Project Angels - News Archive

Update - What’s going on in the world of portfolios, programmes and projects..

OGC / TSO

OGC's Management of Portfolios (MoP™) was officially launched on February 8th 2011 and is a timely addition to OGC's library of products. It helps organisations answer the fundamental question " are we sure this investment is right for us and how will it contribute to our strategic objectives" – investment is the key word because portfolio management is about investing in the right change initiatives and implementing them correctly, maximising benefits. The publication doesn't mandate how your organisation should implement portfolio management, it is a practical guide that provides you with a picture of success and describes principles, practices, tools and techniques that have worked for other organisations.
This publication is now available from TSO - http://www.tsoshop.co.uk/ or Best Management practice website - http://www.best-management-practice.com/Publications-Library/..
TSO have launched their Virtual Conference and it is available at: http://www.best-management-practice.tv/virtual-conference. Sue Vowler contributed a presentation on P3O which is available at: http://www.best-management-practice.tv/virtual-conference-ppm.
 
Managing Successful Programmes (MSP®) - is undergoing a refresh and will be available shortly from OGC / TSO. You can expect to see changes to Benefits Management; Risk and Issue Management; Quality Management and more focus on the 4 key roles of SRO, BCM, Programme Manager and Programme Office.

Conferences

Best Practice Showcase will be held on 17th June at the new Grange St. Pauls Hotel, it is a one day conference and exhibition for professionals with the responsibility for portfolios, projects and programmes across the UK – see the website for more information - http://www.bestpracticeshowcase.com/
Sue Vowler has just returned from Canada where she spoke on behalf of the APM Group at the Ottawa PMO conference. Sue also gave a separate presentation to half a dozen Canadian government departments with an interest in OGC products. The visit was a great success, see Dave Smyth’s blog entry to find out more- http://blog.apmg-international.com/2011/04/06/p3o%c2%ae-takes-canada-by-storm/#more-1054
 
Best Practice User Group (BPUG) - This year's International BPUG Congress was held outside of the UK for the first time, with BPUG Slovensko organizing the event in co-operation with BPUG UK, in Bratislava, on the 6th & 7th of April. The Congress brought together specialists from project management environments including private, 3rd sector and government institutions. These experts shared knowledge relating to project management and its influence on business success. Speakers at the event included Alan Harpham APM Group Chairman, Andy Murray PRINCE2® Lead Author, Rod Sowden of Aspire Europe and Sue Vowler of Project Angels, amongst others. For more information visit: www.bpug-congress.org
 
PMOWorks collaboration - Project Angels are collaborating on delivering P3O Overview events in both the UK and Europe. The events are designed to provide hands on learning from the author of the P3O guidance. See http://www.pmoworks.com/events/P3O2011.htm for more details.

Topic of the month - Integrated Assurance

Assurance in one form or another has been a key feature of portfolio, programme and project frameworks in the past ten years. Interest is growing in ensuring that assurance is integrated, appropriate to the scale of projects and programmes, taking account of factors such as risk, complexity, reputation and finance. Assurance is being focussed on ensuring we do the right projects and programmes and that we do them consistently and well. Up front assurance focuses on strategic contribution (a change in language from strategic alignment), where there is no room for "pet projects" and ensuring that projects don't slip through "under the wire". On-going assurance is more about delivery confidence than compliance to rigid standards, you are more likely to hear the word "healthcheck" than "audit" these days. Many organisations, both public and private sector, are realising the value of an integrated assurance approach and developing a more pragmatic approach to assurance, adapting established tools such as OGC's Gateway™ or P3M3®.
Project Angels has undertaken several assignments with clients, assisting them in understanding Assurance, working with internal staff to develop in house independent review capability, adapting best practice approaches such as P3O®, Gateway and P3M3 to local needs.
 

OGC / TSO New publications

OGC has recently published its "Management of Value" guidance(MoVTM) – this guide is a timely addition to OGC's product portfolio, providing guidance to enhance and maximise value for organisations, taking account of differing stakeholder priorities, their wants and needs, organisational priorities and the optimum use of resources.
TSO have also published guidance on benefits - "Fundamentals of Benefit Realisation" to support Managing Successful Programmes (MSP®).
Both these publications are available from TSO - http://www.tsoshop.co.uk or Best Management practice website - http://www.best-management-practice.com/Publications-Library/
OGC’s long awaited "Management of Portfolios (MoP)" will follow in January 2011.
P3O® Translations - P3O is currently being translated into Chinese and German and will soon be followed by a Dutch version.

Conferences

Project & Programme Management 2010 is a one day conference and exhibition on 1st December 2010 for senior professionals from the public sector with the responsibility for projects and programmes across the UK - http://www.publicserviceevents.co.uk/event/overview.asp?ID=159.
The event offers presentations on the future direction of project and programme management and feature case studies of successful projects from across the public sector, including the NHS, criminal justice and local government. These practical sessions, detailing exactly what has been done and how, will provide delegates with the opportunity to adopt certain practices into their own work.
OGC Lead authors Sue Vowler (Projects Angels), Rod Sowden and Andy Murray will also be on hand to take delegates' questions.
Best Practice User Group (BPUG) holds its annual conference on 17th and 18th November - http://www.usergroup.org.uk/about/events.php and spaces are still available. The conference has many excellent speakers including case studies and an update on OGC and its IPR. OGC has moved from Treasury to the Cabinet Office and is now part of the Efficiency Reform Group (ERG), Mike Acaster will be explaining what this means for OGC’s product set and activities going forward.

P3M3 - surge in interest

P3M3 (OGC's maturity model) has been around for many years, was refreshed in 2008 and has seen a surge of interest throughout 2010. Organisations are waking up to the idea that they can use P3M3 to assess the building blocks of defining and delivering change, and your organisation may have undertaken a self assessment. Whilst this is a step in the right direction, the results of self assessments tend to be over optimistic. P3M3 as a maturity model can offer great insights into where you are, but it also needs to be used with care as it can be a bit bureaucratic if the full standard assessment is undertaken. Some organisations offer tools to gather data, but these can often be misleading as people always tend to overestimate their maturity levels and you lose the personal interaction of working with a committed consultant who can engage people. The soft issues that are raised by an maturity review should not be under estimated in the approach you undertake. It’s as much about enthusing people and getting issues on the table as it is about scores on the door.
We offer a facilitated self-assessment or baseline assessment supported by a set of recommendations and improvement plan, which can be undertaken in just a few days with low cost but offering big benefits.

Portfolio or Programme Offices / PMOs / Centres of Excellences - Cost cutting or evolution

In the current economic climate where organisations are looking for value in all they deliver, senior management will consider getting rid of "non value adding" functions. In the past Programme Offices have always been an easy target but no good Portfolio or Programme Office should be cut (but bad ones should be culled or re-energised).
Merely setting up a Portfolio or Programme Office won't deliver value to any organization, it is only when they evolve the maturity of the organization that real value is delivered. Recent research in the USA (The State of the PMO 2010 from PM Solutions) states "There's a direct correlation between the maturity of a company's PMO and the value it provides. Mature PMOs are far more likely to meet critical success factors. They also demonstrate significantly greater improvements in cost savings per project (17% of total project cost), schedule (19% delivered ahead of schedule) and budget (30% delivered under budget) performance, productivity (21% improvement), and they have fewer failed projects (31%)" - an observation we also made in the P3O guidance.
However surviving in today’s cost cutting / efficiency world can be a stressful and busy time as senior management teams look to challenge all their change initiatives, revisit their strategies and the portfolios of programmes and projects that support those strategies. It is a good time to take stock of what value you really add, what people value you for and how you quantify that value.
It may be a time to refocus your energies on a different set of stakeholders, supporting senior managers with information to drive decisions and focus interventions. Ensure you have a good set of KPIs to measure your success, take time to publicise your successes (blow your own trumpet) and keep yourself current. Many Programme Offices are using this time to evolve into Strategic Portfolio Offices, expanding their remit from centre of excellence/ standards functions into becoming decision support engines for senior management teams.
Whatever you do, it’s not the time to lie low and simply hope you will survive. Be proactive, carry out a healthcheck on your activities and look to re-energise your services and functions. Revisit your monitoring and reporting activities to simplify data collection, add value by challenging progress reports, hand hold project managers where necessary and streamline information / dashboards to senior management teams to ensure decisions are focussed and timely.
Project Angels are experts in this field and can carry out an independent healthcheck and give you a plan to evolve or re-energise your Portfolio or Programme Office.
If you want any further information on any of the above then please give us a call.

PPSOSIG 10th Anniversary

PPSOSIG has been in existence for 10 years, not only has the PPSOSIG matured, but the whole industry acceptance of and attitude towards PPSO activity has changed and the publication of OGC’s P3O® showed that the world of portfolio, programme and project offices is now taken seriously.
 To celebrate the past, present and future of PPSOSIG, their September 2010 conference will be in part a birthday party for PPSOSIG, and in part a celebration of their "greatest hits" and looking to the future. Past favourite OGC authors, Sue Vowler and Craig Kilford will be there to look at P3O and Portfolio Management, where they've come from and most importantly where they're headed. Sue really put the profession on the map with the P3O guidance, and the impact of portfolio management is just starting to become real as cash-strapped organisations with shareholders, demanding return on their investment, look to the governance of investment spending to assure their dividends.
Date : 15th/16th September 2010
Location: Village Hotel, Coventry
Cost : £385

Includes: 2 days of activities, all meals, overnight accommodation

P3O – some facts and figures
P3O was published in October 2008 after 2 years of consultation and revision, since then it has gone from strength to strength with APM Group putting in place both Foundation and Practitioner qualifications to support the guidance.
Since publication (as at end June 2010) TSO have sold over five and a half thousand copies of the P3O guide in hard copy, which is about 10 times the number of exams that have been taken. It is also available in PDF and eBook formats as well as by online subscription. TSO have also sold just over 1000 copies of Think P3O and 500 packs (of 10) of the P3O Pocketbook.
As authors of the P3O guidance, Project Angels can help organizations get the most out of P3O by carrying out a review of your current capability and coaching your staff through an improvement plan.
 
Portfolio Management
We live in difficult times and in today’s climate of cost cutting and efficiency targets, delivering the change portfolio more effectively is a key objective. This means delivering the right mix of programmes and projects, consistently and well, faster and at less cost, enhancing business as usual with least disruption to operations.
Portfolio Management operating through Portfolio Boards supported by a high performing Portfolio Office will equip an organisation with the structures, information, tools and techniques it needs to ensure it has the right programmes and projects in place, that business and change priorities are balanced and it has the resources and capability to deliver them consistently and well.
In recognition of the importance of Portfolio Management, OGC commissioned the Portfolio Management Guide which is under development and due to be published by TSO later this year. An early deliverable of this initiative was the public consultation document on Portfolio Management which is available as a free download from OGC’s website. The Executive Guide to Portfolio Management, a mini guide aimed at senior executives, which approaches the topic from a strategic perspective has already been published and is available from TSO now.
If you want to stop spending money on the wrong things and focus on delivering business strategy whilst ensuring value for money, contact us to find out how we can help.
 
Support to Sponsors or SROs in difficult times
When budgets get cut, it’s not just failing programmes and projects that face the axe, successful changes may have to be cancelled, postponed or re-scoped. Sponsors or SROs have a much more difficult job convincing an organisation to stop or mothball these initiatives and then making it happen.
Questions to consider include:
What will be different going forward?

• Closure of Programme or Project – ‘Changing priorities.’
• Pause the Programme or Project – ‘A great idea but not for right now.’
• Slowdown of Programme or Project – ‘It will happen but within a longer timeframe.’
• Redefine – ‘We need to focus on where change has the greatest impact or on mandatory ‘must have’ areas of scope (e.g. EU directive compliance).’

Why it will be different? – reasons behind the decision.
When it will change? – timing issues outlined.
Who will be impacted? – Whether stakeholders gain or lose.
We have extensive experience in coaching Sponsors and SROs and can work with organisations or Sponsors on specific changes, ensuring that when the axe falls, the best possible outcome is achieved.

P3O® – widespread interest

Portfolio, Programme and Project Offices (P3O), OGC’s latest best practice guidance, was launched on the 28th October 2008. It has attracted wide spread support and TSO have done several reprints to keep up with the demand.

Sue Vowler, the lead author of the P3O guidance and Director of Project Angels, has been asked to speak at many conferences to explain the new guidance, including Scotland 09 Programme and Project Management and the Public Sector PPM conference in Manchester. Other recent presentations have included the Welsh Assembly, the Cross Government PPM Group and the PPSO SIG.

Global interest continues with invites to speak at conferences from both the German PRINCE User Group in Cologne on 24th April and the Netherlands PRINCE User group conference in Utrecht on 18th June 2009.

Interest has been particularly high amongst local government and Project Angels are currently coaching several local authorities in rolling out a P3O model. If you would like us to talk to your senior managers about how P3O could help your organisation then please contact us.

Partnership with CA

Project Angels have formed a partnership with Computer Associates to develop a P3O friendly version of their popular Clarity Tool.

The partnership includes collaboration on P3O client implementations with Project Angels providing a client healthcheck, PPPM improvement plan and CA providing a tailored tools implementation service to help automate data capture and analysis, providing a virtual decision support engine. Many tools implementations fail because the organisation doesn’t have the base processes or culture in place to support the effective adoption of a tool.

The collaboration between CA and Project Angels will ensure these issues are addressed up front and the tool roll-out tailored to meet the maturity and culture of the organisation.

PRINCE2® 2009 launch

After almost 2 years in development, PRINCE2 2009 was launched on 16th June 2009. This is a major refresh of the popular OGC project management method and addresses many of the issues raised in recent years. In a nutshell, the differences are:

• More guidance for Project Board members - separation into 2 books - Managing Successful Projects (for Project Managers) and Directing Successful Projects (For Sponsors and Project Boards)
• Introduction of Principles and Themes - replacing components and techniques
• Sub processes are being replaced by activities
• Planning is being tidied up generally and now becomes a Theme rather than a main process and a technique
• More focus on tailoring and scaling the method - separate chapter
• Revised terminology e.g. replacement of Logs in some cases by Registers e.g. Issue Register and Risk Register
• Will be supported by an online knowledge centre
• Improved linkages with other OGC products - alignment with recent changes in M_o_R , MSP® and P3M3™ to ensure language and processes are consistent – e.g. risk now aligned to M_o_R language and techniques
• Less prescriptive
• Greater emphasis on seeking lessons - at start up, during and at closure
• Greater emphasis on product quality
• Greater emphasis on Business Case and Benefits
• Fewer management products - more easily scaled
• Improved guidance on tolerances
• Revised approach to issues and changes