How do I implement change?

Maven is getting ready to change its booking system over to a new learning management system. We have piloted it with a few of our courses, but we are now planning the full launch. As a company that trains change management courses I feel the pressure to get this change right, which I think means that no-one outside of the company notices any differences and it feels just like business as usual.

One guide I use when planning any change is the warning I was given by one of my first managers “people don’t leave their jobs, they leave their managers”. Although it’s the managers at Maven who have identified the need for the new system, decided the high level functionality and selected the supplier, everyone in the company will be using it. Failure by the management team to involve, engage and inspire people will lead to failure in the adoption of the system.

That’s why this week we are busy putting up posters with quotes from staff about why they think the system is going to make things easier, and why we are putting up a chart showing our progress through each of the baby steps we are taking between now and Easter to get the system up and running. Every time we achieve one of these tasks we cross it off this ‘journey planner’ as a visual guide to how close we are to success.

We are using the information we gained from a survey (http://www.maventraining.co.uk/change-management-knowledge-centre/) we did last week that asked everyone in the office to rate from low to high their level of annoyance with the current system, their level of excitement for the new system and their level of confidence with our ability to move to the new system. This generated lots of points from people which were very relevant to their jobs but which had not been fully appreciated by the project team – we will do this survey again before we go live so we can check out any more comments, concerns and ideas.

What do you do to make change feel real and exciting and in your office – as ever let me know your thoughts.

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

Change your location, change your motivation

As always I have too much work to do and not enough time to do it, and recently its got to a point where I go home after a really busy day, not having done anything on my To Do list – which is becoming such a size that its now a database rather than a list!
This week I hit a wall – too much doing X not enough thinking = no productive work!

So I took the advice of some of my learners on a recent Project Leadership course – remove yourself from your current environment, your location, the people you are with, the systems you are using. Change your physical perspective to change how you feel. By changing your perspective you break the negative cycle which in my case was being busy on all the wrong things because I could not see the wood for the trees.

Of course, being me I followed the advice to the max and booked myself into a hotel on Park Lane! But it definitely worked, a swim, some sleep, some room service and I got my motivation back and could take a more analytical approach to prioritising my work.

So what works for you – where do you go when you need to change your perspective? As ever, let me know, I love hearing from you.

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/

Become a Registered Project Professional

Last night I went to a presentation by the APM about their new standard called the Registered Project Professional (RPP) which hopes to be the forerunner of the Chartered Project Professional (ChPP). RPP has been introduced because the APM are still waiting for their status as a chartered body to be awarded which they hope will be soon.

To become an RPP you will have to demonstrate the capabilities of a responsible leader, have the ability to manage a complex project and the ability to use appropriate tools, processes and techniques.

To demonstrate your capability you will need to evidence that you have knowledge and experience across 29 core competencies. This might sound like a lot but there are 47 competencies defined by the APM as important for effective project management!

To demonstrate your knowledge you will need to evidence the qualifications that you have in project management and related skills ensuring a breadth of coverage across all the areas. PRINCE2 alone does not provide this so if you have not yet upgraded your qualifications to include the APMP now is the time to do so - remember if you are a PRINCE2 practitioner then you can take the APMP with prior learning which takes 3 days instead of 5(http://www.maventraining.co.uk/courses/apm/apmp-with-prior-learning/).

To demonstrate your experience you will need to put together a portfolio of evidence which is a brief description of how you have led and managed others in different project situations. I did say to the APM last night that I wished they had not called it a portfolio just when we are launching the new Management of Portfolio (MoP) course!

The total fees for becoming a Registered Project Professional are £595, paid in two parts, when you first submit your portfolio and again when you attend the interview to discuss your experience with 2 assessors, trained by the APM.

I spoke to several people who had undergone the application process during the RPP pilot and they all said that it was a really useful process for reviewing their career and helping them to identify all of their achievements. One of them also mentioned how rare it was to look back and really ask themselves ‘what bits didn’t I do so well, and how can I improve my approach?’

Tony Caccavone was one of the successful RPPs presented with his certificate last night, and he explained that it took about 35-40 hours to complete the portfolio of evidence and putting together the whole application. His approach was to ‘brain dump’ every project experience he could remember for the last few years, and then go back and assign the different examples to the different competencies. Tony has young children so he found it easier to come in early and stay late in the office to complete the application, but even then, it only took a few weeks, not a few months.

To maintain your status as an RPP you will have to commit to doing 35 hours of continual professional development each year but this is no different to the current recommendation from the APM for all of its members.

Applications for the RPP begin in early March, so I will be putting more information up about it then. Meanwhile, please post a quick comment to let me know whether you think it’s of interest as I am always keen to find out if what the professional associations are developing for us are really what we in the profession want/need.

Michael Porter (famous management guru – Porters 5 forces) has written an article in this months Harvard Business Review setting out how he believes companies should operate using long term value and not immediate profits as their goal.

Part of his argument is to stress the importance of the social value of an organisation i.e. what it offers its customers, the environment and the world around it. To me, social value is about the bigger picture, and how we are offering something more back to our customers i.e. added value.

As a company training company, our value is our specialist knowledge and all the tips, techniques and practical advice we offer to our learners. To me, social value is about how we make as much of this available to our economy as possible because ultimately, making things better is what drives everyone at Maven. We want to ensure that our clients improve their ability to manage projects, implement changes, control risks and deliver benefits.

That’s why we put so much effort into developing pre-course materials that allow you to prepare ahead of your course, so that when you are with us you are getting as much as you possibly can from the service you have paid for. We want to interact, to discuss your issues, and help you see them in the context of the best practice that’s available.

We believe that project management touches every area of our lives, and that if we improve the ability of everyone to deliver projects successfully then we are improving our environment. Ultimately, it’s this drive to pass on our knowledge (learned by making countless mistakes) that is the core of our value to you.

That’s why we make so much of our knowledge available to you – go and look at www.mavenprojectmanagement.co.uk to see the free stuff that we regularly post for you to use. I hope it helps and keep the link close to hand as we are adding to it all the time. Or if you want to hear it first hand, come to my regular free briefing held every fortnight in London - http://www.maventraining.co.uk/courses/free-briefings.cfm

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