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Fresh look: Lessons Learned

Fresh Look – Is a series of articles taking a look at common topics to try to come up with some new ideas and insight into problems that seem to repeat themselves across many organisations.

One of the great mysteries is why do we keep making the same mistakes or doing blindingly stupid things. The P3M industry is just a reflection of a wider society, as programmes and projects fail repeatedly for the same reasons, yet each time it seems to come as a complete surprise.

TSO asked Aspire Europe to write the guest article for their website, so we decided to focus on this topic and share our insights. We hope you find the article useful.
If just one word from this article triggers a thought or an idea that improves your performance at any time in the future, then it will have been worthwhile.

Rod Sowden in full flow

Managing a Project Schedule

We wrote the planning book because we saw so many organisations struggling with the quality of their planning. Schedule problems normally happen because of a lack of preparation in the early stages of the project rather than issues with the schedule itself.

We hope that these extracts will help to give you some ideas on how to improve the way things are being done in your organisation.

Mapping Project Outcomes

We wrote the planning book because we saw so many organisations struggling with the quality of their planning. Schedule problems normally happen because of a lack of preparation in the early stages of the project rather than issues with the schedule itself.

We hope that these extracts will help to give you some ideas on how to improve the way things are being done in your organisation.

Our New Kid on the Block – APM Project Management Qualification

When we sat down to design our APM PMQ eLearning course a year ago, we decided not to follow the standard approach of converting our existing face-to-face course, but to create something really special.

Rod Sowden, Aspire Europe MD said “Back in the day, when I did the PMQ equivalent, it was one of my most influential courses, so I wanted to create the same experience for our clients, we have set out to be the absolute best.”

There are a number of challenges that we had to overcome, such as:

  • The qualification is aimed at project professionals, so it isn’t about helping to memorise the contents of a manual.
  • It has a very wide syllabus based on the APM Body of Knowledge, so the exam can go in many directions on many topics.
  • It is about using your experience and reflecting that practical knowledge in the answers.

Faced with these challenges, this is how we have gone about our own project:

We have designed a course that blends interactive eLearning with videos and personal exercises to create an experience that challenges you in multiple ways.

The course takes a 4 stage approach:

  1. Ensure you know the syllabus materials – Most project people will know some of the Body of Knowledge, so we provide 17 modules that help ensure that you know all of the topics in enough depth for the exercises and exam. You don’t have to do them all, it is up to you.
  2. Managing project delivery – We have created a series of modules that take you through the common stages of a project, from first concept to closure. In each step we use the full range of project techniques and apply them to a scenario to bring it to life.
  3. Project Reno – during the project delivery we have built a real life case study that gives you the opportunity to manage a number of project situations, make your own decisions and see if you come up with the same answers as us (in project management there are always multiple options).
  4. APM exam preparation – with potentially 90 question areas in the exam, we decided to take the long way round to help you. For every potential question we have prepared an exercise for you to complete and we’ve written a suggested answer that covers the points that we think would get you through the exam.

The Golden Thread of Planning

Back in 2008 Aspire Europe started delivering maturity assessments (using P3M3®), part of which is reviewing how effective organisations were at planning. Our experiences from these maturity assessments and working with clients, is that planning is  an area of weakness for many organisations. this article goes back to basics and identifies one or two of the reasons for this.
Based on the findings, the P3M3® lead author, Rod Sowden, goes back to basics and identifies one or two of the reasons for this . To read more, click here
If you find the article useful – please let us know

P3M3® is a [registered] trade mark of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved.

How do I gather business requirements?

We wrote the planning book because we saw so many organisations struggling with the quality of their planning. Schedule problems normally happen because of a lack of preparation in the early stages of the project rather than issues with the schedule itself.

We hope that these extracts will help to give you some ideas on how to improve the way things are being done in your organisation.

How do I develop project estimates?

We wrote the planning book because we saw so many organisations struggling with the quality of their planning. Schedule problems normally happen because of a lack of preparation in the early stages of the project rather than issues with the schedule itself.

We hope that these extracts will help to give you some ideas on how to improve the way things are being done in your organisation.

What is Integrated Assurance?

Assurance – is it a bureaucratic burden or an effective way to avoid failure? It will largely depend on whether you are in a team being challenged or an executive with personal accountability for the result.
Most organisations have a fragmented approach to how integrated assurance is achieved. To have an integrated approach requires multiple layers in the organisation to function coherently. This article explains how to achieve this integration for your programme.

The three tier approach clarifies how the models (and terms) fit together:
  1. Organisational capability – assessed using P3M3® and identifies your systemic strengths and weaknesses which can be addressed. To download an interactive overview of P3M3, please click here
  2. Programme  viability – assessed by independent or peer assurance to provide an objective assessment of the likelihood of success
  3. Gate reviews – line management decisions on whether to continue to invest in the idea
P3M3® is a [registered] trade mark of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved.

How do I manage project stakeholders?

We wrote the planning book because we saw so many organisations struggling with the quality of their planning. Schedule problems normally happen because of a lack of preparation in the early stages of the project rather than issues with the schedule itself.

We hope that these extracts will help to give you some ideas on how to improve the way things are being done in your organisation.

Establishing Project Controls

We wrote the planning book because we saw so many organisations struggling with the quality of their planning. Schedule problems normally happen because of a lack of preparation in the early stages of the project rather than issues with the schedule itself. We hope that these extracts will help to give you some ideas on how to improve the way things are being done in your organisation.