Managing Successful Programmes

I had the opportunity yesterday to draw on some of the material from the MSP Book. We have a project coming up at work that involves the selection of new accommodation, a technical fitout and moving a business department into the new area.

Time is tight, there are challenging cost targets, and several sets of activities in seperate areas which impinge on each other – all of which seem to be reasons for choosing a programme management approach.

I already had set myself an objective to persuade the relevant senior manager that a proper project governance structure was needed (as the technology component is significant I would be on the project board), and in the process of that conversation I met his local project manager who is focusing on the move. Conversation with that individual brought consensus on the need for a programme structure (that PM is also going to be the Programme Manager).

We’ve started drafting a Programme Definition, and I found the relevant section in the book extremely useful as a way of kick-starting the document.

I’ve placed a mindmap of the main book chapters on the relevant wiki page. As I build up my notes I will add hyperlinks to this mindmap.

The pre-work for the course consists of

• A copy of the Managing Successful Programmes book (wiki page)
  
• Two documents that form part of the “Telekom BV” case study
• A pre-course workbook

Later this year (June) I’m attending a training course on Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), leading (hopefully) to the practitioner certificatation. MSP is the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC) approach to ensuring the success of major change programmes.

I’ve set up this site as an online learning diary, and a central place for various notes. To support the blog there is also a wiki for more long-form notes.