Anyone care to comment on MSP (Managing Successful Programs).I'm an experienced PM, was big4, now contracting for three years (through choice) and have progressed to managing multiple projects at a time. However these tend to be a portfolio of related projects rather than a large Program, which would be the next step up for me.Is the qualification useful?Is the course educational?Is the Foundation level recognised?Is it like PRINCE2 - i.e. good badge for you CV, but not that widely used?

hi PM,If you are an experienced PM you should have no problem with getting to grips with the issues and challenges with portfolio mgtIn terms of value for money (as you are contracting this is out of your own pocket) im not sure you will necessarily lose new jobs due to not having MSP as a qualification...so yes bit like Prince 2.id buy the book and study it and get to grips with the generic methodology...then quote your hard learned experience of portfolio mgt - this is what will win out in the end hope this helps, cheers

I'm sceptical about this.When I did Prince 2 the tutor told us it was the de facto standard - whatever that means? And that it was introduced because a government project had failed and this was how we should manage projects. It was as though no one other than a Prince 2 practitioner had ever delivered a project successfully.... ....now, er let me think.... ....about the time he told us this the Scottish parliament building had just gone X times over budget etc etc. Let's see what other successes have there been with supposed Prince 2 strategies recently...... .....err....oh sorry can't think of any.Save your pennies

Hi PM.I think MSP is a useful framework; like most of the OGC stuff it is explicitly meant as a guidance framework and not to be implemented 'out of the box'. With regard to your questions:1. Is the qualification useful? Not sure about usefulness in winning the contract - I haven't seen that many ads looking for MSP at all, let alone as a mandatory criterion. It tends to get lumped in with PRINCE2 as a 'nice to have' and can carry some weight in big Central Govt programmes. The knowledge is useful anywhere.2. Is the course educational? - The Practitioner course is; foundation course can be so long as it teaches the course and is not just a day taking practice questions until you've memorised enough of them to pass. It gives a good reference framework for benefits management, stakeholder management and improving how programmes interact with the Business.3. Is the Foundation level recognised? - to be honest I don't know. PRINCE2 foundation is a bit pathetic, you can teach yourself in a day by rote with a practice exam CD (without understanding what it is you're memorising). The MSP course I went on had the Foundation exam relatively late, so for an extra day you could do Practitioner - would've been odd not to. Foundation doesn't demonstrate much more than awareness, although I appreciate for a contractor the combination of course costs and 5 unpaid days makes Practitioner expensive.It is not as widely used yet as PRINCE2. Also, MSP is geared towards transformational programmes. It has limited relevance to some other types of programme, e.g. a technical upgrade programme that doesn't result in any business change. However I thought both the course and the materials much better and more practical than PRINCE2, which is really a library of controls and governance. If I ever found anyone applying all the PRINCE2 controls to a project I would sack them. Whereas I can imagine a programme where all of MSP was applied.

>>"If I ever found anyone applying all the PRINCE2 controls to a project I would sack them."And if I ever got the faintest hint of that kind of short-sighted, knee-jerk, reactionary nonsense from a member of my programme leadership team, I'd sack them - loudly.J.B.L-R.

Heh, well, yes, of course in the real world we'd both spend our days in front of industrial tribunals if either of us acted in such a peremptory manner. :-)So yes, you've rumbled me; I would no more *really* sack a member of my team than I would *really* cheerfully strangle my client.Here is maybe a more thoughtful rationale:1. The various controls in PRINCE2 each help to mitigate a particular kind of project risk - e.g. Product Description helps to clarify the individual outputs, Project Board helps avoid key decisions being made without appropriate input form each of the user, supplier and project team.2. Most big projects find themselves more or less under-resourced in some area, so they can't do everything they would like. And a fair number of them come up against several systemic problems. 3. However, most big projects aren't going wrong in every aspect of their organisation and delivery at the same time.4. In a project that is experiencing problems and is resource constrained, it would be sensible to prioritise the specific weaknesses that could help get the project back on track. It would probably not be affordable or appropriate to invest in every PRINCE2 control in the book. Also there are huge gaps in PRINCE2 - estimating, resource management, budget and cost control, planning and procurement are just some of the most obvious areas where PRINCE can't help much.5. I would therefore question the wisdom of a team member who thought implementing all of PRINCE2 out of the book was a sufficiently targeted response to a project going wrong or a realistic way of ensuring a project will go right.6. If the project is going well and has every PRINCE2 control in place, that is great. Not something I have ever seen or expect to see, though.Now to go back to the OP's question. In my opinion, more of MSP than of PRINCE2 is usable and value-adding in a real programme.

Can I ask about Six Sigma? Is getting a 'Black belt' of any use? I am interested in a structured management methodology and have been given a training budget so need to make a decision.Any views on Six Sigma woudl eb greatly appreciated.MC

Hi MC.If we are still talking about Portfolio/ Programme/ Project Management (P3M), then Six Sigma would be a rather peripheral qualification and Black Belt could seem like complete overkill.Six Sigma is aimed at reducing variability in outputs - think Deming cycle, statistical process control and that kind of thing - and to my mind sits in the quality management or operational improvement 'space' more easily than in P3M. The Black Belt would be expected to undertake a very specific type of project, aimed at reducing waste caused by variability in the end product or service. The statistical techniques used also assume a highly repeatable process, say manufacturing or billing.If that is the type of work you are considering, then Six Sigma training would be very useful. You might consider combining it with Lean, which looks at removing wasteful steps from the end-to-end process; the combination would achieve savings both from the more efficient process and from the reduced variability of output.However, for most projects and programmes, the one-off nature of the work means Six Sigma techniques can't be applied. E.g. if we're not building several hundred Scottish Parliaments a week, we can't get the stats we need to improve the process. For that kind of project work, a qualification from the APM or the PMI would be a better bet.Hope this is useful.

PM - it is a bit more than just a good badge like PRINCE2. Some client organisations use it as a differentiator when they are selecting consultants for large programmes and it does have some useful elements to it. The key to both MSP and PRINCE2 is to only use the bits you need. I have been on programmes where they have tried to use the full thing and it slows things down and people get fed up with all the admin they have to do.Has anyone else noticed that when cuts are being made to large programmes it is usually the programme office that suffer first so things get dropped?