MSP® Practice

In April 2019, the Treasury Board of Canada reset their Policy on the Planning and Management of Investments and provided a new Directive on the Management of Projects and Programmes. Within the policy reset was the recognition of programme management. As a result, departments are now looking at programme management as a vehicle for the delivery of complex transformational change which has been used in numerous jurisdictions across the world over the past 20 years, including the United Kingdom.

In support of Programme Management a global best practice framework exists to provide guidance on what is required to support the successful delivery of complex transformational change. Managing Successful Programmes (MSP®) is an AXELOS global best practice framework which was originally developed for the public sector but is now used within many private sector organizations as well. It is specifically designed to add the extra value that a programme approach can bring to aid successful delivery of major change initiatives.

With this in mind, The Right Door Consulting and Solutions Inc. has appointed Alvin Gardiner MBA, an international consultant and trainer to be our practice lead on programme management. Alvin is currently the lead consultant at ESDC implementing programme management.

MEET OUR TEAM

ALvin Gardiner, MBA

Alvin Gardiner MBA, is an international portfolio/programme and project management consultant and trainer with over 30 years of experience in the Public Sector including 15 years as a Senior Executive working for Registers of Scotland Executive Agency. He holds an MBA from the Open University. He is an accredited, Management of Portfolios (MoP®) and Managing Benefits™, registered practitioner and approved trainer. He is also an MSP (Managing Successful Programmes) Advanced Practitioner and Approved trainer. He is a member of the Association for Project Management (MAPM) and is APMP Certified and is a trainer in APM Fundamentals and Project Management Qualification certifications. Over the past twenty years Alvin has worked on numerous assignments with key UK and Canadian Government organizations He was Lead Author on the White Paper ‘Delivering Complex Change Successfully within the Federal Government Environment’.

Anne Kay

Anne is a senior digital and programme management professional with 40 years’ experience in the public sector. She has operated in policy, leadership and technical roles; including those of Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer and Programme Director.

Most recently, as the Scottish Government’s Chief Information Officer, she was responsible for the assurance of all ICT/Digital programmes across the Scottish central government sector and for the provision of a range of ICT shared services to 11,000 staff in the Scottish Government and associated bodies. As the Scottish Government’s Head of the Digital, Data and Technology Profession she led on the professional development for specialist staff, addressing a wide range of capacity and capability issues, and had responsibility for improving digital capabilities more widely across central government in Scotland.

She has significant experience at senior board level, working with central and local government and elected officials, and in chairing cross sectoral groups delivering both technical and strategic initiatives. She has particular skills in strategic leadership, focusing on cross functional collaboration to align technical and business delivery and deliver transformational change, and in the design and delivery of effective assurance services.

With a proven history in successful programme delivery, she holds professional certifications, including PRINCE2®, and is a Managing Successful Programmes (MSP®) Advanced Practitioner. She is a Fellow of the British Computing Society (FBCS), a Chartered IT Practitioner (CITP) and a member of the UK and Scottish Gateway Review Team Leaders cohort providing assurance on major high risk / high value programmes.

Peter McIlroy

Peter served Canada Post for 18 years in various General Manager positions where he led Programme and Project Management of two Transformations from initial planning stages through to completion. He oversaw the investment of over $2B and the generation of over $250M of annual financial benefits. He established enterprise Programme, Project, and Change Management frameworks based on MSP, PRINCE2, and Prosci, provided Change Management oversight of large high-risk projects and Project Management governance and oversight for a portfolio of over 100 projects annually. In addition, Peter established standard ways of planning and executing IT projects including methods, tools, and controls and was responsible for Re-Architecture of large complex legacy IT systems

Peter holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA.

Charlie Fisher

Charlie is a senior manager with a wealth of experience in developing and delivering services for the Scottish public sector across policy, leadership and technical and service delivery roles.

As the Scottish Government’s Head of the Centre of Expertise for Programme and Project Management, he was responsible for the delivery of independent assurance for major capital programmes, and programmes of change at corporate and national policy level across the Scottish central government sector. He worked closely with professional bodies and people partners to introduce programme and project management learning pathways for policy and administrative staff, and developed a community environment for programme and project management professionals.

He most recently supported Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Constabulary (Scotland) (HMICS) assure the delivery of business cases supporting Police Scotland’s transformation portfolio, along with the assuring the associated capability and capacity gains. He also reviewed the development and implementation of Strategic Workforce Planning within the policing service.

He has significant experience at board level, working across central government and UK devolved administration partners to tailor solutions that align with the cultural environment and context the various organisations work within.

He was Head of Facilities Management for the creation of the new Scottish Parliament, as such he designed, implemented and managed services to support the work of Members of Parliament, Parliament staff, Security and Policing services, Broadcast Media Outlets and members of the public.

He has been a member of various professional bodies and has held associated certification as necessary to support the delivery of a particular role. (British Computer Society; British Institute for Facilities Management; MSc in Facilities and Asset Management; PRINCE2®, and Managing Successful Programmes (MSP®) Practitioner).

Kevin McPhillips

Kevin was initially trained and qualified as a tax consultant with PwC. He subsequently moved to their UK National Tax Systems department, where he was a senior manager responsible for managing change across their UK Tax & Legal practice.
Kevin turned freelance in 2001, and has worked in programme management and delivery in banking, pensions and public sector. This includes:
Metropolitan Police:       Programme change manager £100m integration programme
Scottish Government:    Head of Business Cases, £300m Social Security devolution
Department for Work & Pensions: Programme Management Consultant
Child Support Agency:    Programme Management Consultant
IBM:      Programme Manager; Global Project Manager
Bank of Scotland: Programme manager; change consultant
Aegon: Programme Manager
He has practitioner certifications in PRINCE2, Projects, Programmes & Portfolio Office (P3O), Management of Risk (MoR), Advanced Managing Successful Programmes (MSP). He also authored a book on risk management – Titanic: Enterprise & Risk – aimed at making risk understandable for operational and project managers.
Kevin is also a qualified hypnotherapist, a master NLP practitioner, and a former skydiving competitor and instructor.

David hair

Dave is a trusted, valued, and experienced Change Management professional with over 15 years’ continuous direct, current Director level leadership experience in directing, planning, delivering, and assuring large complex change portfolios and (government) programmes. As an experienced Practitioner, Dave has a proven history in the proportionate multi-sector deployment of global best practice change methodologies and delivery lifecycle models, including PRINCE2, Managing Successful Programmes (MSP®) and Management of Portfolios (MoP®). Change is also about people and Dave compliments his technical expertise with his APMG Business Relationship Management Professional certification and Change Management facilitator accreditation. An Executive Coach, Dave has held full membership of the UK Association for Coaching for more than a decade. A skilled and experienced assurance reviewer, Dave is a member of the UK and Scottish Governments’ Gateway Review Team Leader cohorts, responsible for assuring delivery at national and global scale (2014 Commonwealth Games). He is an Associate Inspector with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, his focus being the Police Scotland Transformation Portfolio.

andrew kent

Andrew is a project, programme and portfolio management professional who has over twelve years of experience working in the public sector with the Scottish Government in high profile project, programme, and policy roles. He holds an MSc Civil Engineering with Geoenvironmental Engineering and Project Management (with Distinction) from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and a BSc (Honours 2.1) in Environmental Management and Technology from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. He is a full Member of the Association for Project Management (MAPM) and holds professional certifications including Managing Successful Programmes (MSP®) Practitioner, APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ), Management of Risk (MoR®) and Microsoft Project level 1 and 2. He is a panel member for public sector OGC Gateway™ reviews arranged by Scottish Government Portfolio, Programme and Project Assurance Unit. He is also a member of the Skills Development Scotland Graduate Apprenticeship Pathways for Business Technical Experts Group on Project Management who are developing an MA degree in project management.

David Mcilroy

David is a programme, project and change manager with over 30 years’ experience in Public and Private Sectors. He is PRINCE2, Management of Risk (MoR), Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) and Managing Change Successfully trained. He is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management (FAPM), a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI) and a Member of the Institute of Consulting (MIC). David has led complex programmes as a senior leader and a hands-on practitioner for 15 years in the UK and overseas, shaping and driving service reform and business improvement in local government, utilities, and transportation. As Programme Director and Programme Manager, he has delivered major technology implementations, shared services and regional collaboration, efficiency reviews and service restructures/re-design to meet several business and social drivers, including austerity, growing demand for services from citizens/customers, legacy IT replacement, increasing customer expectations, compliance, and service excellence. He worked with Manchester Business School to develop a leadership competency programme called TRANSFORM, which was designed to equip existing and future leaders with the skills and behaviours to manage and facilitate change more effectively and achieve results and enhanced performance.

george bird

A senior police officer for over 30 years, George has a BSc first class honours degree from the Open University. He has undertaken many varied roles in his service, including Hostage Negotiator, Counter Terrorist Security Co-ordinator, Major Events Planner and Head of Contact and Dispatch. Since 2003, he has been a Managing Successful Programmes (MSP®) Practitioner and has taken several leadership / change agent roles in MSP® based, major public. Sector transformation programmes, such as National IT systems development and roll out, Service Transformation and Police Reform organisational mergers. He carries out OGC Gateway, Gate 0 Reviews on many in high risk / high value. change programmes as an Associate of Local Partnerships, (a joint venture between the Local Government Association and HM Treasury) for the UK Government and as an independent for the Scottish Government. Experienced in the practical aspects of volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. (VUCA) programmes he has a particular interest in Benefits Management, Programme Support, and Independent Assurance Review (OGC Gateway 0 Reviews). His experience in the use of Management of Portfolios (MOP®) provides insight on the practical aspects of investment appraisal frameworks using attractiveness, achievability, affordability principles (AAA assessments and UK Government Green Book - Central Government Guidance on Appraisal and Evaluation). He has worked with the Ministry of the Interior, Republic of Serbia on their EU. Accession Programme, regarding and evaluation of the effect of new policy using the principles in the UK Government Magenta Book. He also worked with senior leaders in the Ministry on Business Change Management using MINDSPACE. “nudge” applications.
George also has experience in working with the charitable and small-scale renewable. energy sectors on governance and the initiation and running of programmes.

nigel tickell

Nigel has held senior roles for over 20 years in Portfolio, Programme, Project Management (P3M) and Programme Management Offices. He is highly experienced in the realization of organizational strategy, business development and change, designing and delivering large scale initiatives with budgets in excess of £100M. He specializes in rapid immersion in client organizations, working with senior to C-level teams to gain an understanding of stakeholder requirements to ensure efficient delivery of objectives, from corporate strategy development to benefits realization. His career spans engagements with the Royal Bank of Scotland, the National Australia Bank, Lloyds Bank, the National Health Service, Scottish Water, The Scottish Prison Service, and the Scottish Government. His diversity of experience includes developing a Shared Services Target Operating Model for a major healthcare provider, setting up an offshore banking facility in the Channel Islands, providing an automated Social Security benefits applications and payments solution, implementing an enterprise level Human Resource system globally as well as providing consultancy on P3M set up, governance and maintenance. Nigel holds a Master’s degree in Programme and Project Management as well as a bachelor’s degree in Business Studies. A PRINCE2® Practitioner since 2000 and MSP® (Managing Successful Programmes) Practitioner since 2006. Additionally, he has delivered in Agile environments with both Scrum and Kanban techniques.
Nigel is a member of the Scottish Programme and Project Management Group (SPPMG) and has advised Police Scotland on the development of dependency management in their 2026 transformation portfolio and guided Forestry Commission Scotland in their introduction of Portfolio Management. He has worked with the Heriot Watt University’s Edinburgh Business School, developing, and featuring in online video content for their international MBA’s Project Management course.

nathalie holmes

Nathalie is a project, programme, and portfolio management professional with over 20 years’ experience working with both the public and private sector. She is a registered practitioner in portfolio, programme and projects management and holds certification in PRINCE2®, Managing Successful Programme (MSP®), and Management of Portfolios (MoP®). An effective bilingual communicator, Nathalie is a strong advocate of leveraging the knowledge, collaboration, experience, and processes of an organization towards the creation of a culture of excellence. For the past three years, Nathalie has been working with the department of Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), to establish a programme management framework, a pathfinder initiative for the Government of Canada. In 2010, Nathalie was a key contributor in the adoption of Project Management methodology into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and several other organizations in the Government of Canada. Furthermore, Nathalie was responsible for establishing one of the premiere training operations in P3M best practices; the first and one of the few organizations in Canada capable of certifying trainees to international standards in PRINCE2®, MSP®), MoP® and Managing Benefits™.