Articles & Case Studies

Unlike project management, which thrives on certainty, programme management recognizes and exploits the ambiguity. This is why is important to use a structured and well tested approach to Programme Management. A programme can be triggered in a number of ways; each will require different focus and intensity of resources and control. This white-paper explains the different types of Programmes, and hot to manage them to ensure the realization of business objectives.

You are a Project Manager, and most probably hold one (or more) great Project Management certifications. What’s next? Most of professionals in the Project Management world already know about Programme, Portfolio and PMO management; some of them already work at PMO level for example, having helped with the set up of a “Centre of Excellence” in their organization. But how do you know what is the right next step after Project Management? How to identify the right action that can fit your needs? A few years ago, you would sometimes hear project management called “The Accidental Profession”. This was the idea that we became project managers, not by design, but by accident. Professionals started as specialists in IT, Engineering, Real Estate, Construction or whatever; today we have been transformed into project managers. If you find yourself in this situation, you may be missing the skills for your new “accidental” career… This article clearly explains some of next possible steps after Project Management.

The PRINCE2 Process Flow Diagram is a graphical ‘at a glance‘ representation of all the PRINCE2 processes and how they fit together and it shows all the processes involved in running a PRINCE2 project from start to finish. This version of the Process Map is the renewed and updated one according to the new 2017 version of the PRINCE2 method. A key document for all project managers that want to run a project following the recommended steps.

There are several high quality portfolio management related publications used around the world. This White Paper focuses  on the two main global portfolio management publications from Axelos and from PMI.

The success rate of a project portfolio does not only depend on HOW you do your projects, but also on WHICH projects an organization does. Doing projects the right way, but finding out afterwards that they do not contribute to business objectives will not be seen as a success, especially from a business point of view. What is more important amongst Project, Programme and Portfolio Management to improve success rate of projects in your organization? We asked three of our key Trainers and Consultants to answer this question, in order to provide you with a clear overview of the possible approaches you can choose from when implementating Projects, Programmes and Portfolios. Better to start Top-Down or Bottom-Up?

Direct community feedback from practitioners, trainers and consultants made it clear that an evolutionary update was requested, that responds to higher expectations of stakeholders in today’s working environment. This article written by our PRINCE2 Lead Trainer and Consultant explains clearly what has changed (and why) and what did no change in this update version of PRINCE2. The 2017 update of PRINCE2 builds, in fact, on the proven strength of PRINCE2 while responding to current imperatives for flexibility and agility.

Are all your programmes and projects really necessary? Which ones will help you to deliver your strategy? What benefits will they give you? Do you have the right people and skills? Are they available when you need them? If you can answer these questions, then your organization probably already has a PMO (P3O) model in place or has the key components of it. If you can’t answer them but would like to,
then you should seriously consider implementing P3O.

We have interviewed Kevin Pauwels, developer consultant, AgilePM certified and Scrum Master at Pàu, in order to investigate further the links between Agile and other well-known framework, such as Scrum, and to find out how this knowledge helps throughout the project. We have discussed with Kevin about his role, his feedback on methods like Agile and framework as Scrum, and about the challenges and achievements of a Scrum Master growing into an actual Project Manager role. in his view “From being Scrum Master, I see AgilePM as the next step, as a way to upgrade my role and my skills, from a more technical role to a less technical one”.

This easy and short document gives a clear introduction to Management of Portfolios, by answering questions like: What is the problem? How is Management of Poirtfolios the answer to these questions? What is Management of Portfolios? What’s the difference between portfolio management and what a portfolio? What value will we experience when using MoP? Download this reference article to know more about a proven best practice like MoP.

This case study will present how Siemens improved project performance by adopting MSP. After striving for seven years to improve the effectiveness of project management, Siemens in the US was concerned it was resting on a plateau and needed a breakthrough to achieve the next level of performance. To help improve the organization’s project performance and organizational project management maturity, Siemens turned to Managing Successful Programs (MSP).

The Grand Hôpital de Charleroi (GHdC) resulted from the merger of two hospitals. “Everybody wanted to set up a real merger and not only juxtapose all the services. We wanted a global project for our patients.” Said Georges de Wasseige, Director Organisation & Projects. That implied a lot of change, reorganization, services merger and so on; a lot of projects going on and they all had to proceed also.

Organisations are facing so much unknown that they have to be ready almost for anything. That means the ability to launch quickly project and mobilise multi-skilled resources either in house or through pre-agreed commercial subcontracts or a mix of both. The AgilePM guidance of ABC (Agile Business Consortium) has an interesting document called “PAQ : Project Approach Questionnaire” used at the outset of the project. The questionnaire is in fact a risk assessment for the management side of the project. It helps defining if all stakeholders are effectively able to work in agile.  In this article we explore 5 examples of area to check before launching an agile project.