Wednesday 19 May 2010

Prince2 Without the Jargon

Prince2 is a Project Management methodology. It is used to manage time, costs and resources. To do this, it recommends the user to follow a number of best practices; Principles, Processes and Themes of the methodology.

The Principles are:
  1. The project should have a purpose
  2. Learn from experience
  3. Define roles and responsibilities for members of the project
  4. Manage the project by stages
  5. Provide a restricted amount of freedom for management levels
  6. Focus on products
  7. Tailor Prince2 to suit the project
The Processes are:
  1. Directing a Project - Directing a Project involves providing authorisation and monitoring progress, this role may be filled by a business mentor or bank manager

  2. Starting Up a Project - Starting up a project is intended to be a short pre-project process that aims to ensure that the project has solid foundations

  3. Initiating a Project - Initiating a Project focuses on whether there is sound justification for the project and compiling detailed plans for the project

  4. Controlling a Stage - This involves monitoring and controlling of the stage's activities and reacting to unexpected events

  5. Managing Product Delivery - This stage covers: Planning work; Ensuring work is done; Ensuring Quality; and Reporting on Progress

  6. Managing a Stage Boundary - This stage covers: Planning the next stage; Updating Documents; and Reporting on Performance of the Stage

  7. Closing a Project - This final stage involves making sure aims and objectives have been met, disbanding the team, signing off the project and completing documents

The Themes are:

  1. Business Case – this is the purpose of the project

  2. Organisation – this refers to the project team; their roles, responsibilities and relationships

  3. Plans – Prince2 offers a series of plan levels that can be tailored to the project

  4. Progress – Progress involves monitoring the project, this is aided by breaking the project down into stages and then having stage boundaries to measure the performance of the project

  5. Risk – Prince2 defines when risks should be reviewed, defines an approach for the analysis and management of risk and monitors these through all the processes

  6. Quality – Prince2 starts by establishing the customer's quality expectations and then develops these by implementing standards and quality inspection methods; to maintain quality throughout the project

  7. Change – this involves two activities: managing changes; and managing products


These do not all have to be completed individually. The purpose of tailoring is that, depending on the project, areas can be integrated. For example, in a business start-up, a business plan could include: Plans; Risks; Quality; and the Business Case. Doing this saves a lot of time and improves efficiency.

Shaun Gurmin.

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