MSP Changeover Course

UK (SANEPR.com) August 6, 2008 -- “Because very few MoD senior management, and therefore SROs, have had training in MSP and programme management, they often miss the subtleties of the different nature and requirements of project and programme management,” says Gavin Bateman, Wing Commander, RAF Wyton. “Whilst this can be addressed through explanation and presentation it takes time and brings risk to a programme begin treated as a project.”

Gavin recently attended Maven Training’s MSP Changeover course, which is a one day course designed to brief programme managers on how the 2007 edition of MSP has been updated. “The MSP Changeover course was extremely useful because you are talked through the methodology enhancements and the reasoning behind them, which essentially brings best practice together in one place.” he says.

Gavin is the Programme Manager for the Aircraft Commodities Transformation Programme which is worth circa £2 billion over ten years. He has been at RAF Wyton on and off for the last twelve years, with tours working with front-line Harrier Aircraft and the Royal Navy Carriers in between. His first contact with MSP was around two and a half years ago when he was working on the Tornado Availability Programme.

He says: “During my reading in at Tornado, my Programme Director was drafting his own Programme Definition document attempting to pull together all aspects of programme management. Having set the standard it was great because you didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. Historically when we were trying to work with industry they would also have their own way of doing things, and to suggest programming alternatives was a cultural shock.”

Gavin initially underwent PRINCE2 and MSP training because he wanted a clearer idea of the differences between programmes (outcomes) and projects (outputs). “I subsequently realised that had I had the opportunity to understand the differences between projects and programmes earlier in my career I would have been better able to deal with the change, risk, stakeholders and flexibility the actual programmes I was working on involved.”

“Luckily,” he says, “we’ve all moved on since my early days and many parts of the industry are coming to recognise MSP as the standard for Programme Management. Having an SRO actually MSP qualified on my latest Programme has helped and more MoD people are being trained but we still have to cajole and persuade too many senior managers on how MSP will help. However, once they appreciate that programme management delivers benefits and is tried and tested, it’s an important victory. I know that the wider MoD accepts this and it is focussing on Programme and Project Management as a key competency, it will take time though to impact the organisation as a whole.”

Gavin explains it can be difficult to ‘sell’ MSP into industry and its senior management too, especially when everybody is using different terminology resulting in them not really understanding what is meant by a mandate, a vision or a blueprint. “These issues alone make it useful for joint teams to have MSP training. We’ve rolled out OGC Gateway Reviews as part of our assurance programme and that has helped with consistency of language. It’s just not the same when you have just ‘read the book’; the information just doesn’t sink in as well and the application it not there.”

Gavin says it’s useful to have a one day course that gives you the latest information from OGC. “The new MSP gives you a tried and tested blueprint for the management of programmes. The Programme Preparation Plan captures the essence of what you want to do and puts it in a format to show SROs and stakeholders.” He also says the Stakeholder Management element is more focused – and gives ideas as to how to apply best practice. “The models and diagrams are good because they put in pictorial terms the salient points of MSP and this is a major leap forward. With the new MSP you can take it to your audience and you are not limiting them or blinding them with terminology that they don’t understand. Instead everyone’s mind is focused on what they need to think about in order to achieve the benefits they want. I should add that a one day course also refreshes your understanding of what you ought to do on your own current programme; when you are actually just busying doing what you can do.”

At Wyton, Gavin reports that most of the people taking MSP will be trained to Practitioner level. “We’re making sure that everyone crosses over to the 2007 version. We don’t want a situation where less experienced people have taken the new version, but more experienced people are still working with the old or vice-versa. So we’re all migrating to the same terminology. A few more experienced practitioners will then migrate to Advanced Practitioner as part of MoD continual professional development”