Learning Leader

What's a Badge? Where's the Value?

2013-04-23T10:21:56+01:00

This certificate was waiting for me this morning.

It's part of my job, it seems, to be in a perpetual cycle of taking exams and (hopefully) getting sent such things, so forgive me if I sound blasé but this did not stir me to great rejoicing.It has become quite normal.

But today this one did make me pause. I thought back to the assessment process. Unusually from an APMG qualification, this was not gained by a tick-box exam paper, but rather by means of submitting a 4,000 + word dissertation on an aspect of a programme. In my case I chose stakeholder engagement, and it was the assessment process that added value for me. And I found it really rewarding to reflect on different aspects of this theme in the Managing Successful Programmes Framework and relate that to other aspects of the programme. Reflective writing is one of the ways I learn.

As Dawson Trotman once said:

"Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through your fingertips."

The whole process was more rewarding for me than the certificate, although I'm sure my colleagues in pearcemayfield will beg to differ!

One further point: this blog has been quiet these last few weeks as I've been …. writing. I'll be publishing a book later this year on how project managers can do the 'people thing', stakeholder engagement, much much better. Let me know if you are interested in this.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Project & Programme Managers: Have We Got It Right?

2013-02-16T14:04:46+00:00

We had a great day yesterday with a few of our major clients at Lotus F1 headquarters.

That's me with the nearest thing you'll to me sitting in a Lotus position...

I'm not a "petrolhead", so it astonishes me how wide and passionate is the appeal of Formula One. Some people got very enthustiastic during the 'Pit Stop Challenge'!

We had canvassed our clients on what were their hot topics and the one that emerged most strongly was, "How do we measure the Effectiveness of Programme and Project Managers?" So at the end of proceedings I had to stand up and give my assessment. Here it is on SlideShare.

Measuring the effectiveness of Project and Program Managers: Have we got it right? from Patrick Mayfield

From my perspective we can't separate competence from learning, nor the role from the context in which it happens. So we have a lot to improve in how we measure and develop project and programme managers.

Do let me have your views.

Widening the net, and why we don't do it

2013-01-23T13:54:30+00:00

So we are given a project and pretty soon we ask, "Who are the people affected, our stakeholders?"

If we are careful, we don't define this as people who are merely affected during the life of the project, but also affected by its outcome, the difference our project can and should make in the world after the project is over.

Even using the word 'affected' can be a little too limiting. This implies we only consider people who are impacted by what we do. How about drawing the net a little wider? How about including people who have an interest in our project and its outcome?

This comes back to the classic definition we use of a 'stakeholder': any individual or group who has an interest in the project or its outcome.

Now some project managers can find this wider net daunting and can resist this. Usually there are three reasons for this:

1. "This is more likely to involve the 'difficult' people. If I do this, I am adding risks to my project."

Yes, that there are risks here.

However, a greater risk is from overlooking some important stakeholder. This omission can be very damaging later, when that stakeholder is aggrieved that you have left them out of the loop. "You can forget important stakeholders, but they won't forget you," is one of our favourite aphorisms.

2. "This will increase my workload. It would overwhelm me. I can't communicate with all these people and groups."

No, you can't. Nor should you try. Remember, if your project is large enough to have a team, including your project sponsor and, perhaps, a project office, then you need to work with them on this engagement challenge as a team effort. Delegate out to them some of that engagement. It is likely, for example, that your project sponsor is a more suitable candidate for engaging some key people.

Also, by this more inclusive approach you will identify stakeholders that perhaps you later dismiss from engagement, either because they are very marginal or because you need to prioritise. But this is much more robust approach than being in denial about engaging with them from the outset. It may be that you do not need to engage certain stakeholders yet; but the time will come. You have thought this through. You are more prepared.

3. "My job is merely to deliver the project. The outcomes are someone else's problem."

I don't encounter this response as much in these more enlightened times. Even if you are tempted to exempt yourself from engagement by this extremely conservative view of project management, you do well to remind yourself that you ultimately you serve your customer. You are helping them achieve their business case. Yes, much of this work - the operational transition and benefits realisation - might be scoped outside of your project, but the best project managers, the ones that are most highly regarded, are those who make it their business to make sure others are ready to do this.

So make sure when identifying your stakeholders, you identify all of them. Make sure you draw your net widely enough. And don't let some of these common objections put you off.

Engaging your Project Stakeholder Workshop

Am I a Customer or a Muppet?

2013-01-16T12:09:22+00:00

My grown-up son introduced me to Disney's "The Muppets", a movie so gloriously funny, IMHO, that it is wasted on children.See this short video for an example.

However, the song, "Am I a man or muppet" reminds me of something darker.

Over the last few years I have heard of certain banks and investment houses talking about their customers as "muppets" and utility companies describing those who switch suppliers to get a cheaper commodity deal as "tarts". Such labels are insulting, of course.

Who sets the value on what we offer? Is it not the customer? We may try to place value on our offering, but ultimately it is the customer who determines that value.

More than that, the labels are indicators of a cynical culture. Customers at best as a means to an end, at worst, powerless stakeholders to be manipulated. This is dangerous. Such cultures hold the seeds of their own destruction. Denigrating the customer ultimate destroys the organisation itself. Towards the latter years, such language was used within Lehman Brothers and Enron. Who are the muppets now?

See this excellent illustration from Daniel Goleman of valuing the customer in the innovation process. Holding the customer is such high regard is highly motivational as well as driving financial health.

So we should all be careful of parodying or deriding our value creators, our customers. We could find ourselves biting the hand that feeds us.

Value your customer, and she or he will return the favour.

Navigating through Complexity: the MSP Flow Navigator

2013-01-01T14:31:44+00:00

First, I wish everyone who reads this a Happy New Year!

At pearcemayfield we are continually innovating, mostly in small, but rapid improvements.

Recently we launched an online navigator for people who book on our transformational change MSP courses. This works as a sort of digital wall chart that you can pan, zoom and inspect how the transformational flow (process model) in MSP interrelates with key themes and documents, something that the traditional book format cannot convey.

The Navigator shows clearly, for example, how and where transition planning happens in the MSP scheme of things.

One of our talented associate trainers, Nathalie Collister, said:

I just went through this in detail and I think it is an outstanding document. I like the fact that you go from overall picture to details. The explanations are clear and it's really easy to move around. It looks very snazzy. It is brilliant... Great work, very impressive.

And a customer who was re-sitting on one of our recent MSP Practitioner courses responded:

Thank you Patrick, this is great. Exactly what I need to help with my revision! See you next week.

(She passed, BTW!)

Here's a short instructional video I've uploaded for our MSP customers.

If you would like to access the chart, then book yourself on one of our courses, and we'll be pleased to give you access free of charge.

pearcemayfield India is launched!

2012-12-07T07:27:25+00:00

Over the last few years we have been doing an increasing amount of work for clients in India. I have personally visited this amazing country several times and have been invited to speak at conferences in different cities across the sub-continent.

What has impressed me and my colleagues is the huge appetite and enthusiasm for what we deliver – premium coaching and advice on leading change through PPM. In some cases the people we have been speaking with are at the cutting edge of both PPM and learning approaches.

Clearly there are quite a few Indian businesses that are ready to lead the world.

So we are delighted to announce today the opening of our Indian Office.

Based in Delhi and led by our Country Manager, lubaid Khan, we are now in a position to offer our clients a pearcemayfield Indian-based service. Now our Indian clients can access our world-class services from within their own country. Initially we are launching PRINCE2 courses in Bangalore.

Check out our pearcemayfield India website for details.

Where will this all lead us? I don’t know, but I believe it will be a two-way street. We regard our partner Indian company as having the potential to provide other parts of pearcemayfield with skills and resources in all kinds of areas and expressions of what we do, from e-learning to PMI training.

These are very exciting times.

Transition Planning and Leadership: the Cinderella of #Change?

2012-12-05T17:11:11+00:00

Over the last couple of weeks I have been delivering a modular MSP Practitioner course ("Managing Successful Programmes") for our partner, Cardiff University, at their premises in Cardiff.

I was pleasantly delighted on a couple of counts. First, the delegates were a great group, from different backgrounds. It made for some fascinating discussions. Second, I realised it had been awhile since I had myself led our MSP course, and I really loved it! I enjoy the fact that this framework really can get its arms around adaptive change.

One of the core concepts in MSP is the idea of catering for transition, behaviour changes following what the projects deliver. And the model is pretty robust. I realised again that it is so powerful a concept that it pops up in a number of other places - behind some of the change management models we take people through on our Change Management Practitioner, in the newly-published Managing Benefits, and, of course, in Management of Portfolios.

So I've put what I have rehearsed many times with clients onto this video.

It seems to me, like Cinderella in the Fairy Tale, far too often the whole transition piece gets forgotten and isn't invited to the Ball. And this is a tragedy - for all concerned.

So it seemed to me appropriate, at this Christmas season, when Pantomimes, including Cinderella, are very much in people's minds, that I remind everyone of transition, the need to plan for it, resource it, and lead it.

P3O: The 'Big Idea'

2012-11-02T13:20:30+00:00

I have found myself frequently sketching out the same diagram on what I see as the fundamental 'grand idea' behind P3O. So I have converted it to a sub-seven minute video.

Let me know what you think.

"Managing Benefits": why this is a critical new contribution

2012-09-26T20:22:10+01:00

Yesterday I was at Millbank House for the launch of Stephen Jenner's new book, "Managing Benefits: Optimizing the Return from Investments", a book I had the opportunity of reviewing, pre-publication. The book, commissioned by APM Group, will be the source reference for a new set of qualifications.

The book is at first a challenging read, stretching the reader to consider subjects as diverse as management accounting, change management and psychological research. However, I believe Steve has got it broadly right. The challenge he has identified is for organisation - public or private - to challenge the received wisdom that over time costs always must go up and benefits must go down.

Here is a video I put together about how I see this contribution to the field:

If readers and delegates approach this as a simple "how to" guide with a single process and set of supporting techniques, then they will be disappointed. Rather it is a body of knowledge for leaders to attack the dreadful waste that seems endemic in the programme/project portfolios in most organisations. There is an opportunity here to challenge received wisdom and received behaviours that start with over-optimistic plans, and end with quiet denial that benefits are not being realised.I believe the book is mis-titled: it should be "Leading Benefits Realisation", but I guess this is market branding issue.

I am convinced that this is more of a cultural challenge than a technical one.

APM Group are offering a Foundation qualification. We are already signed up to this and will be offering our unique approach to bringing this subject to life as well as getting our clients qualified. Anyone booking on this course gets a copy of Steve's book as well as the exam registration and our material.

Leading Change in a VUCA World

2012-09-19T14:38:44+01:00

I am just back from India, where I gave a presentation in Bangalore last Friday, at the APMG International Showcase. I spoke at this event two years ago on P3O. I couldn't help but notice that the attendance was much stronger there this year. There was a genuine buzz about the various offerings among APM Group qualifications.

I was given the choice of topics, and I elected to speak on the critically importance of Change Management and about some of the results pearcemayfield have seen through our own programmes. Whilst in Bangalore afterwards, and later in Delhi, I was able to record, edit and upload a version onto YouTube:

Generally in India, qualifications are valued more highly than in the UK, and the feedback from people I spoke to afterwards was no exception. India is also where the PMP qualification is dominant: 95% PMP compared to 5% PRINCE2, but there is an acceptance that the two are complementary, where PMP is more comprehensive in techniques, and PRINCE2 goes deeper in governance.

My concern is that change leadership is still pretty marginal to both, but we do highlight this in our own PRINCE2 training courses.

And "VUCA"? Well, check out the video, and let me know what you think.