A Blueprint is a detailed vision for the organisation, covering what the organisation will look like when all the projects are completed, the programme is wound up, and the business transformation is done.  Typically, you would only write a Blueprint at programme level, so project managers will ‘inherit’ a Blueprint from their programme manager.  If you are leading a project as part of a bigger initiative being managed as a programme, ask to see the Blueprint if you haven’t already.  It will help set your project in the wider context of what the business is trying to achieve.

In particular, Blueprints use the POTI model as a way to define the scope of what is going to change once all the projects in the programme are complete.  POTI sets out the scope of the programme at a high level.

POTI stands for Processes, Organisation, Technology and Information.  These four areas make up a comprehensive view of all the elements that form the programme scope.

Processes

Projects change processes and introduce new ones.  This area of scope covers any operational business models that will change as a result of the work that will be carried out under the programme.  This can include:

• performance levels and output
• the introduction of new ways of working
• the phasing out of old ways of working
• changes to existing ways of working

Organisation

This area of scope covers the people changes that will result from the projects.  This is a broad section and it covers everything to do with personnel from organisational culture to how many employees the company will need when the programme is complete.  Examples of items that would be included in this area of scope are:

• new skill requirements for employees
• culture changes
• staffing levels
• employees moving from one role to another
• training needs

Technology

Technology requirements for the programme fall into this area of scope and will typically be delivered across several projects within the programme.  This area, however, covers more than just computers.  It also encompasses systems, tools and other resources such as buildings.  The sort of things that are included in this scope area are:

• new computer systems
• changes to existing technology systems
• accommodation requirements – procuring or selling off buildings
• machinery or heavy plant requirements
• other equipment needs – procuring or selling off equipment
• new networks or toolsets

Information

This final part of scope covers the mainly intangible area of data.  Information required in the new, fully transformed, organisation is noted here.  These changes can be hard to establish at the beginning of the programme, so your scope statement may just say ‘new information requirements’ and these can be defined as stakeholders are engaged throughout the various projects and their reporting and information needs become known.  As some examples, here is what you could include in this section:

• new reports
• changes to existing reports or reporting systems
• requirements for new data to feed into reports
• project-specific data outcomes like occupancy rates if you were building a new hotel

You would expect to see something in each of these four categories as part of the scope statement in the Blueprint.  It will be very rare that something will be delivered without having an impact on all of these areas in some form, so if you are writing a scope statement and have some pieces missing, think again about what will be changing as a result of this transformation exercise.

While POTI and the Blueprint as a whole are generally used for programme management, there is no reason why you couldn’t adopt the POTI model for use on a project to help you define the project scope.  What do you think?  Would you use it?

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1. Book Review: Project Governance
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3. Managing Project Change Control

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There are four categories of stakeholders, which provide a starting point for your to brainstorm all of the relevant parties involved.  The four categories are:  users, governance, influencers and providers.  Let’s look at each of those in a bit more detail.

Users
These are the people who will use the products of your project or programme.  They are the beneficiaries of the outputs.  For example, these could be customers or another internal department.  In the case of delivering a new software package for your Sales team, the users would be the Sales team.

Governance
These are people or groups of people who have an interest in how things are managed on the project or programme.  For example, management boards or steering groups would fall into this category.  Auditors, regulators, health and safety executives would also be categorised as governance stakeholders.

Influencers
Influencers are the people who have the ability to change the direction of your project or programme.  An example would be the local newspaper in the area where your project will be building a new facility.  Trade unions and lobby groups are also influencers.

Providers
As you would expect, suppliers and vendors fall into this category.  Providers can be wider than that, though, and include business partners, temporary contractors, catering staff, and anyone else who provides resources to the project or programme.

There are many instances where an individual or a group would fall into more than one category.  Staff could be both users and influencers – especially if you were surveying them about their training needs for example, and then shaping the programme as a result of the findings.

You can also break the categories down, which is especially useful in the case of the users.  You could split this into internal and external users, or Marketing and Customer Service users, or part-time or permanent users, or any combination that makes logical sense to you.

The purpose of categorising stakeholders is to be able to provide them with targeted communication regarding the project or programme, so break down your stakeholder groups into meaningful groupings related to shared interests.  Use a mindmapping tool like DropMind to capture the output from your stakeholder mapping, and move the groups around until you are happy with the outcome.

Try to keep the groupings at a practical level.  It is not helpful for your communications plan to have ‘members of the public’ but it could be useful to have ‘members of the press covering the area around where we are building a new factory’.

The easy way to remember these four categories of stakeholders is by the acronym UPIG:  users, providers, influencers, governance.

If you are interested in where this fits within MSP, it’s in the Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement governance theme.

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1. Managing stakeholders: 6 steps to success
2. Book Review: Project Governance
3. POTI: A Model for Programme Blueprints

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1. Define the categories of projects that the organisation is working on.
2. Identify competencies for project managers.
3. Assess your project managers against these competencies.
4. Identify what you need to do to get people to where they need to be.
5. Execute well, monitor how it is going and measure the results.

Last week I looked at the first two of these points, and today I will cover the final three.  So let’s start with:

3.  Assess your project managers against these competencies

“This is not an evaluation,” Ward explained.  “We’re not going to use it to promote them, demote them or humiliate them. What we are going to do is use this as a baseline to help with their professional development.”

The assessment takes the form of a gap analysis: what skills does your project management community have and what is lacking?  There are several ways you could do this:

Use an assessment tool – there are several on the market and consulting companies can often provide a piece of software to do this.
Carry out on-the-job observation by asking to see documentation, for example.  This can be done internally by the PMO or by external advisers.
Interview the project managers, customers, stakeholders and so on to get a rounded picture.  Again, this can be done by internal or external resources.
Carry out formal performance evaluations, or use the last set of formal evaluations that were done.
Ask project managers to take tests like PRINCE2 or PMP, or look at whether they have earned any type of certification.

4.  Identify what you need to do to get people to where they need to be

Once you know what the gaps are, how are you going to upskill your project managers?

You could organise formal training in the required areas, for example:

Basic project management skills such as creating work breakdown structures
Business and professional skills like giving presentations or in particular software applications
Company-specific training that is tailored to your organisation and is usually very practical.

On-the-job training is another alternative.  You could provide developmental assignments by teaming up a project manager with a more senior project manager on a larger project.  This type of stretch assignment can help them to develop.  Ward explained that in the IT industry this doesn’t happen often and project managers are given larger assignments and their managers are then disappointed that it doesn’t work out, although there was no support provided to help them make it a success.

“Encourage your team to go through a certification process,” he suggested.  A lower cost option he gave was to offer coaching and mentoring.  Ward’s final point was to look at the way in which projects are run.  “We can do some level of process engineering that makes sure it is not the way that we do it that is acting as an obstacle to our project management.”

5.  Execute well, monitor how it is going and measure the results

“Are people going to the training?” Ward said.  “We don’t need to just inform people that it is available, we need to market the training.”  In this phase you will probably need to address some challenges, such as making sure that delegates for courses have approval for time away from the job.  There is also a hill to climb if costs are involved, as you will no doubt encounter resistance from managers who do not want to spend the money investing in their people.

Ward said that managers often ask, “What if we train them and they leave?”  He countered by saying, “What if you don’t and they stay?  We don’t have an option in this. If we want people to perform at higher and higher levels we have to do something. We have to think hard about how we are going to provide people with these competencies.”

Ward also recommended that you make sure that you have sufficient support staff to manage the roll out of any programme to upskill project managers.  It is not a good idea to put the whole competency model in place and then find it is “meaningless in the face of poor execution.”  Essentially, this is a project, so get out Seavus Project Planner or the tool you use and plan it all properly.  Do you have the admin people, resources, training facilities etc to make it a success?

It’s one thing to develop and plan a programme of training and other interventions to support the development of project managers, but quite another to assess whether it has actually made a difference to the ability of your organisation’s project managers.  Next week I’ll be writing about how you assess whether any project management training programme has been a success.

Not sure what competencies are?  Read my post here about what competencies are and why having a framework is a good idea here.

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1. 5 steps to a project manager competency framework (part 1)
2. Project management competencies: creating a framework
3. Assessing a training programme

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It’s the fifth annual survey that Arras have run, and that means they can set the results in a historical context, so we can see the evolving trends.  The headlines this year are:

• Programme and Project managers in the private sector have been hit harder than those in the public sector.
• Contractors were the hardest hit group: 42% saw their pay fall compared to only 14% of public sector full-timers.
• However, public sector workers are more nervous about the next phase of the economic cycle and the impact of the forthcoming general election.

Project and programme managers were also asked about their confidence for the coming year.  What did they predict for 2010?

• 15% of contractors expect their pay to increase.
• 42% of employees expect their pay to increase.
• 30% predict steady, normal growth in 2010.
• 34% predict a contraction of the sector or hard times during the year.

This final figure seems pretty gloomy, but actually, the picture is better than this time last year.  The per cent of people responding positively to the question about sector confidence has actually increase by 4% and the negatives are down by 5%, so in general there are small signs that people are feeling better about 2010 than they did about 2009.

And it gets better.  At least, for private sector works.  Last year, the private sector project and programme management community were not a happy bunch.  They felt neutral about the prospects for 2009.  This year, however, they responded with an increase in confidence.  On the other hand, the confidence in the sector felt by public sector workers has collapsed, with 15% fewer positive responses.

So that’s the state of play for the sector.  The responses about how people feel personally about going into 2010 also reflect the same levels of confidence.  In the private sector, 72% of project and programme managers report feeling buoyant or steady in their careers.  Public sector workers are not so positive about their personal futures.  In fact, 53% of people in the public sector are expecting job cuts in the area of project and programme management this year – with 9% of them predicting that those cuts will be major.

Asking someone if they feel financially better off is not a very scientific question, but it is useful to gauge gut feel about how the recession has personally impacted project and programme managers’ finances.  Unsurprisingly, very few people – only 5% – reported that they are personally much better off.  Nearly 50% of people said that they were worse off, and they were split almost equally between the public and private sectors, and contractors and employees.  Comparing the results to last year, private sector workers are feeling the hardest pinch, with 12% of them falling into the worse off categories this year.

The survey also provided the opportunity for people to leave verbatim comments, and as you might expect, there were several themes that came out repeatedly to do with the economic situation and personal finances:

• The cost of living has gone up, but project and programme managers’ income has fallen.
• There were lots of permanent staff redundancies reported during 2009.
• Contractors found it more difficult – and some found it impossible – to find work during 2009.
• Pay cuts or pay freezes were adopted in order to save jobs.
• Employers are taking advantage of the pool of available candidates by offering packages that would have been seen as uncompetitive a while ago.  Now, however, they can offer lower salaries as employees compete for work.
• Day rates for contract project managers have also fallen, and some contractors have gone back to permanent work for the security that this brings.

It’s not surprising that people are feeling nervous about their job prospects during 2010.  Nearly 8% of respondents to the Arras survey hadn’t worked at all during 2009, the majority of whom were previously employed in the private sector, on permanent contracts.  From the whole pool of project and programme management professionals, project managers were the most likely to find themselves not working last year.

It isn’t a hugely positive picture overall for the future of project and programme managers during 2010, but it is a bit better than last year.  And that’s something to be grateful for.

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CAT is a leading general contractor providing integrated procurement and construction services in the Middle East, African and European regions.

The partnership, which seeks to meet the highly demanding nature of complex construction, infrastructure and oil & gas projects of CAT Group, is a strategic move that complements the predicted 33 per cent growth in the oil & gas sector by the end of 2009.

Under the terms of the agreement, CMCS will help provide vital project management software like Hard Dollar Cost Estimation, Control and Management, Primavera Project Portfolio Management and Primavera Contract Management for CAT Group projects that commonly utilize heavy machinery, diverse multiple resources and run over a long period.

Implementation of the different software will be complemented by special training sessions, licensed accreditations, and consultancy services to be administered chiefly in CAT Group’s headquarters in Beirut and its other branches spread across the globe.

The company is currently ranked 95 in Engineering News Record’s (ENR) international list of top 100 contractors.

Read the story here..

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“Let’s do it all now”

It’s  not possible to deliver everything in one go.  Part of the role of a project manager is analysing the best way to get to the desired solution.  That might be through rolling out a piece of software to 100 sites in one go, or ten million users, and if that genuinely is the best approach for whatever reason, then go with it.  But most often you will have the choice of several different deployment solutions and it is a prudent project manager who chooses not to do it all in one go.

A pilot will give you the chance to learn from development, delivery and implementation mistakes across the full range of technology and business change.  It will help you identify who are key supporters and where you may have issues with stakeholders in the future.  Reviewing your pilot with real-life customers or end users will also give you the confidence that you are delivering what they want.  They will hopefully go on to become champions of the project and able to support you and your team during the complex later stages.

“Let’s break it down”

Breaking down a large project into manageable chunks is a good thing.  However, those chunks don’t always fit back together again.  The risk here is that by decomposing the project into stages, phases, small projects or even work packages you end up with lots of small pieces that individually do a good job, but that overall don’t actually fit into the whole you were after.  This creates problems like:

• The inability to effectively realize benefits
• Separate teams or team members working on the same integration exercises
• A ‘whole’ that is less than the sum of its parts
• Rework
• Successful unit testing but unsuccessful integration or smoke testing, which results in extensions to the project schedule while these errors are resolved
• Different project approaches or standards used for individual elements
• Confusion at the time of project handover into support as there may be multiple ways of doing things being handed over instead of a standardised approach
• Increased costs

This is particularly relevant in software development projects where a large software release is broken into components for ease of development.  They need to be joined back together – and this joining needs to be planned.  This was one of the key messages at the prestigious BCS Lovelace lecture given by Maurice Perks this month.

If integration of components – whether they are software elements or smaller parts of a large programme of business change – are not designed with fitting together in mind, chances are they will not fit.

“Let’s fix the scope”

You have to start with a view of what you want to achieve.  After all, if you don’t know where you are going you will certainly end up somewhere else.  However, fixing the scope forever is not practical and not desirable.  Scope is a fluid concept.

At the end of the requirements phase and at the beginning of the development or delivery phase, you have to know what it is you are trying to do.  In this sense, you do need a fix on the scope.  But that isn’t to say the scope is permanently fixed.

Business needs change, the economy and the environment change, and a PESTLE analysis* will flag any items that are at risk of influencing your well-defined scope.

Your change control process should include a method by which people can raise potential scope changes for analysis and recommendation.  You may choose not to implement them, but if there is a valid reason, then the changes could (should) be adopted.  If you choose to ignore or refuse sensible changes there is every likelihood that the project you deliver will no longer be fit for purpose. You could spend months working on something that essentially will never be used by the end customer as it has failed to meet the changing business need.

It’s much better the manage scope change as a constructive and formal process, instead of organically, which leads to confusion in the team as no one knows what the latest position in and scope creep.

* Next week read the article about PESTLE and how you can use it on your projects.

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1. Managing Change on an IT Project: Part 1 – Identifying Change
2. Managing Change on an IT Project: Part 3 – Implementing Change
3. The Responsibility of Defining Requirements

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CIO – Businesses of all sizes embark on thousands of projects for new products and services every year. Unfortunately, most projects are doomed to fail outright, or at launch, because the original success criteria were not met. Some project failures lead to delays in product launches, such as the AirBus A380; others, like Boston’s Big Dig, incur huge cost overruns. These examples, as well as the results from survey after survey, show that American businesses have not been able to figure out how to consistently get products and services delivered on time, on budget and with the highest quality.

Government calls for standardised best practice Programme & Project Management

The Programme and Project Management (PPM) Council has called for the standardised use, across the public sector, of three programme and project management methodologies – PRINCE 2, Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) and Management of Risk (MoR), to support the delivery of greater value for money outcomes from public sector programme and project management.

The body, charged with providing strategic direction for the government’s skills and capability in PPM, has said that the standardised use of these methodologies would improve understanding and ease of working on cross-government programmes and projects.

It has also stated this would avoid duplication of design efforts and the costs associated with this. The Council will make further recommendations on the use of other methodologies and tools developed in government throughout 2009 and 2010.

The Council also recommends that programme and project managers should join relevant professional bodies, including the Association of Project Managers, which will enhance their ability to meet the complex and challenging demands of public service delivery.

The published recommendations state that membership of appropriate professional bodies will give access to information sources, networking opportunities, events, sources of learning and development, and to professional qualifications that public sector bodies themselves may be unable to provide.

US Courts: Project Manager/Architect

Office of the Circuit Executive
United States Courts for the Ninth Circuit

Job Announcement 09-02

Position: Project Manager/Architect (Full-time, temporary; year and a day position with the possibility of extension, subject to continued Federal funding.)
Location: San Francisco, CA
Classification Level/Salary: CL-29 ($75,880-$123,359) (GS/JSP 13 equivalent)
Closing Date: June 26, 2009 (or until position is filled

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Fed CIO Vivek Kundra pledges better and timelier details on the health of federal IT projects in as close to real time as possible.

The federal government is better known for spending $600 on toilet seats than being frugal, and IT projects are no exception. Cost overruns have plagued federal IT projects in the past, and the Government Accountability Office has written any number of reports detailing IT failures in government.This week, Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., introduced a bill that aims to make more public information available about federal IT spending, “require greater accountability for cost overruns,” and improve investment management strategies.

The new legislation comes at a time when the Office of Management and Budget has placed a renewed focus on IT spending under newly minted federal CIO Vivek Kundra, whose office walls are notably adorned by graphs of the federal IT budget. Kundra has advocated transparency as a way to push more accountability for government IT projects.”If we look at the tough economy we’re in, the fact that we’re in two wars, it’s very important that we make sure every dollar that’s spent produces real value,” he said in a recent interview with InformationWeek. “We’re divesting and killing projects that don’t perform and we’re investing in projects that do perform. We do not want to throw good money after bad money.”

Read the full story here.

IGNOU to launch new programme

NEW DELHI: Come July and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) here will launch a new post-graduate programme for certificate in project management.

The University is going to collaborate with the Indian chapter of the London-based International Project Management Association (IPMA) — Project Management Associates — and Center for Excellence in Project Management to develop the content for the course, engage resource persons and create placement opportunities. The IPMA is present in 44 countries teaching people the tools and art of how to handle projects. According to Manoj Kulsreshtha of the IGNOU School of Engineering and Technology who is the project coordinator for the new course, “Project management education should be encouraged in the national interest. Applications of project management concepts can improve our ability to keep pace with the international happenings. Education and training in the area of project management is an effective means of transforming a society into a project-oriented society.” The certificate programme is likely to be useful for working professionals, academia, aspiring managers and technical manpower.

Read the full story here.

People in Business for May3, 2009

Stacey Hopkins has been named a project manager at I.T. by Design in a role that includes management of development staff, project planning and  technical leadership. He was a senior software developer.

Sherry Etheridge-Soileau has been named private client group manager at Wright & Percy Insurance, responsible for business development in the agency’s personal lines department.. She was a personal and commercial lines producer for Lewis Mohr Insurance Agency.

Eddrick Martin has been named associate executive director of programs and program development at the A.C. Lewis Branch of the YMCA of the Capital Area. He was program director

Read the full story here.

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Location : Crystal Palace Luna Park, Sydney.

About :

This year, we made a bold move when deciding to not only focus upon the fields of knowledge, content and information management – but instead to examine all disciplines that KM affects and which consequently affect KM. As always, you will still see developments in KM practices linked with collaborative and innovative working techniques; and this year’s event will allow for even more interaction, innovation and networking than in past years.

We have incorporated renewed interactive initiatives such as cabaret style seating and KM Arena; and we’ve also introduced new and exciting networking opportunities within the event programme, such as the World Knowledge Café, KM method cards activity, and the enticing one on one debate.

This event will provide you with the unique opportunity to join your peers, organisational leaders and KM experts to discuss, debate, analyse and create strategy-based approaches for knowledge management within your organisation.

This conference will allow you to:

• Hear world leaders in KM delve into opportunities and challenges in collaborative working, distributed computing, strategic management and decision making
• Network and connect with KM professionals from around the globe
• Hear results driven case studies from Australian practitioners, and learn how they achieved KM buy-in within their organisations
• Explore KM toolsets and their practical application within business
• Get hands-on experience through attending our pre and post-conference workshops, where you’ll have the opportunity to work with the best in the field of knowledge management
• Share experiences during intense interactive sessions including a one on one debate, KM method cards activity, and World Knowledge Café
• Improve your understanding of how to achieve enterprise-wide knowledge sharing and collaboration

Download the Brochure here.

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What’s the difference between a project and a program?

In my book, Dictionary of Project Management Terms, I define a project as a temporary undertaking to create a unique product or service.  A project has a defined start and end point and specific objectives that, when attained, signify completion.  A programme, on the other hand, is defined as a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing the projects individually.  A programme may also include elements of on-going, operational work.  So, a programme is comprised of multiple projects and is created to obtain broad organizational or technical objectives.  There are many differences between a project and a programme including scope, benefits realization, time, and other variables.  One notable difference is time; for example, a project by definition has a beginning and an end (or at least one hopes so!); certain programmes, while having a beginning may not have an end.  A classic example of one of these types of programmes is an annual construction programme.

There seems to be more information around now on programme management.  Is it really taking off?

I have found in my travels and experience that programme management, although firmly embedded in certain industry verticals such as defence, is a new idea and concept in the commercial area.  During the past several years, I have had many conversations with our clients who are realizing that many of the work initiatives they have undertaken, either for themselves or for their clients, are really programmes, not projects, and they are looking for the best way to manage them.  The U.K. government (Office of Government Commerce) recognized this a while ago when it published Managing Successful Programmes. One can consider it a guide for programme management.  Since it was published in 2003, I have seen an increasing number of books and articles on the topic, but it pales in comparison to the wealth of literature available for project management.  The Project Management Institute has also recognized the value of programme management and recently introduced the Program Management Professional (PgMP®) credential. It appears that programme management, although a concept that has been around for many, many years, is now seeing a greater level of interest in the global community.

How would you define the difference in skill sets between a project and a programme manager?

The skill sets definitely overlap and it’s a bit artificial to try to separate the two.  Nonetheless, there are differences which I tend to see along a continuum.  In my experience as both a project and programme manager, the latter requires more refined skills in business areas such as negotiation, organizational change management, financial management, consensus building, and political savvy.  Additionally, a programme manager needs to always keep his or her eye on the achieving the intended benefits of the program which can be different and apart from the objectives of any individual project.

What differs for a programme manager is the degree of expertise, application, and focus.  Because a programme manager is really more of a business manager, programme managers do not necessarily have strong project management backgrounds.  They hail from a variety of disciplines.  To be sure, one finds many MBA’s as programme managers as well as those having backgrounds in various technical and scientific fields.

Can a project manager ever be a good programme manager?

Yes, of course, but one may never assume that simply because an individual is a competent project manager that he or she will be successful in programme management as well.

One problem that programme managers come up against is the terminology.  If you are working on a programme but your stakeholders still insist  on using the word ‘project’, what can you do to ensure the  message gets across that it is bigger than just one piece of work?

One needs to “drip feed” the notion that what they are working on is really a programme of interconnected projects rather than a project itself.  One way to do this is to make sure that, as a programme manager, one is meeting with all project managers on a regular basis as a group.   As each project manager is providing status and discussing his or her contribution to the greater whole, it will become evident that the work to be done is much broader and more comprehensive than a single project.  That said, there are many companies that have their own vernacular which may be very difficult to change so one should not buck the “system” too much as it simply isn’t worth the political capital.  Focusing on the work to be done, more than the way it is described, will mean success for the programme manager.

That’s great advice, thanks!  Do you have another top tip for effective programme management?

Always keep in mind the stated benefits for launching the programme in the first place.  For example, we are now implementing a content management system in the company.  The reason we are doing this, broadly speaking, is to enable ESI to develop courses faster, better, and with less cost.  The CMS program consists of multiple projects, from organizing our vast library of materials, to technical implementation, training, and other things.  As a programme manager, our VP for Product Development, while needing to ensure that each project is completed, needs to ensure that the sum total of all the projects will meet our overall business goal of facilitating our product development process.  In many programmes, there is a position called “benefits realization manager” simply to ensure that the business benefits are always front and center.

Thanks!

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