Project and programme methodology - a primary care trust Maven was asked to provide senior managers with an understanding

of best practice in project management, programme management and portfolio management. The training programme that we devised offered these managers access to briefings once a week for four weeks. These sessions were very interactive, offering the managers a chance to articulate all of the change taking place in their area of responsibility and to identify, with the help of the trainer, all of the dependencies between their projects and those taking place in other operational areas. Discussions during the project management training identified a number of projects crossing several operational areas that would be more effectively run as one programme of interrelated projects. However at senior management level there was still too little understanding of the requirements and roles of programme management. Maven provided a specialist programme manager to bring the projects together into a programme and to mentor one of the project managers to take on the role of programme manager over a six month period. As a result this programme is now underway with several of the projects already having delivered, with positive customer feedback. As a group the senior managers have now learnt to look out for other programme opportunities where economies of scale in terms of managing disparate projects can be achieved, and much clearer direction can be given to the project managers about the interdependencies of their work.

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