Just back from the PPM CoE conference on Friday in Birmingham.
Presentations and thought-provoking stuff from David Marsh and David Wilkin and also presentations from OGC and Serco. Another PPSOSIG conference but with a slight difference – it came with the book too – “Designing your PPM CoE – A Strategic Guide” (contact David Wilkin directly though the website to buy the book £27.50).
Right that’s the book-selling bit over with…… this book is really a must for anyone faced with the challenge of putting a PMO in place in an organisation and its certainly the most comprehensive and realistic I’ve ever seen. The conference was really to give people a flavour of the book and some practical hints, tips, insights etc – good stuff!
To give you an idea about the book here are some of the chapter headings:
What is a PPM CoE and why do you need one?
Designing a PPM CoE – The Business Case and Terms of Reference
Doing the right Programmes and Projects
Assurance of Programmes and Projects
Effective development, deployment and operation of Programme Management
The conference sessions were a good insight too, OGC seems to be making headways into Centres of Excellence in the public sector departments and seem to be doing a decent job of audit and measuring to make sure things keep on happening – all the stop the headlines of another bad public sector project which, let’s face it, that’s what we pay taxes for – good projects! Serco’s presentation was pretty good too – people always want to know how other organisations are going – especially private sector – and he shared their project management process/method and there were certainly a lot of stretched necks to see the detail in their process
All in all, great value for money and a good investment of time.
