Four profiles of programme management actors

Win-win with MSP in Madrid

I’ve spent the week in Madrid training people from a telecoms company on Programme Management.

The company has four types of people it needs to train.

The training is based on MSP, the Programme Management framework from OGC. In broad terms, MSP targets transformational programmes. These deliver change. They change the way an organisation works, or deliver change in a social or public service environment.

The first profile at the training was the programme manager, running internal transformation programmes. That’s the “typical” MSP programme, an internal transformation programme which drives business change inside an organisation.

The second profile is an upcoming role, namely people from the Programme Office. The company has a permanent programme office, to support the internal transformation work. I trained the Programme Office manager and a team member. They will help roll out and sustain MSP for the internal transformation programmes, for example by providing templates and guidance. And also more actively, they should play the Programme Office role within the programmes, to facilitate monitoring and control, and to act as the Programme information hub.

The third profile and fourth profiles take MSP into the client – supplier world. The company provides complex business solutions to its customers. While these are broadly technical – for example, providing a major upgrade to the client’s telephone system – there are benefits from using MSP to widen the focus from “simple” technical deliverable to the wider added-value outcome.

So the third profile is the Programme Manager of the client-facing programme. S/he benefits from MSP training by managing programmes differently. This will come from understanding the difference between technical outputs (e.g. the new proxy server) and the client’s business benefits (e.g. improved telecoms, enhanced videoconferencing, lower telecoms costs). With MSP, you recognise the overall value proposition in the programme, not just the technical deliverables.

The fourth profile is perhaps the most interesting, as it’s the client support role. Today this role takes over where the projects finish, to make sure that the client can use what the projects have delivered. Using an MSP approach, this role becomes the BCM (business change manager) and works actively with the project teams to ensure they think beyond technical deliverables. As BCM, s/he will prepare for business change and then drive it through; and work proactively with the client to ensure benefit realisation.

These latter two roles focus on the overall value chain. That includes client benefits, not just supplier profitability. That’s a change of mindset. And it’s not at the expense of the supplier business case – using an MSP approach, the Programme manager will get visibility of all the supplier work within the wider programme, and can also see the customer value proposition. This is a “win-win” approach, to replace the current “lose-lose” solution where the supplier projects seem profitable, but the profits disappear in costly post-project support to resolve customer issues (and a dissatisfied customer is often a lost customer).

To sum up: looking at the overall value proposition of the programme generates both supplier profits and customer satisfaction. Win-win with MSP.