How would you sum up what Axelos does?
Axelos builds on the great heritage of best management practice created by the UK civil service and government. The ITIL (formerly the Information Technology Infrastructure Library) qualification is 25 years old and has been adopted by private and public sector organisations around the world. More than 4 million examinations have been taken in our portfolio of products. Now we are following up on a series of market research round tables. We will be responding to the needs and requirements identified in order to develop new best practice products.
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How has your background in the private sector helped you in the role?
It is almost two years since the joint venture was created – the first six months was the set up period during which I was gathering feedback on how we should be operating. My immediate background was as senior vice president, global sales & supply chain, Activision Publishing. I have seen the value of best practice at work. Although the substance was new, the point of adopting and adapting best practice remained the same.
What advantage has the joint venture structure given you?
The structure of the joint venture and governance is working well. Having the Cabinet Office on board with a 49% stake enables us to access emerging practice in government. That mix of public and private sector experience is invaluable. Our products will continue to be developed by the civil service and adopted by us.
The public sector involvement also helps us take a collaborative approach to developing our products. Some other organisations are surprised about how open we are – it is very deliberate. We design something and adapt it using feedback.
The private sector experience means that our speed of development has increased. We have gone from concept to release and launch on some products in just over a year. In a world of fast changing technology, that is absolutely necessary.
Is ‘agile’ an appropriate project management approach outside of IT projects?
The Prince2 management approach grew out of software development and is compatible with both agile and waterfall techniques. We are looking to demonstrate in case studies that agile delivery and constant listening to user and customer feedback can be useful beyond software development. Increasingly, project managers in construction, energy and government are looking to benefit from it.
Axelos is never explicit about particular approaches. Agile is an area I am familiar with from my last job. It doesn’t always give the result everyone expects – it gives speed but from a board level point of view, the continual reduction in a feature set means you get something but it might not be the result you anticipated. It can work well but the approach you take depends on your business and what you are trying to achieve. In that sense we are agnostic on agile as a method.