Mapping the future, mapping the past

 This is about understanding the past. It’s a case study, but it’s more than that. It’s about how we can better understand the past if we have a frame of reference.

The case study explains how a large company improved its project & portfolio management.

This multi-national organisation was structured as 7 business units. They had an ambitious change agenda. To deliver this huge amount of change, they needed to improve their project management.

They ran a 3-phase improvement initiative to improve project management
    ❑    Phase 1 introduced Prince2 project management, supported by heavy-duty EPM tools (Enterprise Project Management software)
    ❑    Phase 2 measured regularly the improving maturity, by measuring the use of Prince2-based methods and the tools. With these measures, they found the weak spots, and took corrective action
    ❑    Phase 3 introduced portfolio reporting. It started once the level of maturity of Project Management was acceptable - it needed good quality project data as the starting point for consolidated portfolio reporting.

We can understand this case study in terms of P3O. That will be our frame of reference. P3O  provides organisations with a top-down approach for improving their P3 (P3 stands for projects, programmes and portfolios). The O stands for Offices, so P3 + O gives P3O.

So let’s use the P3O framework.  How does this case study look in P3O terms?

Retrospectively, we can detect the gradual construction of a P3O model, as the 3 phases advanced
    ❑    Phase 1. Local CoE functions were set up (Centres of Excellence) supporting the deployment of Prince2.
The local CoEs
    ⁃    published standards, procedures, templates
    ⁃    provided training, coaching
    ⁃    ensured tool support
    ❑    Phase 2. A centralised the CoE function emerged. The local CoEs were merged into a single unified CoE.
The central CoE
    ⁃    measured the maturity of Prince2 and tool using with a P3P3 approach (P3M3 is a maturity model)
    ⁃    provided an Information Portal with standards, procedures, templates, etc
    ⁃    continued to provide coaching to teams with low maturity
    ❑    Phase 3. A Portfolio Office structure was deployed, with a central Organisational Portfolio Office managed by a senior manager.
Each Portfolio Office
    ⁃    introduced Portfolio Design - budget management, demand management, resource optimisation, portfolio optimisation
    ⁃    coordinated Portfolio Delivery - monitoring and control of projects, data consolidation, status reporting

This provided the foundations for solid Project Management.
We can see that the P3O support was a key enabler
    ❑    The P3O structure was a key enabler of for project management.  Without support from the CoE structures, this major Prince2 and tools deployment would not have succeeded, and the high maturity levels in Project Management would not have been achieved.
    ❑    The P3O structure was also an essential enabler for Portfolio Management structure. Without the Portfolio Office, the ambitious work to structure Portfolio Management would not have progressed. It was beyond the reach of the business managers responsible for the portfolios - the support of the Portfolio Offices in the P3O model was vital.

By looking back at the past, we learn lessons by finding a good frame of reference.

Now look forward to the future. To improve your organisation’s project management, use a good frame of reference. Try using the P3O framework to map out the future.

Why the Project Manager is a Time Traveller

In the popular Science-Fiction film, “Back to the Future”, a mad scientist makes possible time travel. Marty, the film’s hero, can travel to the future. In real life, we can’t travel to the future, but we often need to imagine the future.
The project manager (and programme or portfolio manager) is a change agent, who will change or innovate, to build a different future. The project manager’s job is to imagine a new future and how to get there. We travel to the future in our imagination.
So the Project Manager imagines the future, and converts it into a plan. A good project manager will spend a lot of time planning, which is almost “living in the future”

• planning the journey to the future (how to get there)
• planning the destination (what the future will be like)

The experienced Project Manager is constantly thinking weeks ahead … imagining what will happen next week, next month, next year. That’s a key characteristic of a good Project Manager.
Planning can be a major, time-consuming activity for the Project Manager. If done wrongly, the Project Manager can waste much time on planning, as one plan gets replaced by the next and then the next...
To plan effectively and avoid wasted time, methods like Prince2 (for Project Management) and MSP (for Programme Management) can help enormously.
Three key strengths of the Prince2 approach to planning are:

1. Prince2 starts the planning process with Product Based Planning. You start with the “What” (your deliverables, which give a picture of the future) before the “When” or the “Who” (which tell you about the journey). Product Based Planning generates more robust plans, which are easier to understand and maintain.
2. Prince2 has three levels of plan - project plan, stage plan, team plan. This reduces complexity, and aligns planning to the team structure.
3. Prince2 uses just-in-time planning - as the next stage approaches, the stage plan is created. This avoids the need for a hard-to-build and hard-to-maintain mega-plan for the entire project.

MSP has a similar approach :

• MSP separates the picture of the destination (the Blueprint) from the journey (the Programme Plan)
• MSP has several types of plan - programme plan, project plan, transition plan… This is aligned to the programme organisation, and avoids building one hard-to-handle mega-plan

Planning is important. As project teams move to “light” forms of Agile, some fall into a trap. Essentially, they move to “discovery mode” and stop planning. The daily stand-up meeting can’t replace a plan, it’s too focussed on the present, not the future. Planning is not optional. As the old saying goes “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.
So make sure you are a time traveller. Spend time in the future, and build your plan. Then use it. As the other saying goes “Plan your work, then work your plan”.

"Prince or Agile?" is like "Hammer or Screwdriver?"

All around the world, the Prince2 project management framework is growing in popularity, but a new challenger, Agile, has appeared. So we are starting to hear a debate “Prince2 or Agile?”.

That’s an interesting question, but often it’s the wrong question. If you are starting a home improvement project, you don’t ask “Hammer or Screwdriver?”
- You probably need both
- You need to know when to use each tool
- You need to know how to use each tool correctly

The same applies to Prince2 and Agile. A mature organisation will have both methods in their toolbox, and will skilfully use the right tool at the right moment.

So if we might need both Prince2 and Agile, how do they compare as tools?

We need to compare like-for-like, so the starting point is to find the right Agile. There are many variants of Agile, many of them lightweight variants such as SCRUM and XP. These lightweight variants are not full-scale project management methods, they are used by teams to manage parts of projects, mostly the IT parts. A heavyweight contender to Prince2 is Agile ATERN (also known as DSDM)

Both Prince2 and Agile-ATERN are fully-fledged project management frameworks. Both are general purpose methods. Both are enterprise-ready with a focus on value-for-money, on control, on quality, and so on.

Which one to choose?
* Prince2 is the better choice for specification-driven projects
* Agile ATERN is the better choice for discovery projects
* Agile ATERN is great for deadline-driven projects

The type of project helps you choose your method:

• Specification driven means you start off with a written document (and probably with a contract)
• Discovery projects have only the essential needs decided up front
• Deadline-driven projects must absolutely deliver on time

But you don’t always have to choose. It’s not an “Either-Or” choice. Just as ATERN has integrated ideas from Prince2, so you can make Prince2 more Agile

Here are some ways that you could make a Prince2 project more Agile:
- use your first stage to build a “kleenex” prototype (limited functionality, simulate the real solution)
- use a pilot stage (limited deployment, get something working and into daily use)
- use time-boxes (have zero time tolerance for a stage, but high scope tolerance - if you are running late, reduce scope)
- start your day with stand up meetings (e.g. project manager plus team managers)
- use “Enough Design Up Front” (EDUF) not “Big Design Up Front” (BDUF) by finalising your product descriptions at the stage boundary (rather than on the PID)
- for a work package where you need a discovery approach, use a lightweight Agile method such as XP or SCRUM

So just as it’s not “Hammer or Screwdriver” for your home improvement project, so it’s not “Prince2 or Agile” for your company.

Just as you need a Hammer and a Screwdriver at home, you may need Prince2 and Agile at work. The way forward is to have both tools. If you are using Prince2 today, you should start looking at Agile ATERN.

How MSP helped a tiny organisation... to survive

There is a growing understanding that Programme management is vital for big organisations. Methods like MSP are increasingly used by big organisations for major transformational programmes like
    •    company mergers
    •    business reengineering (e.g. ERP or CRM rollout)
    •    launch of new products, services or markets
    •    public sector reorganisation
    •    major sporting events which help regenerate run down urban areas

But it’s less well understood how a method like MSP can help small organisations or small teams.

Small organisations can face for the same need for transformational change as big organisations.

So let’s look at how very small voluntary sector organisation has benefited from MSP over the last few years. The organisation is indeed small, with only 5 staff. But from 2005, it identified some big problems… which could have threatened its very existence.

It’s a publicly funded organisation, and the management team saw that it was not delivering value for money to the funding bodies. It was time for change, time for transformational change, time to apply some MSP best practice. Otherwise, in today’s difficult times, the funding would have been cut, and the very future of the organisation put at peril.

Here’s three of the ways that MSP helped this tiny organisation to re-invent itself... and survive!

1) Develop a vision to drive the change: since end 2008 a vision statement has been in place. The organisation must change over the coming years. It must reinvent itself.

The vision statement explains where things are heading and helps to guide the change. At various annual meetings (AGM, board of control), the vision has been explained and agreed. This is the MSP way - build consensus for change, starting with a vision.

2) Analyse the stakeholders: from 2005, the organisation started to look at the funding bodies as stakeholders, not just as sources of income. MSP helps you to get a 360° vision, to view your situation from the point of view of the stakeholder. With MSP you seek to understand their interests, and to work out how to engage with each stakeholder.

3) Build a project dossier, run the next tranche: In 2010, by looking the stakeholder interests of the major funding body, the organisation identified several options to provide stakeholders with better value for money. One was an outreach project, providing services in a wider geographical area. Another project was educational, targeting 11-15 year-old school kids.

In MSP terms, this was a part of the project dossier, to be rolled out in the next tranche of the programme. Once the tranche plan was agreed, the projects were launched. Soon the outreach solution went live, and by 2011, the benefits were clear and measurable. The outreach was working in 12 towns. Equally, the educational project as fine - the schools were happy.

This tranche delivered clear benefits to a key stakeholder. The story continues today - additional opportunities, follow-up projects in more schools, new projects in the 12 towns… the new tranche is under way.

So we have seen three of the ways that MSP has helped a tiny organisation to reinvent itself. MSP can help your small business or your small team. It’s not just for the big guys!

4 ways that Prince2 saves you time

Prince2 can save you time. Here's 4 ways... there are many more!

1) Management by exception is a genuine time saver. It is essentially “hands-off” management - you establish the parameters for a block of work (a stage, a work package), and then delegate that work.
It’s hands off, but it nevertheless provides management and control. You focus on the decisions and the unexpected, which saves time at all levels of the project management team. Time is scarce. Your team is busy. Use scarce time wisely. That’s efficient.
Does management by exception really save time? Well, just look at some of the inefficient alternatives commonly used by non-Prince2 teams.

• “micro-management” is time consuming
• “management by walking around” can be irrational and unstructured
• “management by meeting” eats up man-days of effort in large, unproductive meetings

2) The Prince2 approach to planning saves time.
Prince2 encourages you to “rIght-size” your planning. Prince2 has three levels of plan

• You need a project plan, but it can be fairly simple. This is a summary plan, showing the key deliverables, the stage boundaries, some key milestones and some high level estimates. Because this is high level, it’s quicker to do. You are saving time by not writing a long, detailed plan.

• The stage plan is essentially a “just-in-time” plan with some extra detail. You don’t do detailed planning until you get near to the work concerned, and that saves you time as it avoids reworking your plan.

• The team plans contain the lowest level of detail. The Prince2 project manager delegates the creation of each team plan to the team manager. That make sense. And that’s more time saved for the project manager.

3) Quality - do the work once, don’t do it twice
Prince2 has a strong focus on quality. If you use it correctly, it can save you a lot of time. With Prince2, you do concrete, pragmatic work on quality early in the project, before your deliverables are produced.
If you don’t use this upstream approach to quality, you’ll probably waste time. You’ll discover the defects downstream. You’ll find out the customer’s quality expectations when you deliver. And you’ll probably fix any problems. But fixing quality defaults once the product is delivered can be very time consuming. You may end up doing the work twice… once to make the product, and a second time to fix it.
So addressing quality the Prince2 way saves you time. One of the most famous books on quality is called “Quality is Free”. The book says that addressing quality correctly doesn’t cost you time and money, it saves time and money. Prince2 agrees.

4) Don’t reinvent the wheel each project
Prince2 has a defined life cycle, with a defined set of roles and responsibilities. This saves you time.
Each project is unique. Without a method like Prince2, you start a project with a blank sheet of paper. You need to invent a way forward, you need to build a team and ways of working. With Prince2, your project is still a challenge, but you know how to address the key questions.
        ✓        You know how to get started, using the Prince2 “Startup up a Project” process.
        ✓        You know how to structure your team, with a Project Executive, a Project Manager and so on.
        ✓        You know you should get agreement on a Project Brief, your first major document.
        ✓        You know you will continue with the “Initiating a Project” process.
With Prince2, the first crucial weeks of your new project are mapped out.
You have a proven route map, even though your project is new and unique. Now that’s a real time saving.

Mapping the future, mapping the past with P3O

This is about understanding the past. It’s a case study, but it’s more than that. It’s about how we can better understand the past if we have a frame of reference.

The case study explains how a large company improved its project & portfolio management.

This multi-national organisation was structured as 7 business units. They had an ambitious change agenda. To deliver this huge amount of change, they needed to improve their project management.

They ran a 3-phase improvement initiative to improve project management

        ❑        Phase 1 introduced Prince2 project management, supported by heavy-duty EPM tools (Enterprise Project Management)

        ❑        Phase 2 measured regularly the improving maturity, by measuring the use of Prince2-based methods and the tools. With these measures, they found the weak spots, and took corrective action

        ❑        Phase 3 introduced portfolio reporting. It started once the level of maturity of Project Management was acceptable - it needed good quality project data as the starting point for consolidated portfolio reporting.

We can understand this case study in terms of P3O. That will be our frame of reference. P3O provides organisations with a top-down approach for improving their P3 (P3 stands for projects, programmes and portfolios). The O stands for Offices, so P3 + O gives P3O.

So let’s use the P3O framework. How does this case study look in P3O terms?

Retrospectively, we can detect the gradual construction of a P3O model, as the 3 phases advanced

        ❑        Phase 1. Local CoE functions were set up (Centres of Excellence) supporting the deployment of Prince2.

1. The local CoEs
   • published standards, procedures, templates
   • provided training, coaching
   • ensured tool support

        ❑        Phase 2. A centralised the CoE function emerged. The local CoEs were merged into a single unified CoE.

1. The central CoE
   • measured the maturity of Prince2 and tool using with a P3P3 approach (P3M3 is a maturity model)
   • provided an Information Portal with standards, procedures, templates, etc
   • continued to provide coaching to teams with low maturity

        ❑        Phase 3. A Portfolio Office structure was deployed, with a central Organisational Portfolio Office managed by a senior manager.

1. Each Portfolio Office
   • introduced Portfolio Design - budget management, demand management, resource optimisation, portfolio optimisation
   • coordinated Portfolio Delivery - monitoring and control of projects, data consolidation, status reporting

This provided the foundations for solid Project Management.

We can see that the P3O support was a key enabler

        ❑        The P3O structure was a key enabler of for project management. Without support from the CoE structures, this major Prince2 and tools deployment would not have succeeded, and the high maturity levels in Project Management would not have been achieved.

        ❑        The P3O structure was also an essential enabler for Portfolio Management structure. Without the Portfolio Office, the ambitious work to structure Portfolio Management would not have progressed. It was beyond the reach of the business managers responsible for the portfolios - the support of the Portfolio Offices in the P3O model was vital.

By looking back at the past, we learn lessons by finding a good frame of reference.

Now look forward to the future. To improve your organisation’s project management, use a good frame of reference. Try using the P3O framework to map out the future.

MSP: the 'Do Nothing' vision

What is a ‘do-nothing vision’ in MSP?

Managing Successful Programmes suggests that a programme team should elaborate a vision of the future. This is an agreed and communicated vision of the desired future. As a contrast to this desirable future vision, it can be useful to analyse the "do nothing" option.

Your change programme may encounter resistance. Both the future vision and the "do nothing" vision are useful to overcome resistance and to help motivate people to support the proposed changes.

In Nokia, the new boss, Stephen Elop came in from Microsoft with a new strategy. He wanted Nokia to work with Microsoft, and to put Windows on their smartphones. That meant abandoning Symbian and Meego, two existing Nokia operating systems.

He used the "burning deck" scenario to drive the change. This scenario said that "do nothing" was impossible. We - the Nokia team - are on a burning deck, and if we do nothing we will burn. We have a choice to jump off the deck, into the cold black sea below. This is a risk, but a risk that we must take. Doing nothing is certain death, whereas we might survive in the sea...

For Nokia, the do-nothing option was clear... uncompetitive products, declining market share, increasing irrelevance in the global marketplace. So Nokia took the risk, and jumped off the burning desk. They closed their Symbian and Meego teams and went for the Windows option.

Sometimes, doing nothing might appear to be a good choice.

Hewlett Packard have just voted for the "do nothing" choice. They were thinking of selling their PC business. They decided against it. They compared the option of floating off the PC unit with the option of doing nothing, and choose to do nothing.

Some say that, in the long running Euro-crisis, Angela Merkel is failing to provide leadership, and very often favours the "do nothing" option (or at least, do too little, too late)...