The Opsimath

Going beyond PRINCE2

"What comes next?"

This is often a question that people ask once they have got to grips with the project management method PRINCE2. Perhaps they have successfully achieved their Practitioner qualification, and been using it for real for a while. They then want to know what else there is 'around' PRINCE2 that can help them become better at what they do.

Here are a few thoughts:

Programme Management
Often something that is not properly understood by many, programme management offers us a different, yet complementary view to project management. Programmes are about the coordination of a set of related projects, and are focused on transformational change, outcome delivery and benefit realisation. The framework called MSP (Managing Successful Programmes) is widely recognised as the best practice method for programme management. There are qualifications in MSP at Foundation, Practitioner and Advanced Practitioner levels.

Change Management
It can be extremely useful (some would argue vital) to the Project or Programme Manager to consider how individuals, teams and organisations go through change. After all, change is what projects and programmes deliver! A qualification in change management enables you to understand some of the key models, approaches and ideas for taking people successfully through change. Foundation and Practitioner qualifications are available in this fascinating subject.

Risk Management
If you would like to specialise a little, perhaps the Management of Risk (MoR) is for you. MoR goes beyond managing risk at project level and also includes programme, strategic and operational risk management too. Qualifications are available in MoR too.

Programme and Project Offices
Many organisations are seeing the benefits of setting up corporate programme and project offices - sometimes called PMOs. Now there is a set of guidance to help with this too. Referred to as P3O, the Portfolio, Programme and Project Offices guide helps organisations to plan, set up and run just such an office. Is this is an area you are involved with then this is a must for you.

Developing specific skills
Taking a 5-day course in PRINCE2 or MSP only gives you chance to touch lightly on some subjects - things like Business Case management, risk management, stakeholder engagement. You may feel that you would like to know more and to go deeper into this subject. At pearcemayfield we have designed a set of specific skills workshops for just such a purpose. Normally delivered in-house for clients these have been incredibly well-received. Other subjects include facilitation skills, product-based planning, presentation skills, estimating and scheduling, decision-making and finance for project managers.

Want to go 'beyond' PRINCE2? There's plenty of choice for you.

Tolerance - it's all or nothing

One of the best practice project management principles that PRINCE2 suggests is that of management by exception. In project terms, an exception is a situation in which it can be forecast with certainty that the project (or stage) tolerance levels will be exceeded.

Tolerance is a far more important concept in project management than some might think. Let's first of all give it its PRINCE2 definition: "...the permissible deviation above and below a plan's target without needing to escalate the deviation to the next level  of management...". This "target" can be expressed in any combination of time, cost, scope, quality, benefits and risk.

What happens if we do not implement the use of tolerances?

Potentially one of two things.

1. If the Project Manager, because of the lack of tolerance, has to escalate every minor deviation to the Project Board, then the Project Manager role is stripped of any authority, unable to take any corrective action. In effect, the real job of project management is being carried out by the Project Board.
2. Alternatively, if the Project Manager carries out corrective action when there are deviations and exceptions, even though no tolerance has been agreed, they are effectively exceeding their authority. The Project Manager is now taking on the role of the Project Board!

Both of these situations are unhelpful at best, as they do not make for good project management.

We need to use tolerance on our project - after all, our plans are simply our best guess at how the project will work out and we can never hope to get that guess 100% correct.

Tolerance - it's all or nothing!

Facilitation - vital skills for a Project Manager

At pearcemayfield we have recently been delivering some really interesting workshops for one of our valued clients around the subject of facilitation skills.

For many project managers (and of course programme and change managers) this is a crucial area. We have to attend many meetings and work with many different groups and teams of people - so how can we ensure that we get the best out of these situations?

During the sessions we looked at many different aspects of facilitation, including a number of do's and don'ts. Here is a list of tips that one group developed. The tips are in no particular order, but I find them very useful and challenging, I hope you do too:

1. Make sure  that no-one feels they are having something done to them
2. Better still - make people in the group feel valued
3. Always begin by establishing the ground rules for the group
4. As a facilitator, always have some stock responses ready to enable you to deal with difficult situations
5. Be aware of the mode in which you are operating and be ready to change it - be self-aware
6. The need for preparation and planning cannot be over-emphasised
7. Keep reading the room and be ready to change the timing and your mode
8. Ensure the right people attend the session
9. Ensure the right person facilitates

Engagement - a powerful mindset

One of the better changes in the language of management and business in recent times is the change from 'Stakeholder Management' to 'Stakeholder Engagement'.

The latter phrase, Stakeholder Engagement, expresses a mindset that is a long way away from the idea of trying to 'manage' those people who are interested in and/or affected by our projects and programmes. If we are in any way serious about listening to and communicating with and influencing our stakeholders, we should forget the idea of managing them - that was rarely possible anyway.

Instead, we should learn how to better engage them, and here are three thoughts to consider:

Stop doing things to people;

Start to work together; and so

Become the change we wish to see

If you are engaged in leading change in your organisation, then I encourage you to consider those three thoughts and ask yourself,

Do I have a mindset of engagement?

Why Change Management training should be COMPULSORY for every Project Manager

  Compulsory.

In CAPITAL, yes, UPPER CASE letters.

Far too many project managers have a very short-term view of the change that they are bringing to an organisation. They see the end deliverable of their project - the products, the outcome - as the end of the story. Delivered. Finished.

It is not.

It is, in fact, closer to the start of the story for the receivers of the deliverables (although this does not really begin to describe the true situation either).

Over recent years, our knowledge and skill levels in project management have generally improved, thanks in some part to the growth in methods such as PRINCE2 and Bodies of Knowledge such as PMI and APM.

Our knowledge and skills in Change Management have, however, failed to match that improvement. This leads to the situation where we are better at delivering our projects (to time, cost and so on), yet we are not seeing the project deliverables bring about the expected realisation of benefits.

Why?

Because there is quite a journey between project delivery and the eventual realisation of benefits, and much of that journey revolves around change management.

The soft stuff. Pink and fluffy. It's all a bit herbal, isn't it? (I'm sure you've heard similar opinions expressed about the subject of managing change.)

Well, no. It is a leadership and management challenge that is every bit as demanding as the toughest project.

It's just not that well understood.

Hence the demand for compulsory training.

Or having your project manager's badge taken away, your Gantt chart confiscated, and the lock changed on your Risk Log .

The Project Team - keep it light and lean...

Steering Groups

Implementation Committees

Strategic Boards

Portfolio Boards ... the list goes on.

Organisations have a variety of governance arrangements in place in order to oversee and direct the efforts of their projects. Many organisations have structures so complex that most people working there cannot begin to articulate how it all works.

Yet in these same organisations, it is not uncommon to hear that they feel that best practice methods of running projects (such as PRINCE2) are just "too much". For example, with some people, PRINCE2 has a reputation of being overly complex and bureaucratic. The truth is very different.

The core project management team that PRINCE2 describes is actually very lean indeed. Furthermore, the approach suggested by PRINCE2 is that in each and every project you must tailor your team to your organisational environment and to the size and scale and type of project that you are delivering. There is no 'one size fits all' structure as far as PRINCE2 is concerned.

Simplicity is the key.

Good governance comes from a light and lean approach to structure, not through having layer upon layer of decision making.

If you would like to know more about the duties and behaviours of a good project board, there are a series of posts starting here that you might find useful.

Stop the sheep dipping!

You may know that I work for a specialist management training company called pearcemayfield. I say specialist because we are not a big 'wetrainanycourse.com' company. We specialise.

Well, as you ask, we specialise in:

• PRINCE2 Training Courses
• MSP® Training Courses
• Change Management Training Courses
• P30 Training Courses
• Management of Risk Training Courses
• OBASHI Training Courses

Now in recent times, many of these topics have become rather 'commoditised' - as there are a number of companies offering the same, fairly standard, courses.

(Now actually, they are not the same. Click here to read an excellent article by Patrick Mayfield on how to choose a PRINCE2 course.)

But that's not my point. I am concerned with the tendency of many organisations to 'sheep dip' their staff. The indiscriminate training of numbers of people on the same course without any thought to the business needs being met (or not met) by that training.

Staff are dipped in the same murky water, they come out with bits of knowledge hanging off them - but it soon dries up and drops off.

It was immensely encouraging recently to be talking with a client about their training needs and being able to explain what an MSP Practitioner Course was, and then to say (in a Chris Tarrant voice) "But we don't want to give you that..."

We went on to discuss exactly what they did need. Training that is targeted and focused, not broad and aimless. Training that will be meaningful to the people involved. training that will result in real world changes in behaviour - actual learning outcomes.

That's what I mean when I say we specialise!

Am I though...

 ...bovvered. Am I bovvered?

For those readers not acquainted with this strange language, this is one of the catch phrases of a character invented by comedy actress Catherine Tate - Lauren Cooper. Lauren is a teenager with what can only be described as a 'surly attitude'. She responds to each situation with this classic question, "Am I bothered?" (pronounced 'bovvered').

Now this approach can be surprisingly helpful to any project or programme manager.

Imagine that you have been called to see the new 'Portfolio Director'. She has been tasked with trimming down the number of projects that the organisation is delivering at present. She has asked for a 'brief' presentation from you about your project.

So what do you say?

Many project managers would be tempted to wax lyrical about what the project is going to deliver - the project outputs.

This could be a big mistake.

It might be met with a Lauren Cooper response, because your Portfolio Director does not want to talk the language of project outputs. They are thinking a far bigger picture. They are thinking at least outcomes. They are probably thinking business benefits.

Unless you really want to hear "Am I Bovvered", you need to be thinking this way too.

And as you prepare your presentation think like a senior manager. Think outcomes and benefits. Think like Lauren...

Stop sending people on PRINCE2 Training courses...

... that is, unless you are truly serious about improving your organisation’s project management culture.

As part of my role within pearcemayfield, I get the occasional pleasure of delivering PRINCE2 training courses. It is almost guaranteed that at some point within the course we are going to have a discussion that includes a phrase like, “if only our senior management team could understand this...”

I was part of the team that developed the latest version of PRINCE2 (launched in 2009) and at the time it was recognised that one of the major areas of concern in the world of project management was the lack of understanding that many project boards/corporate management teams/directors had about leading projects. That situation has changed little.

This lack of appreciation of what is involved in successful project management leads to project managers and project team members being ‘sent’ on PRINCE2 training courses. The aim is that by training ‘them’ all the problems will be solved.

The reality is that on a PRINCE2 training course delegates are exposed to current best practice in project management and then can easily see the gap between what they are learning and the present reality of the workplace to which they will shortly be returning. At times their frustration is all too evident.

Of course, I do not want people to stop attending PRINCE2 training. It is an important part of how we can change the world of project management for the better. What I want is for senior managers to become more open in their recognition of the need to change their behaviour. This will mean addressing such things as

· Direction-setting

· Delegation, and

· Decision-making

In this way, project managers returning to their workplace, complete with PRINCE2 certificate, will be able to apply all their learning in a supportive, best practice environment.

PRINCE Lite - a real tautology

The project management method PRINCE2 has been with us since the mid 1990s, and yet it is still not properly understood, and is hence mis-used and mis-represented.

It is not uncommon to come across someone talking about something they like to call 'PRINCE-lite' or something similar. This implies that they believe that PRINCE2 itself is not 'lite' - it's heavy. So, let's have a little rant here, and in the process clear up a few things.

PRINCE2 is the most flexible, tailorable, scalable, agile method of managing and controlling projects known to mankind.

It is only through poor use of the method that it has gained this reputation of being 'heavy' and bureaucratic. It really is not meant to be that way. Take a look at the PRINCE2 manual and see how it is built on a series of principles. These principles give us the ability to use it with the lightest (see the correct spelling there) possible touch when we need to.

PRINCE2 - it ain't heavy...