Collaboration is transforming the way councils manage programmes
Introduction
Capital Ambition’s ‘Excellence in Programme and Project Management (EPPM)’ initiative is improving the quality, consistency and coherence of programme management in authorities across London - some 35 organisations in total. The aim is to ensure major programmes achieve effective outcomes for citizens through sharing experiences, collaborative working on common programmes and joint development of capabilities.
All London regional and local authorities are delivering major programmes of change. These include customer services, back/front-office transformation, efficiency and value for money, property, accommodation and new ways of working, building schools for the future and the personalisation of social care. Such programmes are faced with significant and increasing challenges, including financial pressures, as well as the requirement to demonstrate improved outcomes and benefits realisation.
A key enabler for these programmes is the development of a common programme management guide, aligned to OGC’s Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) but tailored to local and regional government – the London Programme Management Approach (PMA) - one of the first outputs from the EPPM programme.
The idea behind the EPPM programme is simple enough - enable and support people working on programmes to work effectively through:
- having a common approach ...
- used by competent people ...
- who share their experiences.
How it started
Understanding the challenges faced by the different London Boroughs and recognizing that adopting a common approach would help everyone was the first step in developing the London PMA.
Tim Ellis at Kensington & Chelsea helped establish the EPPM programme. He had a pivotal role in setting up a networking group which shared lessons learned, ideas and opinions for programme and project managers working in London councils. As the group became more established, they wanted to develop some of their ideas and share them with a larger group.
They approached Capital Ambition who responded positively. The next step - crucially -was to go and ask the programme and project managers their opinions about what help they needed and what they thought needed to be improved.
Tim says, “From our early networking groups to the inclusion of all local authorities, our aim was to deliver something useful. The authorities told us they were using the project management method PRINCE2®, and they said we had made embedding PRINCE2 more complicated than it needed to be. What they wanted now was a programme management approach that was tailored to their needs.”
June Reid is based in Greenwich council and is the EPPM Programme Manager. She has over 21 years’ experience of working in local government. “The results of our initial survey gave the EPPM programme a very clear mandate. The councils wanted support on programmes. They already had an in depth understanding of good and bad practice on projects but they needed help with business cases and defining mandates,” June says.
“The results also showed us that although the councils had a lot in common, each one has different issues to deal with. They have different pressures and leadership. Although the headlines are the same, the scale of their objectives and the detail of what they have to do to deliver those objectives, varies widely,” June says.
What was delivered?
The London PMA
The London PMA was developed by staff from ten London authorities and the GLA in partnership with the EPPM programme team through a series of workshops. It is tailored to local government and is very practical.
“The London PMA is designed to give programme managers and SROs confidence, knowing it is drawn on experience and includes real life examples – they won’t be left scratching their heads. They will be able to get their programmes right first time more of the time, and can show their senior leadership team they are basing their decisions on best practice. They can articulate and justify what they are doing and why,” June says.
Rod Sowden, the lead author of the OGC guidance on programme management ‘Managing Successful Programmes’ (MSP) has been working with the EPPM programme on developing training materials for the London PMA. Rod comments, “The EPPM programme has done a great job in taking all key principles and concepts from MSP and tailoring them for the local authority sector. The examples and case studies within the London PMA are particularly useful”.
Chief Officers’ Forum
Suzanne Rose, Head of Business Development and Engagement at Capital Ambition identified that the London PMA was being well received by programme managers in the authorities. However, she said it was easy to work with ‘zealots’ – the people who were already converted and understood what was trying to be achieved.
She advised the EPPM programme to get Chief Officers on board as they are ultimately responsible and accountable for the successful delivery of change programmes. Their perspective was deemed to be critical to the success of the EPPM programme in improving the delivery of programmes and outcomes for citizens.
“Suzanne advised us that to get real change we needed people right across the organisation to come on board,” June said. “When we released the London PMA we identified a key requirement was senior leadership. So we developed the Chief Officer’s Forum to introduce CEOs to the framework. This Forum has helped senior managers understand the approach and how it supports them in achieving their effectiveness and efficiency objectives.”
Common Programmes Database
The EPPM programme also set up a London Programmes Database to collect information about programmes running in London. The aim of the Database is to develop a good understanding of the current state of play of programmes, enabling different organisations which are at similar stages or covering similar themes to share best practice and disseminate learning.
Common Programmes Working Groups
Part of the EPPM programme ethos is to avoid duplication by collaborating, and ensuring that lessons learned from effective delivery and best practice are captured and shared. To do this, several Peer Networks have been created. The first network focuses on Accommodation programmes and New Ways of Working programmes with membership from six London authorities.
Learning & Development
The EPPM programme used Outperform, a specialist project and programme management consultancy, to develop some key learning events for different groups of people who would be working with the London PMA.
Outperform developed a series of activities to begin the process of embedding the London PMA into the hearts and minds of everyone involved in programmes across the London boroughs. This included:
- Overview sessions for programme managers focused on applying the approach.
- Super User training which enables individuals to become experts in the approach so they can help others apply it.
- Facilitator-led workshops on live programmes.
- Chief Officer coaching.
- A handy quick-reference card
- Toolkit for facilitators of programme workshops
- A video briefing (vodcast) which can be watched here: http://tinyurl.com/ykdbtd4
Communities of Practice (CoP)
The EPPM programme is also built on an on-line community of practice that enables individuals to access all kinds of information online, network with other individuals on particular themes and ask questions about their programmes.
One of the community’s members, Matthew Lumsden, Policy & Performance Officer, Haringey, says: “I responded to a question from someone trying to set up an innovation fund and I posted up a link to an article I’d read. That’s the value of CoPs – you can put questions up and someone has an answer and points you in the right direction.”
Benefits to date
Tim reports that 75% of the London Authorities have engaged with the London PMA. 29 out of 35 authorities attended the launch – which is an unusual level of engagement and interest.
“Following the launch, 10 authorities have committed to the London PMA and a further thirteen said they would implement it in part” Tim says.
The London PMA has brought huge cost and efficiency savings. Capital Ambition estimated that if 35 London Councils each developed their own approach it would cost each one between £50K and £100K, totalling somewhere in the region of £2m to £3m!
Katy Johnson from the GLA, one of the EPPM programme’s stakeholders, says: “The approach will help us enormously because we work in partnership with the authorities and the London Development Agency - so collaboration is key for us. The London PMA makes it easier for people to work together and has saved me a huge amount of time because I don’t need to create programme management guidelines for the GLA – it’s already done.”
It’s not just about the development costs either. Sharing knowledge has brought new insights into how the authorities manage their expenditure.
Tim Ellis says, “Cost avoidance is one of the significant benefits of the EPPM programme. For example, we realised that four authorities were working with the same supplier. They managed not only to drive down the costs associated with that supplier but also were able to share experiences and lessons learned. This means we can achieve greater efficiencies and costs savings.”
Matthew Wallbridge is one of the EPPM programme’s core team members. Based at Sutton, Matthew says he values the collaborative aspects of the EPPM programme: “The networking sessions are fundamental to the success of the London PMA. They are like therapy sessions; there is an ethos of candour and sharing lessons – both good and bad. The Community of Practice (CoP) is an extension of that and there is a real feeling that we are all going in the same direction. The opportunity to collaborate formally and informally creates benefits that can’t really be quantified but add to the feeling that we are working together for a common goal.”
Challenges
It would of course be naive to think that working collaboratively on this scale will be problem free. Kireen Rooney, another core team member, at Harrow says, “Sometimes people are reluctant to share because the councils can be competitive. They want to do well and so they need to be mature enough to want to help each other. This is starting to happen as more and more people come on board.”
Another challenge Kireen has identified is with the common programmes database: “At first it was hard to getting people to use it because they weren’t sure how much information they were supposed to share. Users wanted to check with their managers that it was acceptable to share the level of information which the database specified. Now they know more about it, we have got over that hurdle but communicating to people is crucial in the early stages.”
June says that adoption is the key challenge going forward.
Kireen agrees, “Whenever we have events they are very well attended. We need to ensure we capitalize on the enthusiasm we see at the events and encourage and support the super users to maintain the pace at their authority.”
To aid this process, the EPPM programme is developing a guide which will be a practical tool to assist each organization in embedding London PMA. Also regular meetings are planned so that individual authorities can keep in touch with each other and share knowledge and resources.
Andy Murray, Outperform director and PRINCE2 lead author has been working with the EPPM team on the embedding activities believes the EPPM team got the right approach from the outset. Comprehensive guidance such as OGC’s MSP and PRINCE2 can be overwhelming when first starting on the project and programme management maturity path. The London PMA is aimed at those organisations taking their first steps in programme management. “Those first steps are the hardest to take”, says Andy, “and what we’ve seen so far is that the organisations that participated in the first wave of training have got to grips with the key principles of programme management and are now taking the next steps into applying those principles in practice. Without a doubt, the London PMA is helping accelerate the programme management maturity of the London boroughs”.
Next steps and aspirations
The next steps for the London PMA are to deepen the level of senior management engagement, to facilitate further learning and development, expand the number of common programmes working groups and to enhance the common programmes database.
There will also be some work to benchmark current capabilities against the OGC’s maturity model to gain a baseline to measure improvements and also to enables the benefits from the investment in the EPPM programme to be counted. “It’s important we understand what we are achieving, the benefits we have brought and the difference that the EPPM programme is making. We want to embed a programme management culture,” June says.
Although the authorities have come a long way in their collaborative effort on programmes, they recognise there is still a long way to go. “Undoubtedly we have matured in our approach - we started with projects and once we were managing those effectively we became interested in programme management. There is an evolution there which is aligned to maturity. In future I think it’s likely we will look at portfolio management,” June says.
In the meantime, Matthew at Sutton is aware of the need to work with other London agencies like TfL, Primary Care Trusts and the GLA in order to have a truly joined up approach. He says this is something that is already happening in Sutton.
Good news travels, of course, and Tim has been leading work to share the London PMA with other authorities like Manchester, Birmingham and Leicester. The Community of Practice has attracted 900 members from councils all over the UK and is growing fast.
“Contribution to our online Community of Practice (CoP) is coming from across the country and we are really encouraged by that,” Tim says. “The EPPM programme embraces the spirit of collaboration so that change happens with people and not to people. Ultimately we all want the same thing – to deliver effective and efficient services for our citizens. Work together to achieve this makes everything easier.”
Supporting Information
|
Who’s Who: The EPPM programme core team for phase 2
Tim Ellis, Kensington & Chelsea : EPPM Core Team Member
Kireen Rooney, Harrow: EPPM Core Team Member
Matthew Wallbridge, Sutton, EPPM Core Team Member
June Reid, Greenwich, EPPM Programme Manager
|
A Quick Guide:
Capital Ambition
Capital Ambition is London's Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership, which supports local authorities and their partners to identify and deliver significant efficiencies, major improvements in services, and explore innovative ways of working to transform local government delivery.
The EPPM Programme
Excellence in Programme and Project Management (EPPM) is a pan-London programme to improve the quality, consistency and coherence of programme management in authorities across London. The ultimate aim is to ensure that major programmes are delivered in a way that achieves more effective outcomes for citizens.
The London PMA
The London Programme Management Approach (PMA) has been developed as part of the (EPPM) Programme by staff from ten London authorities and the GLA working in partnership. It provides a set of tools and templates accompanied by guidance tailored to local and regional authorities.
EPPM Programme Blueprint
The following table shows the three major themes of the programme (a common approach used by competent people who share their experiences) and identifies what needs to be delivered by the end of phase 4 in order for the PMA to be self-sustaining and therefore for the programme to be closed.
|
|
Common Approach
|
Competent People
|
Sharing Experience
|
|
People
|
People who maintain the London PMA
|
People who deploy and use the common
(e.g. SROs, Programme Managers, PMOs)
External organisations approved to provide training and vocational assessments.
|
People who facilitate sharing
People who share (common programmes working groups)
|
|
Processes
|
Processes to maintain the London PMA (e.g. Change request process)
|
Processes to manage and co-ordinate competency development (e.g. maintenance of training curriculum, database and collaborative purchasing)
|
Processes to manage the common programmes working groups - initiation, publicity, operation, closure, database
|
|
Infrastructure
|
Website facility for the– storage of PMA guidance
Upload facility of Change Requests
|
Website facility for a training database
|
Website facility for an easy-to-use common programmes database
Discussion forums
(via IDeA CoP)
|
|
Information
|
The London PMA
– guide & templates
SRO guide(s)
Implementation guide
Change request log
|
Competency profiles by programme role
Briefing/training materials
Training database content (e.g. training providers, scheduled events)
|
Common programmes database content
(e.g. case studies)
Facilitator’s guide
Publicity (leaflets, newsletters, articles, videos, awards)
|
Those highlighted green have been delivered in phase 2.
Those highlighted blue will be delivered in phase 3.
Those items not highlighted will be completed in phase 4 (subject to funding).