Brexit is failing to apply the basics of MSP programme management

Brexit is failing to apply the basics of MSP programme management

Brexit is heading for failure. This major programme is dominating British political and economic life and will continue to do so the several years. The British government gave us MSP (Managing Successful Programmes) but it is failing to apply MSP basics to the Brexit programme. As a programme, Brexit is failing.

Brexit is a major transformation programme. Some early estimates said there were over 500 government projects working on Brexit. One academic argues that the Brexit programme is more complex than the US moon landing programme in the 1960s.

Brexit is clearly a programme. And it's clearly transformational. It will have a huge impact on British law, trade, immigration, culture and much, much more. MSP is designed for such major transformation programmes. But the British government is not using own toolkit. Their failure to use their own proven method is driving Brexit towards failure.

No clear strategy

The first problem for this programme is the lack of strategy. MSP insists that a programme can and should support one or more high-level strategic objectives.

The problem here is that Brexit is not part of any strategy. The referendum was called for tactical reasons (to silence critics in and around the ruling Conservative Party). The decision to leave Europe was not part of any strategy; and since the referendum, the government has not developed any visible strategy. Is the strategy to stay close to the EU? Or to go for worldwide trade deals? Or deals with the British Commonwealth? No-one knows.

No shared vision

The second problem for this programme is the lack of vision.

MSP recognises that it may be hard to create a shared vision but underlines the importance of building a shared vision. The vision explains the destination of the programme. This provides a cornerstone of a successful programme, on which so much is built.

Again, the government has not developed any shared vision - each minister has their own vision. One vision is to be like Norway, another vision is to be like Canada. Others mention Switzerland or Singapore. There is no attempt to create any shared vision. This has crippled the Brexit programme.

No blueprint

The third problem of this program is the lack of a future state blueprint.

MSP says you should model the future state, which is the situation in place at the end of the programme. This model is called the "blueprint" in MSP. The difference between the current state and the future state is called the "gap". You fill the gap with project work.

Until recently, we all believed that the government had 50 impact assessments, sector by sector. We are told these existed in "excruciating detail". This seemed to be a sort of gap analysis. This suggested there was indeed a final blueprint. But the 50 impact assessments have proved to be a fiction. They don't exist. There is no blueprint, there is no gap analysis.

The most glaring omission concerns Northern Ireland where Brexit generates multiple constraints. A blueprint for Northern Ireland which resolves those constraints is possible, but is not part of Government thinking. MSP provides the tools, but the government doesn't use them. Without a blueprint, the contradictions rest unresolved.

Until you have a future state blueprint, you don't know the gap, and you don't know what projects to run. Because there's no Brexit blueprint, those 500 projects don't know what they have to achieve. A project with unclear goals cannot succeed.

Heading for failure

The Brexit programme is like a rudderless ship. The strategy is unclear, there is no vision, the programme is lost at sea. Work has started on 500 projects, but to do what?

In most organisations, such drift would not be tolerated. The programme would be cancelled. Brexit needs to be rescued or cancelled. Sadly for Britain, neither option seems likely today.

PM2 : Government isn't a community

PM2: Government isn't a community

In January, the European Commission published PM2. This is yet another Project Management framework created by yet another government body. This is the wrong initiative, done in the wrong way.

The world doesn't need another top-down government-inspired initiative. More so-called "best practice". We already have the PMI from the US, Prince2 from the UK, and several others. PM2 adds nothing new, it just reassembles the existing pieces in a different way.

A new set of rules

Government-driven methods attempt to codify "best practice" in a book. This "bible" is a static set of rules which is defined to be "best practice". It becomes the basis for compliance and creates an ever-growing training and certification industry. Henceforth, every CV must include certification. Everyone who wants funding must follow the rules.

PM2 follows this pattern. It is driven by a set of rules, not a community of practice. Maybe it's called Open PM2, but there are no clear feedback mechanisms to ensure that "best practice" does actually work. There is a network around PM2 (PSN), but the focus is implementing the method, and especially on training and certification. This will surely become a community of compliance rather than a community of practice.

Need a new approach

Agile has shown the way. There is a real, innovative community around Scrum, sharing good practice. Good practice evolves, bottom-up, driven by community feedback. SAFE explicitly promotes communities of practice (SAFE is a scaled approach to Scrum).

Beyond Agile, the wider Project Management world also needs to move to communities of practice. We don't need yet another top-down method like PM2. We need a bottom-up approach, based on  communities of practice. Each community will identify good practice, proven in day-by-day use. Ideas will be shared using modern social networking techniques.

This is the forward-looking approach proposed by Lean3. Sadly, PM2 is not forward-looking, it's just a rehash of old ideas, just another set of rules.

Why I stopped blogging (and why I'm starting again)

I stopped writing this blog in May 2015 

I stopped because it was time to be less evangelical about Prince2. It was time to start facing up to the truth.

My blogs were "explaining" Best Practice, as defined by Prince2. They were broadly uncritical. I assumed that Prince2 was "Best Practice", and explained how to get it to work.

For example, I explained how to analyse risk. I knew that,  until you simplify the Prince2 risk approach, it's not usable. I knew that no-one uses the Prince2 "Best Practice".

Same with communications. I wrote a blog on communications. Prince2 has an unusable "Communications Strategy". No-one uses the four strategies in Prince2. Again, I was blogging to explain how to convert  so-called "Best Practice" into real workable practice.

This incessant need for simplification told me that Prince2 is not "Best Practice"...  It was time to wake up.

In 2015, I faced up to the facts: the term "Best Practice" is now meaningless. So I stopped writing this blog.

Since then, things have got worse

Prince2-Agile was a car crash

In June 2015, Axelos launched Prince2-Agile, a new companion guide to Prince2. This guide purports to explain how to combine Prince2 with Agile.

But it was a car crash. All of Prince2 meets all of Agile in a mammoth mash-up. The premise of the book is to use Prince2 in its entirety (all 7 processes and all 7 themes), then to add Agile. The resulting behemoth (P2 + P2A = 700 pages and 2kg of paper) is hard to explain, let alone to defend.

 Even the most evangelical supporters of Prince2 struggle with this. This is not "Best Practice". No one introduces Agile into projects like this. I know how people blend Prince2 and Agile, and it's not like this.

Prince2 needed a diet, got a sugar rush

In 2017, Axelos updated Prince2. Prince2 was aging. It was fat and bloated, full of junk that no-one uses. Put instead of sending Prince2 to a health farm, to lose weight, Axelos added more fat. More bloat.  Prince2 grew to over 400 pages.
The new book now wants the Project Manager to become a methods expert, and to tailor Prince2 for each project. That's not Best Practice. In most well-organised companies using Prince2, the corporate PMO downsizes Prince2 massively. Once.

I'm starting blogging again

I'm starting to blog again. I'm starting to blog about Lean3, a new approach to Project Management.
I've not given up on Prince2. It's a tool we can still use, but it's fossilised and we need to plan for the future. Prince2 is our past.

Lean3 rejects the idea of frozen "Best Practice", written by a guru and published in an expensive book. Lean3 will have strong feedback from the community, using social media techniques.

Lean3 argues that each community of practice should define its own good practice. Good practice which is used and proven in practice.

Read more about Lean3 at www.lean3.com