The Bloor Perspective: Programme management, car mobile ban and Office XML

Many people are unclear about the difference between project management and the broader activity of programme management. No one should be confused about the purpose of programme management when we see examples of failed projects in the newspapers every month. These sorts of problems are not unique.

A properly managed programme management approach will prevent the failures that seem so obvious in hindsight - but only if the organisation is prepared to foster a mindset and a management culture that actively seeks 'project saves' - the timely discovery of project risks and dependencies that make the difference between success and failure. The key lies in designing a programme with suitable programme communications and programme governance.

Communications up and down the management chain is a key factor. Project management methodologies such as Prince2 enable anyone involved in the project to register a potential risk. This works well inside a project but when people report risks that are outside the project, it looks dangerously like whistle blowing to senior management. And we all know what happens to whistleblowers in organisations. They get blown away. Organisations have to create a 'quality' culture where problems are openly discussed rather than hidden from rivals.

Programme governance is important because it is one thing to know about a problem and another to be capable of fixing the problem. Projects suffer from tunnel vision because project staff often focus on meeting their narrow objectives irrespective of the overall benefit. Unless all elements required for project success are held under one management span, things slip between the cracks. If no one can assess and act on the big picture, things will slide. (So, although the jury is still out on the prospects for the NHS IT programme, the appointment of Mr Granger as the IT supremo is an encouraging sign.)

It is an easy cliché to say that important projects need high-level sponsorship. In practice, it is rather more difficult to create a suitable span of control for a large programme. Senior executives may have reached their position by avoiding the risks of high-profile projects and they will be reluctant to take on such risks now they've reached the board. Far better they think to push the risk down to their subordinates or to bury it in a committee.

Programme management has the potential to address major risks to projects but only if the organisation adapts its culture to allow it to handle joined-up projects.

*Auto wreck*

The 1 December sees the introduction of that perverse and fussy piece of legislation in the UK governing the use of mobile phones while driving. Drivers caught holding mobile phones while driving will be subject to an on the spot £30 fine which, theoretically, could rise to £1,000 if the case goes to court.

The Department of Transport has issued some ill-conceived information to the effect that this is an endorsable offence and in consequence the offender will receive three penalty points if caught and/or convicted. It is not an endorsable offence, though the Department of Transport is apparently - probably to save face - planning to make it an endorsable offence.

The mobile phone industry is understandably promoting and encouraging the sale of hand free kits to motorists. It seems, however, that both the Department of Transport and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents really wish to outlaw the use of phones while driving.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents wanted the legislation to provide for a blanket ban of phones while driving. The Department of Transport advises that any accident caused through the use of any phone apparatus while driving could subject the driver to prosecution for careless or dangerous driving under existing legislation. This being the case, was there a need to introduce this microscopic piece of legislation? Many other distractions and activities conducted while driving a car may precipitate an accident: other people in the car talking, lighting a cigar or cigarette, drinking water or other beverages, sudden and distressing news on the radio typical examples. Maybe there should be a law to enforce silence in a vehicle when it is in motion?

This is a trite piece of legislation. The law already covers instances of accidents caused by careless use of a mobile phone when driving.

*Office schemas*

Microsoft takes over XML? When Office 2003 was announced it included support for XML as a way of storing documents. At Comdex, Microsoft has announced it will provide royalty free licences for the XML schemas that describe Word, Excel and InfoPath documents.

Using the XML schemas, it becomes possible to integrate Office documents into business processes in a way that was not really possible before, without a lot of specialised programming. For example:

o A letter is written to a client that includes the customer number, the subject and the date. Each of these has a style attached to it. Based on the style, a downstream process can extract these fields and put them in a CRM system with a pointer to the actual document. The administrator just writes the letter and the rest happens automatically.

o An operational system needs to create a letter apologising about late delivery with a series of standard phrases, the customer details and details of the products that are delayed. The basic letter was produced in Word and exported in XML format and then the operational system can use XQuery to fill in the blanks and generate the letter. There could now be an option to pass the letter back to an administrator who could use Word to add a personal touch to the letter.

To understand what this is not, it is necessary to look at the licensing. This is a royalty-free license and the intellectual property remains with Microsoft. The license precludes the modification or extension of the schemas. Microsoft is not offering these schemas to a standards body.

This means that the schemas are for interoperating with Office - they are not intended as generalised XML schemas for the transport of documents, spreadsheets or forms. Their intent is similar to SAP BAPI, which opened up SAP to integration with other systems but was never considered for any wider role.

There are already standards-based XML schemas for documents (Docbook and SGML) and forms (XForms) and the Office schemas are quite different. The Office schemas have to support all the functions and quirks of Office and it would not be possible to do that just with the standard schemas. It would appear that Microsoft will not be offering these schemas to the standards bodies and it is probable that the standards bodies would not be particularly interested in picking them up if they were offered.

This announcement opens up a whole new set of opportunities for integrating Office into business process and we expect a spate of announcements from third parties offering adaptors and connections to Office XML. On the other hand this announcement makes little difference to wider integration space.