For Successful Programme Management: Think MSP

Posted by Kevin Brady on Fri 3rd October 2008 at 11:22 AM, Filed in MSP(managing successful projts),  Book Reviews

Author - Melanie Franklin –The author’s name is buried on page 6 of the book, where she gets a mention in the acknowledgments. All a little strange perhaps until you read the acknowledgment a little further, where it is revealed that the Office of Government and Commerce (OGC) commissioned her to design and develop the book under contract. Melanie is well known in the training industry as a management trainer in her own right and the owner of Maven Training Ltd. She is also the author /co-author on a number of MSP and PRINCE 2 related publications many of which have been recently published and will be reviewed in later posts.

Book Synopsis: The synopsis of this book (detailed in the book and on Amazon’s site) is best described as a little ‘woolly’ and vague. If this was the brief that Melanie was given by the OGC to work from then no wonder I give the book a 2 star rating. After quite some pre-amble the book describes itself as appealing to those wanting a basic grounding in MSP “concepts and practical explanations”.  The book is pamphlet size and is described on some book sites as a “simple but practical guide to the implementation of the MSP framework”.

Things I liked:

As stated above, the book is small /pocket size and light weight, which compared to the full MSP manual, is a real help when project /programme managers often have so much to lug around with themselves these days. The can be easily read whilst in a waiting room or ob public transport, and funnily enough that’s what I am doing right now with the book balanced on one knee!

The guide gives a rudimentary description of MSP at a level which would be useful to someone impacted by a programme, but who is not accountable or responsible for the running of a programme. Busy stakeholders might find this a quick crib sheet to help them stay afloat in Steering Group and Programme Board Meetings.

For those who have taken “o” levels it is rather like a ‘Letts’ “key facts guide” for MSP, if such a thing existed (there’s an idea for a budding author).

Things I disliked about the book:-

The books practical application aspects are extremely thin and flaky, and show either a lack of real world practical application and adoption experience on the part of the author, or the book has been constrained by the OGC in terms of scope through authoring via committee. Who knows?
Each core concept is explained in summary with the practical application aspects explained under a number of common and repeated headings throughout the text:-

• Are there any examples that might help me?
• Do I have to do this?
• What happens if I don’t do this?
• What are the benefits?

These headings are the area where the author or the OGC could really go to town and deliver some real value as an effective MSP ‘cookbook’. Sadly this opportunity was never taken up and these sections can only be defined as a damp squib. A real shame for those busy managers wanting to do something with MSP !

The problem is that the case study examples used are so simplistic that they seem more appropriate at project level than giving insights into how MSP is implemented at programme level. Also, each of the headings above rarely gets more than a short paragraph. The answers were so brief and light-weight that in many areas you felt the author could not have possibly done this for real. I was left wanting more and started to pace around the airport lounge at this stage. 

If you are going to publish any book with the word practical in any part of the synopsis or foreword to be truly credible you need to use a quality case study from a recognised programme /corporation to give weight and gravitas to your statements.  Next you need to explain the typical barrier /constraints /issues and risks which surround the challenge of getting these concepts launched and adopted in a typical transformation programme. This connection with the reader was not achieved.

Also, the book gives about the equivalent of a page of A5 (incoherently spread around the book) to the importance of the PO in MSP. This lack of emphasis is a real flaw in this guide. Anyone who has ever tried to make a large scale business transformation programme work, such as Inland Revenues Aspire programme, knows that the PO is the heart and lungs of any successful programme. In the real world PO’s or PMO’s are key to success in a world where management by direction is dead and management by facilitation and consultation based around first rate transparency is the order of the day. PO’s are the eyes /ears of a programme and give power through facts the programme management. Furthermore, in the real world PO’s help police the programme in terms of Quality Assurance and Assurance activates link to post, making sure the programme is always aligned to programme /business objectives. The APMG now considers the PO to be so important that they are pulling this put from the MSP framework and imminently issuing their own best practice guidance on the subject.  Therefore, why this gets so little attention is a mystery and leaves me feeling that the guide is not a joined-up and coherent explanation of the MSP framework. The book has the look and feel of a Training PowerPoint presentation needing a voice-over for the reader to fully get a grip of this important programme management framework.

Who should / should not read this book? : -

No for Potential MSP Students - If you are thinking of using this guide as a revision text for the MSP Foundation or Practitioner exam then my best advice is “Don’t do it”. You will fail! Questions can, and are, asked on virtually any aspect of the main MSP manual. This guide simple does not have the critical mass of content for this purpose.

No for Programme Managers wanting a quick and dirty guide to MSP and its Practical Application - Don’t use this guide as a practical “How to ?”. Trust me programmes are complex machines and this guide would really run out of steam within 3 minutes of the battle starting. 

Possibly for Stakeholders and people impacted by an MSP Programme - This book would be quite useful for such people who want to get the gist of what it’s all about and how it might affect them. If I was running an MSP style transformation programme, I would not hesitate buying this guide if sold at a lower price and hand this to key the Sponsorship Group and Programme Board members as part of a stakeholder orienteering workshop.

Overall the book offers a narrow range of benefits, and the summarised MSP framework fails to give a complete /joined up and coherent view of the core aspects of MSP and how as an integrated framework it can be practically applied.

Not one I would rush to buy

This book gets a star rating of

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