions at the event – these sessions entail sitting round a table with ten to fifteen delegates and grappling with pertinent programme and project management issues – our idea of heaven!

Melanie Franklin, our CEO, will host sessions that will focus on Programme Management – where are we and where do we go next? Melanie will present a step by step guide as to how to go about establishing and implementing a programme environment in your organisation. The examples she’ll be exploring are derived from our work with public and private sector organisations. She’ll also ask delegates to share their experiences and challenges.

Melanie is also scheduled to deliver her popular presentation on Interpersonal Skills for Projects and Programmes – exact timing still to be confirmed, but watch this space for further details.

Susan Tuttle, Associate Trainer, will be hosting sessions on Project management – what next? Susan will discuss how project managers can get commitment from their sponsors, how to persuade line managers to release staff to work on projects, and how to engage support staff fully. The session will give those involved in project management a chance to share their experiences, and set this against our roadmap for increasing organisation wide project management capability. This is an opportunity to devise practical steps to address these issues. Using a combination of interactive examples and our in depth experience in resolving these issues, those attending this session will feel empowered to return to work and make a tangible difference.

In addition to these discussion groups, the Best Practice Showcase will also feature a full seminar programme. Emma Jones, Chief Examiner for PRINCE2® Qualifications will update delegates on the impact of the 2009 Refresh.

The event is free so we’d love to see you take part. Click here for details of all the sessions on offer, and to register.

The Best Practice Showcase
Tuesday 23rd June 2009
QE II Conference Centre, London
www.bestpracticeshowcase.com

Effective Project Management Delivery in tough times

Due to popular demand, the Maven Training and Arras People FREE breakfast event, which will give you an overview of project management market trends in these difficult times, will happen on two dates: the 26th June (fully booked) and the 13th July.

On both events, Melanie Franklin , CEO of Maven Training, will be talking about personal and professional development and how you can get the balance right between accredited qualifications and skills-based development, as well as finding the right balance of organisational needs vs. individual needs, and John Thorpe, MD of Arras People will share his thoughts on current trends in the PM marketplace – recruitment and people strategies, and current benchmarking information.

Venue: Maven Training Centre Location and Map
Cost: FREE
Bookings: info@maventraining.co.uk

Dates and times:

26th June 2009
08:00am - 10:30am
12:00am - 14:30pm

13th July 2009
08:00am - 10:30am
12:00am - 14:30pm

Limited availability, so BOOK NOW!

The Best Practice Showcase

We’d like to invite all of our readers, trainers, partners and clients to come and spend the day at The Best Practice Showcase on Tuesday 23rd June at the QE11 Conference Centre .

The Showcase, which is free to attend, has been going for seven years and its interactive format proves a real hit with delegates, who spend the day discussing issues, talking to experts and sharing experiences with each other.

Two of our senior personnel will be hosting Birds of a Feather sessions at the event. These sessions entail sitting round a table with around ten to fifteen other delegates and grappling with pertinent programme and project management issues – our idea of heaven!

Melanie Franklin, our CEO, will host sessions that will focus on Programme Management – where are we and where do we go next? Melanie will present a step by step guide as to how to go about establishing and implementing a programme environment in your organisation. The examples she’ll be exploring are derived from our work with public and private sector organisations. She’ll also ask delegates to share their experiences and challenges.

Susan Tuttle, Associate Trainer, will be hosting sessions on Project management – what next? Susan will discuss how project managers can get commitment from their sponsors, how to persuade line managers to release staff to work on projects, and how to engage support staff fully. The session will give those involved in project management a chance to share their experiences, and set this against our roadmap for increasing organisation wide project management capability. This is an opportunity to devise practical steps to address these issues. Using a combination of interactive examples and our in depth experience in resolving these issues, those attending this session will feel empowered to return to work and make a tangible difference.

In addition to these discussion groups, the Best Practice Showcase will also feature a full seminar programme. Emma Jones, Chief Examiner for PRINCE2® Qualifications will update delegates on the impact of the 2009 Refresh.

Emma Hilditch, the event director, says: “For the last six years 98% of delegates have left the event completely satisfied, so we are very confident of putting on an excellent day for them. They will get up-to-date news on the refreshed OGC guidance such as P3O, P3M3™ and PRINCE2. They can take active part in round table discussion sessions, with over 100 different targeted topics to choose from.”

The event is free so we’d love to see all our clients take part. Click here for details of all the sessions on offer, and to register.

The Best Practice Showcase
Tuesday 23rd June 2009
QE II Conference Centre, London
www.bestpracticeshowcase.com