Module Content
After going through this short module, you will know:
Why is Project Management Important?
What makes a Project Different?
What does a Project Manager do?
What do Project Managers seek to Control?
Why have a Project Management Method like PRINCE2?
How is PRINCE2 Structured?
What Isn’t Covered by PRINCE2?
Why is Project Management Important?
Most profitable businesses and organisations want to stay relatively still and keep delivering services and products, generating revenues and profits from their customers by providing something of value to them, i.e. the product or service. The organisation typically wants to stay stable and maintain this steady state Business As Usual way of working.
However, businesses are continually trying to keep pace with the changes in the world – such as
| Customers | The expectations and needs of customers continue to evolve over time and it is key that these needs and expectations are met otherwise the will go elsewhere! |
| Competitors | Ensure the business is able to keep up with the competition in how it provides its products and services. This might involve new products, new services, changes to existing, doing things more quickly or cheaply. |
| Technology | Implementing new technology applications or infrastructure to support new working practices. Keeping these technologies and tools update to date to ensure they are stable, current and secure and continue to meet the needs of the business. |
| Regulation | Government periodically changes the law, regulation and policies that the business must comply with, such as tax or accounting procedures. |
| Facilities | Moving offices when a lease for a building runs out or more space is required to provide to house more people to work on the business |
Project Management is important because it provides a coordinated way of making changes to a business or organisation without breaking anything and dropping any balls!
For example changes to how a customer is serviced must be done whilst continuing to service customers, changing computer systems must be done with minimal disruption to people who work at the company and so on.
What makes a Project Different?
So what is a project? PRINCE2 defines a project as
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A temporary organisation that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products to an agreed business case |
The definition includes three key facets that all projects include
| Temporary Organisation | A project is temporarily put in place to change something in the business. This could include it’s customers, it’s employees, the steps involved in getting things done (also called business processes), computer applications and software, the office environment (such as room seating layout), suppliers to the business (for example stationary supplier), and so on. Basically making any significant business changes can involve projects and project management. Once the business change is complete the project stops and therefore temporary. |
| Deliver Business Products | A project seeks to deliver one or more business products (sometimes called deliverables). For example, a new stationary supplier could be thought of as a business product, a new computer system can be a business product, a re-organised floor seating arrangement can be a business product and so on. The specifics of the project determine which business products or deliverables are to be delivered. |
| Business Case | All of these changes and business products must deliver something of value to the business. This value must be justified in a business case, which is a document that sets out what is to be changes, how much it will cost, what will be gained by doing it and what are the chances of success. Typically senior management must sign-off against the business case for the project to taken forward to completion. For example, putting in a new computer system must offer benefits that outweigh the cost and chances of things going wrong. It may do this by automating certain activities that save time and money far beyond it’s the cost of putting it in. |
So how would you recognise a project? Well, all projects have a number of characteristics and these are
| Change | They change something across the business. This could be anything from customers, to how things are done, to which products and services, to which suppliers, and so on. |
| Temporary | They are only needed for a specific period, typically less than a year, to make the business change and then they are close down. |
| Cross-functional | Projects typically involve people with a range of skills and often the teams are made up of people from across an organisation, for example, Customer Services, IT, Procurement and Legal, Marketing and Communications. Once the project is over, these people typically return to their day jobs. In fact, project teams can also often made up of people from different organisations, for example, from organisations that a business works with (sometimes referred to as business partners). |
| Unique | Businesses may undertake similar projects however they often have a number of things that are unique. For example, different teams, may affect different business processes, may involve different business partners and so on. |
| Uncertainty | Given the above characteristics there are a number of areas of uncertainty that may threaten the success of the project. Such as teams being new to each other, the experience in delivering specific business products, and so on. |
What does a Project Manager Do?
The job of a Project Manager can be exiting, rewarding and fulfilling. But what does a Project Manager do? The Project Manager seeks to meet the objectives of the project (the ones signed off as part of the business case). They do this in a number of ways that include
| Develop a Plan | Once the objectives are agreed, one of the first things a Project Manager does is develop a plan. This typically involves working with team members (who may be specialists in a particular field) to agree a plan that is pragmatic and achievable. This plan is communicated to the project team and key people that need to be know what is going on or are involved in some way (sometimes called Stakeholders). |
| Delegate Work to Team Members | The Project Manager then communicates who has specific responsibilities for producing specific business products. These responsibilities are assigned and work delegated to team members for completion according to the plan. |
| Monitor Progress of Delivery | Once the work is assigned and delegated, the Project Manager monitors the work being carried out to ensure everything is as it should be and is on track in terms of how long it is taking, how much it is costing and that it meets expectations. |
| Exert Control Where Required | The Project Manager may exert control on delivery if things are not going as planned or if they identify a way to do things better. For example, doing something more quickly or even to not do something at all without compromising the ultimate objective. |
By continually doing the above they meet their objectives and deliver a successful project!
What do Project Managers seek to Control?
Project Managers seek to deliver the objectives of their projects. To do this successfully they must continually check progress and make adjustments where possible. The things they seek to control are
| Costs | Not surprising Project Managers must not spend more than their project has been allocated. During the life of a project new costs may emerge or budgeted costs may not be incurred. Therefore project managers maintain an understanding of what they are spending on and ensure any spend is absolutely required to achieve the objectives. |
| Time | The Project Manager seeks to deliver to the timescales agreed with senior managers. In fact in many cases there is a strong desire to reduce the time taken, as the time taken has a direct relationship to the cost of a project so doing it more quickly often means it costs less, resulting in a strong business justification for the project. |
| Quality | It is critical that the things that are produced by the project; the business products meet the expectations of the people that will receive them. This is referred to as quality. The Project Manager must ensure he has factored into the project the quality expectations and ensure these are delivered. |
| Scope | What a project has to deliver is called the scope, for example who it will affect, which processes need changing, which facilities needs changing, and so on. It is very important that this is defined upfront so that the right amount of time and resources are identified and allocated to the work involved. Not understanding the scope or extending it inadvertently will typically lead to a project that takes longer or does not have a sufficient size of team which invariable means the project objectives are not met. |
| Risk | Projects are complicated and therefore there are many things that could go wrong; these are called risks. The Project Manager continually seeks to understand what could go wrong and tries to avoid them becoming real problems; called issues. |
| Benefits | The reason for doing a project is to gain some benefits. If benefits are not going to be realised then there will be a question mark over the project. The Project Manager seeks to control the benefits so that they are realised. |
Why have a Project Management Method like PRINCE2?
PRINCE2 is one of the most widely used and recognised Project Management methodologies in the world. Some of the reasons why PRINCE2 is so popular as a Project Management Methodology include
| Common Vocabulary | Given most projects involve cross-functional and often multi-disciplinary teams, that probably have not worked together before, a common vocabulary is needed. This can save much time, effort and avoid costly mistakes from misunderstandings. PRINCE2 provides this common vocabulary. |
| Explicit Performance Targets | PRINCE2 ensures performance targets are well defined early in the life of the project. For example, time scales, costs and budgets, quality, scope, benefits and risks. With these it is clear what the project is to deliver. |
| Reduces Risk | The PRINCE2 Project Management approach minimises risks by continually focusing on what could go wrong. i.e. the risks. It also inherently mitigates a number of common areas of risks within a project environment, such as meeting expectation, effective decision-making, effective planning, focus on business justification and resourcing. |
| Realistic Planning | Effective planning is critical to the success of any project. PRINCE2 employs a number of best practice techniques that support development of comprehensive and robust plans. |
| Clarifies Objectives | Once of the fundamental reasons projects are not successful is clarity of what it seeks to deliver. The PRINCE2 approach ensures the project objectives are clear and agreed by senior managers before significant time, effort and cost is expended. |
| Clarity of Roles | The PRINCE2 approach ensures everyone knows what is expected of them and how they contribute to the success of the project. This ensures conflicts and the undesired resulting frustrations can be avoided. |
| Continual Focus on Business Justification | Projects are often started without a full understanding of the costs and benefits, which often only come further work. The PRINCE2 approach requires the business case is reviewed and updated as the project progresses to ensure the business justification is still there. It the business justification is not there then the project should be stopped. |
| Applied to Different Types of Projects | The PRINCE2 Project Management model can be applied to any type of project, from business changes, to building a new house, to organising a wedding. The ideas and approach remains the same albeit the product being produced is varied. |
| Management by Exception | One of the key fundamental benefits of PRINCE2 is the idea of Management by Exception. This simply means that there is a well-defined model for delegating responsibilities, and problems are only escalated if the problems gobeyond the assigned delegated authority, i.e. an exception is flagged. For example, a business product has taken longer than expected to deliver or something has cost more than expected and so on. This allow senior management to rest assured that they will be made of aware of any major problems if they arise, allowing them to have oversight of a large number of projects. |
| Effective Stakeholder Engagement | The PRINCE2 method intrinsically seeks to involve the right people in the delivery of a project, referred to as Stakeholders. Stakeholders may be end users of the business product produced, they may be suppliers that produce the business product or people that have a particular interest in the success of a project. PRINCE2 involves these stakeholders in a systematic way ensuring expectations are met. |
| Promotes Continual Learning | There are always things that could be done better in hindsight and PRINCE2 builds this common sense idea into the method. It requires Project Managers and delivery teams to record what worked well and what didn’t work so well throughout the life of the project. This information can be invaluable to subsequent Project Managers and project teams so that mistakes of the past are not repeated. |
How is PRINCE2 Structured?
The PRINCE2 methodology addresses Project Management using four integrated elements, which are
| The Principles | These principles are steeped in best practice and should be followed if a project is truly to be managed according to PRINCE2. There are seven principles. |
| The Themes | The themes describe aspects of project management that must continually be addressed as the project progresses. For example, the business case, quality, plans, risks. |
| The Processes | These describe the step-by-step procedures to follow through out the project life cycle. |
| Tailoring PRINCE2 | PRINCE2 is a generic Project Management method that therefore should be tailored to meet specific needs. |
What Isn’t Covered by PRINCE2?
PRINCE2 is a generic Project Management method, which is a major strength however it does not (and nor is it intended to) cover the following
| Specialist Aspects | PRINCE2 does not include specialist aspects such as IT Solution Implementations, Organisation Design, Procurements, Stakeholder & Leadership Engagement and so on. PRINCE2 can incorporate these but it is not provided as standard. The Business Change Academy provides these aspects alongside PRINCE2 to it’s community and members. |
| Detailed Techniques | There are a wide range of proven techniques that can be used alongside PRINCE2 such as critical path analysis, earned value analysis. However, these are not include in PRINCE2. |
| Leadership Capability | The PRINCE2 methodology does not include the ‘soft skills’ involved in managing a project, such as leadership, motivational and other interpersonal skills. The Business Change Academy provides instructional material that can be applied alongside PRINCE2. |
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February 16, 2012
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