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The importance of understanding the strategic context of your project first, let me explain what I mean by MSP. It is the widely recognised guidance on programme management – Managing Successful Programmes. Programme management differs from project management in a number of ways – its structure, emphasis and content. So, why would understanding MSP be so helpful to a project manager?

Question of the Month – November 2015 A PRINCE2® qualified Project Manager writes: Since becoming an accredited PRINCE 2 Practitioner (I trained with Pearce Mayfield!) some years back pretty much all the change that I now deliver is governed by PRINCE 2 methodology. However, I am very aware that PRINCE 2 does not cover all aspects of project management;

Failure is not an option….No, it’s inevitable.In today’s business environment it is almost impossible to fail somewhere along the way. The issues are: first, will I accept that reality? Then can I act so that when I do fail, it is cheap and useful? Time was when we would develop methodologies that tried to avoid failure altogether. This was a conceit.

Adrian Boorman: Hello, and welcome to this video brought to you by Pearce Mayfield. Improving the performance of any business is hard, doing change is even harder, so improving the performance of change is always going to be, well, is always going to be one heck of a challenge! Today, we want to discuss what it means to have a capability for change and to explore ways how to improve it.

From time immemorial organisations have given their project managers permission to fail. This is generally through their constant inability to contain their urges when it comes to change. This manifests itself in time and cost overruns, not always with appropriate authorisation. Through poor control by senior managers, their project managers have inherited the wisdom that time and cost can be flexed when under pressure.