Introduction

Whatever is in this book is what survived. The rest did not make the cut.

Foreword — The Long Path

I built my first methodology before I had ever managed a project.

Not long out of university, I was running a methodology centre: management and quality methodologies, distributed information systems approaches, development methods and frameworks. I supervised a long run of degree theses. Papers were published. We built a tool around a single information model held in a repository, feeding different views of the same underlying reality — the sort of idea that looks obvious now and, at the time, did not. The European Community thought so too: it funded the work and awarded the tool as one ahead of its time.

It was a success. Real funding, real recognition, real results.

Then someone asked the ordinary question: “Have you ever actually run a project?”

Silence.

No.

Everything in this book is what survived that question. Tried, adjusted, tried again — kept only when it held in practice. The rest did not make the cut.

Development History

HoLiDySt didn’t arrive fully formed. It was built, tested, broken, rebuilt, and refined over nearly a decade of practitioner experience across multinational transformation programmes. Here’s how it evolved.

First Edition (2017–2019): The Programme Playbook

The core philosophy emerged from a simple frustration: existing methodologies were either too theoretical to use or too heavy to carry.

The first edition codified a four-phase programme lifecycle (Initiation → Discovery & Design → Build & Pilot → Rollout & Deployment → Embed & Optimise), a multi-layered governance model, and an initial template library — all built from direct experience running large, multi-country transformations.

It drew on the established body of knowledge — P3M3 for maturity assessment, MSP and PRINCE2 for governance, MoP for portfolio thinking — and asked the obvious but rarely answered question: “What actually works at 11pm on a Friday before a Monday go-live?”

The answer was: a lot less than the textbooks suggest. The first edition was built from what survived contact with reality.

Second Edition (2020–2022): The Maturity Framework

Field experience exposed a gap. Organisations could follow the playbook and still struggle, because they’d never assessed their own readiness to execute it. You can hand someone a governance framework, but if they don’t have a culture of governance, the framework becomes wallpaper.

The second edition introduced the 13-dimension maturity model — extending P3M3’s seven core dimensions with six modern transformation capabilities: Change Management & Adoption, Transformation Leadership, Agility & Adaptability, Technology Enablement, Data-Driven Benefits Analytics, and Learning & Knowledge Management.

The assessment methodology and heat map approach followed, along with the programme categorisation framework (VL–XS) for right-sizing the methodology. This edition also brought agile and hybrid delivery methods into the framework, recognising that SAFe, Scrum, and Kanban weren’t competitors — they were delivery engines that needed a governance home.

Prosci’s ADKAR model and Kotter’s change management principles were integrated as compatible approaches within HoLiDySt’s change management dimension, not as replacements.

Third Edition (2023–2024): The Integrated Suite

A programme playbook, however good, is incomplete if it doesn’t connect upward to portfolio strategy and downward to project execution. The third edition expanded HoLiDySt from a single playbook into an integrated three-playbook suite covering portfolio, programme, and project management.

This edition also addressed gaps that practitioners had been working around rather than solving: vendor and partner governance, data governance and management, cultural intelligence for multi-country delivery, and programme recovery guidance for initiatives already in trouble.

Enterprise architecture thinking (TOGAF) informed the maturity model structure. OKRs and design thinking were integrated as modern strategy-to-execution bridges. Integrated PPM platforms became central to the technology enablement dimension.

Fourth Edition (2025–2026): The Complete System

The current edition delivers the full five-volume suite, adds AI governance and sustainability integration, and positions HoLiDySt for digital deployment — where the template library becomes a specification for intelligent delivery platforms rather than a collection of Word documents.

This edition reflects a world where AI-driven PMO tools can predict risks before they materialise, where the EU AI Act requires governance over algorithmic decision-making, and where every transformation must account for its environmental and social footprint.

It also reflects something simpler: eight years of learning what works and what doesn’t, distilled into a system that can be picked up by a single project manager or deployed across a global enterprise.