Fundamental to the MSP methodology is the concept of Governance Themes. These are the procedures and responsibilities that define how a programme is set up and run – representing the organisation’s approach to programme management.

MSP training and certification will guide you through APMG best practice for each of these. This will be closely based on the MSP manual, which does emphasise that the profile for each of these must be tailored to the organisation and the specific programme.

The 9 Governance Themes are:

• Vision
• Programme organisation
• Benefits management
• Leadership and stakeholder engagement
• Blueprint design and delivery
• Planning and control
• The business case
• Risks and issue management
• Quality and assurance management

Vision

The vision statement is perhaps the most rigid of the governance themes, and is a document compiled by the Senior Responsible Officer and a team of relevant senior managers and stakeholders. The statement outlines the expected result after the programme objectives are fulfilled.

Blueprint Design and Delivery

This is an extension of the vision statement – a detailed model of the future organisation with ‘gap analysis’ of the differences between that and the organisation as it is now. This gap analysis helps plan and refine the programme.

Organisation & Leadership

This details the structure of the programme and the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved. Read the rest of "MSP Governance Themes"

In recent posts we looked at Defining a Programme and developing the Business Case in MSP. Once you have defined your Programme and developed the Business Case you can move onto the Managing the Tranches process.

Managing the Tranches is the process that oversees the other two processes of Delivering the Capability and Realising the Benefits.

Managing the Tranches establishes and implements the strategies, procedures and activities that define how the programme will be managed and controlled.

If you would like to learn more about Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), using tranches and other theory, MSP Foundation training may be for you!

What is a Tranche?

A tranche is a portion of something – in this case a group of projects and activities that deliver a step change in capability. During the Managing the Tranches process, after each tranche, End of Tranche reviews can be held to review the benefits in accordance with the business case. Read the rest of "MSP: Managing the Tranches"

MSP (Managing Successful Programmes) is a framework for managing programmes.

Training in MSP provides principles which can be applied to a wide range of business programmes.

Many businesses fundamentally fail to recognise a programme, and assign the term instead to groups or portfolios of projects.

More accurately, a programme is a group of projects that are all closely related and working towards the same business objective.

Programmes, Projects and Portfolios

It’s crucial that businesses keep sight of the differences between projects, portfolios and programmes. Project management is simply about controlling one project with one overriding objective. Project Management techniques such as PRINCE2 can be used to work with programme management like MSP.

A portfolio is a group of projects, probably in the same business area, which may share some objectives but are not directly related.  The term ‘portfolio’ may sometimes be used loosely as a group of projects within a programme, but is best avoided as it can cause confusion. More information on programme management and project management differences.

Programme management is concerned with controlling a group of related projects with shared objectives. It is important that everyone concerned knows that different processes and experts much be used to manage programmes than who manages projects. Read the rest of "MSP – Defining a Programme"