Project activity increasing for September

Tonight I am watching two news items: rioting in London and Birmingham; heightening of tension in the financial markets in Europe and the U.S. Part of my job is to try and predict the future and work out what organisations will be concentrating their efforts on in the next 12-18 months.

Given the news coverage it is hard at times like this not to be pessimistic and think that the immediate future will be dominated by restructuring and redundancy programmes. However, I am cheered by the number of organisations that are rushed off their feet this August as they cope with 'opportunity overload' - holding workshops now to plan and define new projects and programmes so that the work can start as soon as everyone returns (although the amount of holiday being taken this summer is definitely lower).

This stream of new initiatives provides lots of opportunities for getting involved and making lasting improvements in our approach to work, our levels of innovation and customer service. If you are not sure how to get started have a look at the guidance I have put together to explain project, programme and change management: http://www.maventraining.co.uk/project-management-explained/, http://www.maventraining.co.uk/change-management-explained/ and http://www.maventraining.co.uk/programme-management-explained/

Chief Programme Officer

I was really interested to see an advert for a Chief Programme Officer in the Appointments section of the Sunday Times yesterday. This is still a rare event, but this job role is becoming better known and I think reflects the changes in how project and programme management is seen within organisations now.

In the last five years there has been a growing recognition that programmes and all the projects and change initiatives that they deliver are the mechanism for realising the strategic objectives of the organisation. This recognition is driving a change in the perception of the importance and relevance of those that manage these significant transformational change programmes.

At board level there are well understood processes for strategy formulation, backed up by lots of executive training in the models and theories of strategy including evaluating the environment, identifying target markets and setting quantitative targets.

Setting objectives and working out how they will be realised are very different disciplines. Who should be responsible for identifying what the organisation should do and how it should do it is not as clearly defined.

The board needs to ratify the decision on what programmes are required. However, the reporting lines between those who scope the programmes (programme managers) are not formally represented on the board. There is a gap that is usually filled by the CIO or COO, which is an imperfect situation.

Programmes are cross functional and to imply they sit within the remit of either of these directors is not strictly true. The remit of the programmes is transformational change, touching every part of the organisation and cannot be pigeon holed as either the responsibility of operations or IT.

By trying to funnel the responsibility for cross functional programmes into one functional reporting line the organisation creates a management structure that runs counter to the matrix management environment that it is asking its staff to embody.
Forward thinking organisations are now addressing this gap in their management hierarchies by creating the role of Business Transformation Director, Chief Programme Officer or Chief Projects Officer.

This role is a board level appointment that complements the more traditional CIO, CFO, COO roles by creating a ‘single version of the truth’ regarding the progress of all the change activities that are taking place, irrespective of the business function that is sponsoring them.

It is an important piece in the career path for those interested in a long term future in project and programme management. If you want to plan your career path, view this link for ideas on the different types of roles available: http://www.maventraining.co.uk/career-development/

Creating the right environment for change

So much of the work that I am currently doing is about transformational change - helping programme managers to define their programmes of transformational change, and helping to establish what needs to be in place for change to happen. One of the critical success factors to effective change is encouraging an environment that encourages everyone to participate and ensures that they are supported during the stress and difficulties of learning to do things differently. To summarise some of the most important criteria for this environment, I have written a new web page:

http://www.maventraining.co.uk/principles-of-prince2-msp-mop-and-change-management/

If you are interested in transformational change and are in London this week, come to my free briefing on Thursday afternoon - http://www.maventraining.co.uk/course-booking-form/?id=662

MSP made easy?

Today I had to try and explain MSP to a group of senior managers who have no formal experience of Programme management - I say formal because anyone who has reached a senior position will have had experience of managing multiple initiatives and delivering strategic outcomes. Anyway, I was trying to explain how the structure of MSP can help make sure that any piece of work stays on track. By using the governance themes we have a ready made agenda for testing viability and progress. See below for my agenda for any decision point:

People:
• Organisation – ensure that the roles, responsibilities of the programme remain fit for purpose (too many people involved, overly bureaucratic application of responsibilities stifles action and progress)
• Leadership and stakeholder engagement – ensure identification of stakeholders and their level of influence and the amount the programme is impacting them is current
Outcome:
• Vision – ensure that vision remains aligned to strategic objectives of the organisation and that nuances in drivers for change are communicated to the programme manager
• Blueprint – ensure that further details are added as more is known and that there is challenge of the blueprint in line with changes to the vision/strategic direction of the organisation. Ensure that current and next tranche of the blueprint continue to ‘make sense’
Rationale:
• Business case – ensure that analysis is reworked on the basis of changes to resources, duration of activities, risks and activities elsewhere in the organisation
• Benefits realisation – ensure expected benefits are challenged against changes to strategic objectives, drivers for change and programme progress. Ensure that measurements of ‘As Is’ have been recorded as evidence base for success of programme
Mechanism:
• Planning – ensure alignment with other areas of the organisation including: Financial control, Resource planning and protocols for use of external resources
• Risk management and issue resolution – ensure that information from the programme is being escalated and communicated across the organisation and that impacts from other initiatives are being drawn into the programme (prevent programme becoming too internally focused)
• Quality management – ensure that quality processes are aligned with overall strategic direction

What can portfolio management do for you?

I have just attended the MoP launch http://www.maventraining.co.uk/news/ which included two useful presentations from people who are applying portfolio management:

David Pitchford is the Executive Director of the Major Projects Directorate (Cabinet Office) and is responsible for creating the portfolio of major projects for the UK government. He started his presentation by explaining that in common with many organisations the UK government does not have a complete understanding of all the major projects planned or already underway. Different government departments run multiple projects and change initiatives and whilst some of these are already visible because of their impact on society or their political sensitivity/media interest there are many more that are not included in the wider view of everything that is happening.

From a cost saving perspective this is interesting because research shows that merely by forming a portfolio an organisation can expect an upfront cost saving of 20% to 30% by removing duplication and stopping low value initiatives.

David made a strong case for the benefits of establishing a portfolio and how this is essential in ensuring transparency of where money and effort are being spent.

Paul Hirst is Head of Project and Programme Management at HMRC. He explained how HMRC have completed the ground work for making portfolio management work. Part of their planning included the creation of a governance structure where responsibilities, levels of authority and relationships with other groups has been agreed, overseen by the Senior Responsible Owner who is also the Chief Executive (I cannot think of a more effective way of gaining senior management commitment to the portfolio that putting the CEO in charge).

Paul talked about the reality of the austerity measures and the need to cut as a result of strategic need and not sentiment. He was very clear that authorisation of each element of the portfolio will be driven by evidence based evaluation of project ideas and the era of ‘pet projects’ has ended. Whilst this might seem a threatening message for some, in common with David’s first speech, Paul believes that the transparency offered by portfolio management is an essential element of getting a grip on expenditure and is a strong force for good in any type of organisation.

If you are interested in finding out more about portfolio management download my free whitepaper http://www.maventraining.co.uk/whitepapers/ or sign up for the Effective Portfolio Management Workshop on the 30th March http://www.maventraining.co.uk/course-detail/_/portfolio-management/20/

The future of project management...

Rather portentous title but I was at a lunch on Friday where part of my role was to explain where next for our industry. The imminent launch of the best practice guide for Management of Portfolios (MoP™) from OGC is leading us to question what happens next.

I think we are coming to the end of the development of best practice which dominated the last decade and a half, starting in 1996/1997 with the launch of PRINCE2, leading to the creation of guidance on risk management (MoR®) and Programme management (MSP®) and now finally MoP™.

I think that how best practice is applied and evidence of the improvements it creates has been a focus for several years and effective application of best management practice will continue to dominate the thoughts of those responsible for the operational management of our organisations. I am being specific about operational managers because I think there is still a distinction between these leaders and chief executives who operate strategic leadership, often in an unstructured way, but implicitly relying on the underlying management infrastructure, which is where best practice comes in.

I think organisational governance is growing in recognition and importance - probably becoming a senior management discipline for this decade.

Organisational governance has many definitions but I think it has two components - a structural/procedural piece and an interpersonal component which is the leadership ability of senior management to sell the benefits of applying the governance structure to everyone in the organisation, whatever their grade or length of service.

We need to explain how organisational governance is a key contributor to organisational excellence and how the best practice established at project (including technical and interpersonal skills), Programme (encompassing change and benefits management disciplines) and portfolio management (evidence based judgement and decision making) are interlinked.

I think this gives those of us involved in delivering projects and change initiatives plenty of scope for getting involved in shaping how our employers operate, and will ensure project management becomes embedded as a mainstream management discipline.

As always, let me know what you think, but if you want to want to know more, please go to http://www.maventraining.co.uk/white-papers.cfm or come and here me speak at one of my free briefings http://www.maventraining.co.uk/courses/free-briefings.cfm

Building Organisational Culture of Capacity

Capacity is having sufficient quantities of appropriately skilled resources to meet business need. Capacity is built by mapping resources and then building a community where your staff are proud to hold their skills.

To build capacity in your organisation carry out the following:

• Resource Gap Analysis
• Build a Resource Database
• Build a Community
• Community Peer System
• Build a Brand for Your Community


Resource Gap Analysis
To build capacity, this initial picture must be mapped against planned resource usage, using knowledge of future business plans, intended strategic direction of the organisation and the projects and programmes already in the pipeline for delivery.

Build a Resource Database
Building capacity requires a fully populated resource database that captures current skill levels for each individual along with their experiences and preferences so that they can be assigned as opportunities present themselves.

Build a Community
To build organisational capability, the organisation needs to create an environment where having capability means that an individual is part of a community. There needs to be an explicit message that without capability, they cannot join the community.

Community Peer System
Individuals need to know that being a member of this community is advantageous and positive, that it is meaningful and desirable. The community has to have values and exhibit behaviours that they ascribe to or that they aspire to.

Build a Brand for Your Community
In some cases, development of a brand for this community can be helpful in developing a positive view of it. A brand is more than just a logo and a name, it encompasses the fundamental principles of the community. Anyone who hears about the community understands its purpose, its values and behaviours.

If you would like Maven Training to help you build staff capability and organisational resource capacity please call our team on 020 7403 7100

Building Individual Staff’s Capability

Capability is having the ability, potential, aptitude, facility, and qualifications to meet the needs of business today. We expect staff to continually develop new abilities and aptitude at a pace that matches the transformational change taking place within our organisations.

To build capability in your organisation:

• Identify Skills Gap
• Individual Development Path
• Individual Development Plan
• Training Needs Analysis
• Implement Learning Interventions
• Post Learning Activities
• Performance Support
• Give long term support
• Build a Community


Identify Skills Gap
To build capability, this initial picture must be mapped against the required skill set for effective project, programme and change management.

Individual Development Path
To move towards the required skill set involves creating individual development paths as each person starts from a unique position and will have their own desired state – some will wish to develop greater technical ability and others will search for further management opportunities.

Individual Development Plan
A personal development plan cannot be imposed upon someone. Building capability must be a joint effort between each individual and the organisation. Individuals supply the willingness to learn new skills and the organisation provides training courses, management support and practice opportunities in the form of secondments, transfers to new projects and increases in responsibility and authority levels.

Training Needs Analysis
A training needs analysis identifies required training courses and events based upon any skills gaps and for each course pre and post course support activities can be identified. These include briefings by managers to their staff before a course begins to identify with the individual their personal objectives for the course and the objectives that the manager seeks to fulfil on behalf of their team, department and organisation overall.

Implement Learning Interventions
There are many learning options available, you may decide that your staff would learn well on a bespoke training course which can then be followed up with a workshop where your staff can work through real life examples. Senior staff or those on high profile programme or projects may benefit from one to one coaching or mentoring to help with and developing a blueprint and mapping out specific issues.

Post Learning Activities
Post course activities include developing communities of practice and performance support. Communities of practice are effective if they provide access to best practice and a supportive environment in which individuals can share their difficulties in applying new skills and share ideas for how problems can be solved.

Performance Support
Performance support gives help at the point of need. Often, these are short interventions which answer specific ‘how do I?’ type questions. Building capability means that the organisation allows people to practice and accepts the risk that on their first attempts they might get it wrong and resists the temptation to blame them for their early mistakes.

Build a Community
Building capability requires organisations to commit long term effort, investing time and energy in encouraging staff to learn new skills, work in different ways and adopt new technology. They must also provide relevant support as individuals practice these new approaches until they become second nature.

If you would like Maven Training to help you build staff capability and organisational resource capacity please call our team on 020 7403 7100

Develop Staff Skills Resource and Build a Community Where Capability is Respected.

Staff need to be able to adapt to new situations quickly, in fact they need the capability to perform many varied tasks. But how do you give them the tools, skills and environment they need to the capable in the situations that they face? And how do you ensure that your organisation has the capacity to meet the demands of modern business?

Capability and resource capacity can be purchased via recruitment of permanent and temporary resources to meet immediate needs. However, it is far more cost effective for organisations to have development programmes in place that grow from within, using resources that already know and understand their business.

Investment in training and development are also an important differentiator for staff satisfaction and impacts successful staff retention and lower recruitment costs as these activities mark the organisation as an employer of choice.

The WorkTrends Survey KRI 2007 shows that employee motivation and their ability to execute tasks can be improved by:

• Setting a clear career path programme
• Goal development and monitoring
• Regular feedback sessions with managers
• Tracking Progress

The survey also shows that by focusing on talent management organisations in six countries* questioned showed their employees were more engaged and more satisfied with their jobs and employer companies over all.
*Countries surveyed UK, USA, Brazil, China, Germany and India.

Use your staff’s potential combined with a programme to build a capability community and your business will see a return on investment and reap quantifiable rewards in terms of an efficient and able workforce.

Building both capacity and capability begins with a common step ~ understanding the current level of skills, knowledge and ability for each employee.

If you would like Maven Training to help you build staff capability and organisational resource capacity please call our team on 020 7403 7100

Interview with Lisa Sherwood, MSP delegate with Maven Training

On the week commencing the 19th October, Lisa Sherwood, a programme manager in the public sector took the MSP Foundation course at our Maven Training centre. A few questions were posed afterwards to find out her thoughts and opinions on the qualification so take a look at what she said about it.

1) Who do you think it is so important to have the MSP qualification?
MSP is the most widely recognised programme management qualification in the UK, and it's an indication of your committment to managing business change so that you realise the benefits.

2) How does the MSP qualification complement PRINCE2?
Well, it's from the same best practice stable as PRINCE2 so it allows PMs and PgMans to talk the same language when discussing their management areas.

3) How does it prepare you for going back to the office after gaining the qualification?
I feel much more confident now that I know the language of programme management and understand it's principles, governance themes and processes.

5) What level do you feel the course is aimed at?
MSP isn't for the faint hearted - there's a lot of information here and a lot of detail to absorb, so if reading isn't your thing, it probably isn't for you. Similarly I think it helps if you have had exposure to some level of PgMan before, either as a project manager or as a programme manager, or you've been part of the business change team in your organisation. Senior business leaders would also benefit - those who will be part of sponsoring boards or senior responsible owners, so they can understand their roles and those of the team around them.

6) What is the next step after an MSP course?
To use the new skills! I'm already trying to apply what I've learned to a new programme of work that I'm responsible for. I'd also like to expand my knowledge of P3M3 and programme offices. Future training course possibilities include Change Management and Management of Risk (M_o_R).

7) How do you implement MSP into organisations when you are the only person accredited with the qualification?
Well, I think you have to communicate, communicate, communicate. Part of your return to work should be to brief your colleagues on what you've learned and plan the implementation according to what you've learned. If your organisation doesn't use any form of methodology to manage the change - it would seem a very good time to start!

8) How has it helped you individually and what part of the course has interested you the most?
I'm more confident now with the differences between projects and programmes as well as understanding how important it is to align to the corporate strategies that drive your business. MSP & PRINCE2 help you to do that by ensuring the reasons for doing the programmes and projects remain sound.


Thank you for answering our questions Lisa and we hope to see you again soon.

New style Practitioner results letter from Maven Training

For all examination based courses, Maven is moving to a new style of results letter for the Practitioner results. The new style will be a pdf version of the letter, which can be emailed to each of our delegates. The reason for this change is twofold. We are protecting our delegates from the impact of the proposed mail delivery strikes, as we know that waiting for results can be nervewracking and we have always sought to notify delegates as soon as we are given the results from the examination bodies. Secondly, we know that many of our delegates keep records of their achievements, and whilst the printed certificates are great for framing and displaying, the new version of the results letter can be used as an attachment when sending on-line applications for association memberships, job applications etc. This approach ties in with our commitment to supporting the launch of the new Chartered Project Professional status from the Association for Project Management, where the application will be on-line, and evidence of success in our project, programme, risk and change management examination courses will be a valuable achievement towards chartered status.

The emailing of results will be a permanent change, and is in line with our environmental policy, which seeks to cut down on paper and ink usage wherever possible.

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.

Building high performing project, programme and portfolio support offices

By Melanie Franklin, CEO at Maven Training

The PPSO Sig is an opportunity for those performing support roles to meet with their colleagues from other organisations and industries, to debate key issues. I attended the dinner at the end of day one, and gave a presentation on building high performing project, programme and portfolio support offices the next day. One of the things that really struck me about the attendees at this event was their strong desire to really get something out of their 2 days, and to make sure that the event was not just a talking shop.

As it was such a tough audience, I was really grateful that my slot was so well received, with lots of comments on email afterwards saying very similar things "Fantastic presentation at the PPSO group, really like your style!"

For my presentation, i took a client centric view of a support office, as I am currently relying on the PMO at a client to help me deliver a business critical programme against very tight deadlines. I used my current experience to set out what I need from a PMO, and then showed how I thought a highly effective team could help me achieve these requirements. I based the development of a highly effective team on Tuckmans model of team formation, and the group and I explored how the development of a team charter for the PMO can help the team form and storm as quickly as possible, so that the team reaches its 'norming' phase as early as possible. I divided the attendees into small teams, and each of the teams had to build their own charter, and then display them around the room so that the learning could be shared by each of the other teams. After that, we looked at how teams moving from Norming to Performing by sharing capability and each of the teams was invited to create their own ideas of how best to develop capability in their own environments. There were a lot of very creative and innovative ideas, and this session was run as a competition, with the best idea (judged by a PPSO Committee member) winning a very high quality box of chocolates - which I am relieved they decided to share, so I could have a couple!! The winning idea from the capability activity was 'pass it on, pass it back' which describes how experiences of service delivery by one member of the PMO can be shared with others - passing it on, with a feedback loop from other team members - passing it back. So one team member explains their experience to 3 others, they each explain it to 3 others until everyone that would find the experience useful has been informed and had a chance to comment on it.BY

Fancy a career move into programme Management?

Project managers wishing to take their careers to the next stage often think about becoming programme managers. Although it can be a successful career move, it’s important to understand the differences between the two disciplines. Some people mistakenly believe that programme management is about running groups of projects, but programmes and projects are quite different by nature and require distinct skill sets.

As programmes are concerned with transformational change, they are ongoing and do not have a definite duration like projects. Project managers wanting to move into programme management must be prepared to be less hands-on.

While projects focus on outputs and have a controlled start through to controlled end, programmes focus on benefits and will be disbanded once these benefits have been realised.

Melanie Franklin, CEO, Maven Training, has helped many public sector organisations improve their project and programme management capability. Some of the organisations she has worked with include Knowsley Borough Council, the Children’s Work force Development Council, the London Pension Funds and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Melanie says: “Projects are about doing things right, whereas programmes are about doing the right things. Projects are expected to deliver outputs, deliverables or products to time, cost and quality. On the other hand Programmes are about leading and embedding change, and they introduce new ways of working.”
She says it’s valuable for project managers and programme managers to understand how their roles complement each other.

"Programme managers who have taken the PRINCE2® qualification are able to communicate with and understand project managers more easily. Projects are usually part of a programme, whether project managers know it or not, so the MSP™ (Managing Successful Programmes) qualification gives project managers a breadth of understanding. It helps them recognise how their hard work on a project fits into context.”

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

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

Best Practice Showcase - TOMORROW

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 tomorrow 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, and Susan Tuttle, Associate Trainer, will be hosting sessions on where Project and Programme Management stand and what is happening next with these disciplines. They will present a step by step guide as to how to go about establishing and implementing a project and programme environments within organisations.

Melanie is also scheduled to deliver her popular presentation on Interpersonal Skills for Projects and Programmes at 10am at the BMP stand space.

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

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.