Course: MSP Foundation - 3 days

The MSP foundation course comprises the first three days of the five day practitioner course culminating in the foundation examination. The aim of the course is to provide delegates with a comprehensive and applied understanding of MSP and to prepare delegates for the MSP Foundation Certificate.

Managing Successful Programmes(MSP) is the OGC’s (Office of Government Commerce) approach for managing change and delivering business benefits from a set of related projects and is an integral part of the OGC’s best practice portfolio.

MSP comprises a set of principles and processes that are used when managing a programme. Although founded on best practice it is not prescriptive. It is a flexible approach to managing the full programme lifecycle and can be adapted to suit the needs of individual programmes, and organisations.

MSP identifies and describes the programme lifecycle, identifying the responsibilities and activities that will need to be undertaken during the life of a programme and the type of information that will need to be produced in order to complete the programme definition. MSP also identifies the need to create and maintain strategies that will ensure that the portfolio of projects and any related activities are managed and delivered consistently whilst maintaining focus on the required benefits.

Introduction and Overview

Drivers for change, the need to focus on benefits, critical success factors, programme management and the transformational flow.

Programme Management Themes

Defining and discussing the basic principles that underpin the definition, governance and delivery of a programme. Including:-

• Organisation and leadership (Defining the programme management team, cross organisational programmes and integrating project organisations)
• Benefits Realisation Management (Identifying and defining benefits, developing a benefit management strategy and tracking and reviewing benefit realisation)
• Leadership and Stakeholder Engagement (Defining leadership, identifying and analysing stakeholders, defining a stakeholder management strategy and planning communications)
• Blueprint Design and Delivery (The importance of the blueprint and the blueprint and its relation to other programme information)
• Risk Management and Issue Resolution (The risk management strategy, identifying and responding to risk, embedding risk management, the issue resolution process and defining an issue resolution strategy)
• Quality Management (Quality management strategy, configuration management and assessing and reviewing quality)
• Business Case Management (Evolution of the business case and business case management)
• Vision (The importance of a clear and consistent vision and defining an ideal Vision Statement)
• Programme Planning and Control (Contributions to the programme plan, delivering a portfolio of projects in tranches, monitoring progress and the resource management strategy)

The Transformational Flow

Describing the programme lifecycle and the typical governance activities, responsibilities and information requirements for each flow element from identifying and defining a programme through managing the tranches, and the eventual closure of the programme

Case Studies

A realistic case study scenario is used throughout the course to allow delegates to consolidate their knowledge of MSP in a practical setting through syndicate work.