PROJECT Management explored

Well apparently Managing Successful Programmes is ten years old….if only I had known I would have sent a Birthday card!

I thought about checking but it must be true, the email telling me came directly from TSO and kindly offering 10% off any MSP publications purchased today....drop me a line if you want to know the discount code ;-)

MSP is cropping up quite a bit just at present as preparations are being made for its update and we are in the process of relicensing our MSP materials from OGC so I have been reflecting on it and how it has followed a less populous path than PRINCE2.  I'm sure that many training organisations as well as OGC, APMG etc had hoped that there would be a steady flow of people through PRINCE2 training and then on upward to MSP as organisations matured but the figures have never supported that thesis.  It is refreshing to see that MSP has retained its core programme/business level change focus while other methods have generalised and gone in seek of ever larger numbers of users, even though this means the numbers are not there and many trainers no longer run public MSP courses.  Instead the trend tends to be in company courses with organisations finding the value in managing their programmes appropriately rather than individuals seeing a strong benefit in having the qualification on their CV.

At PROJECT in a box we see the same corporate demand trend and find that our ratio of MSP to PRINCE2 users is much higher than in the general trained population.  This is partly because of our very cost effective provision of the materials for lone programme Managers or small PSOs, but also because organisations can personalise these and integrate closely with their various project methods to get something well joined up across the different change levels. Click here to find out more about Managing Successful Programmes method template add on.

It will be interesting to see the mandate for the MSP refresh and to find out if the previous direction will continue or as the teenager years approach whether the direction will falter.