PRINCE2 2009 – Author Blog (Sep 08)

• 19 Sep 2008 12:27
• by Andy Murray

Much progress has been made since my last blog on 23^rd May:

• My wife gave birth to our second child (Jason Alexander Murray, 11^th July 2008) – hence the delay in updating this blog!
• We incorporated the feedback from the reviews and pilots of the first draft and issued the second draft for review.
• We initiated the second round of pilots.
• The project to review and update the associated qualification schemes was kicked-off.
• We’ve just received and reviewed the feedback on the second drafts…

The feedback from both the quality reviews and the pilots generated nearly 3000 comments. They indicated that we were broadly on track and that the narrative style is a significant improvement over the current manual. In particular the addition of ‘principles’ and the ‘project environment’ were well received, as was the guidance on tailoring.

However, the feedback highlighted two main concerns:

• Overlap between the PRINCE2 Method (Method) and the PRINCE2 in Practice: Managing (Managing) publication and a debate as to what is core to the method and what is discretionary guidance.  The approach to make the PRINCE2 in Practice: Directing (Directing) publication self-contained (i.e. readers do not need to also buy the Method) added to this issue I that the Method and the Managing publications effectively became an inseparable pair.
• Although the content of Directing was universally well received the overwhelming feedback was that it was too large for the target audience.

Our approach to these issues was to (1) merge the Method and the Managing publications with some of the discretionary guidance being removed for possible inclusion as on-line content and (2) to reduce the size of Directing but also adding a 10-minute guide and quick-reference summaries at the beginning of each chapter.

The revised publications will be called “Managing a Successful Project Using PRINCE2” and “Directing a Successful Project Using PRINCE2”.

Further information can be found through the following links:

• The Product Description for Managing a Successful Project Using PRINCE2
• The Product Description for Directing a Successful Project Using PRINCE2
• An Audio clip of Alan Harphum (APM Group Chairman) interviewing me at the Best Practice Showcase in London (June 2008).
• A copy of a presentation I gave at the inaugural Best Practice User Group meeting in Denmark in September providing an overview of the changes to PRINCE2 2009.

By the time of my next blog we should have the 3^rd and final draft ready for review, so I’ll provide an update of what that entails!

Until then you can catch me at Project Challenge presenting an update to PRINCE2 2009 and also providing an overview of the new Directing a Successful Project Using PRINCE2.  Come and say hello.

Using PRINCE2 for the PRINCE2: 2009 Project – Lead Author, Andy Murray, Explains the Quality Approach

• 23 May 2008 10:35
• by Andy Murray

In PRINCE2, quality is a question of identifying what it is about the project’s products or services that make them fit for their purpose. It starts with understanding the Customer’s Quality Expectations, then agreeing Acceptance Criteria for the project and in turn agreeing the Quality Criteria for each product.

For the PRINCE2: 2009 Project the Customer’s Quality Expectations were identified through six months of public consultation with users, examiners, trainers, consultants, tool vendors and academics.  Based on the public consultation, OGC defined the Acceptance Criteria to which the efforts of the authoring team will be judged.

As an authoring team we are constantly asking ourselves, "Is it what the users want and will our work meet the Acceptance Criteria?" These questions span the design, development and deployment activities. In particular they helped with producing the Product Descriptions for the project’s major products. Product Descriptions include statements on the product’s Quality Criteria. These define the basis against which each product will be judged as being fit for purpose. However, Quality Criteria alone is not enough as we also need to understand how they will be proven. In PRINCE2 this is known as the quality checking method.

PRINCE2: 2009 Project - The story so far

• 08 Feb 2008 16:04
• by Andy Murray

Hello and welcome to the first of a series of progress reports for the PRINCE2: 2009 Project.

The PRINCE2: 2009 Project started in November 2006 with a six month period of public consultation.  The purpose of the consultation was to gather feedback in terms of likes/dislikes for the current version of the method and to capture ideas for improvements.

I was appointed as Lead Author in April 2007.  My first task was to collate the feedback from the public consultations and produce a Public Consultation Report.  Much has been achieved since I first sifted through all of the feedback from the consultation:

• The Public Consultation Report was published in June 2007
• A Reference Group meeting was held to evaluate the feedback from the Public Consultation and to provide recommendations to OGC for the Mandate for Change
• OGC’s Mandate for Change was published in June 2007
• The rest of the Authoring Team was appointed (more on this later!)
• A Review Group meeting was held in July 2007 to evaluate OGC’s Mandate for Change and to provide recommendations to the Authoring Team for how to refresh the method in accordance with the mandate
• The Authoring Team had a three day workshop to enable them to develop a Scoping Document and Product Descriptions for the refresh.
• The Scoping Document and Product Descriptions were submitted to the Review Group for comment.
• The updated Scoping Document and Product Descriptions were then approved by the Project Board.
• A Design Review was held with a subset of the Review Group – where the authoring team presented the draft Principles (that underpin the method) and the chapter level Product Descriptions.
• The Principles (chapter 2 in the new manual) were submitted to the wider Review Group for comment.
• The Principles have been updated and the authoring of the publications has begun!!

You can download all of the project’s approved documentation on the best-management-practice website.  These include:

• Public Consultation Report
• OGC Mandate Scoping Document
• PRINCE2 Method (Product Description)
• PRINCE2 In Practice: Managing a Project (Product Description)
• PRINCE2 In Practice: Directing a Project (Product Description)

The first draft manuscripts will be ready for review in February and March, after which some pilots will begin.

Don’t forget to tune into the next progress report - which will introduce the rest of the Authoring Team and the outline plan for the rest of the refresh.

PRINCE2: 2009 Lead Author Bio 

Andy Murray is a Chartered Director and PRINCE2 Registered Consultant (P2RC), and has worked in the field of projects and programmes for over 15 years. He is currently a director of Outperform UK Ltd (www.outperform.co.uk), an Accredited Consulting Organisation (ACO) licensed to consult in the OGC’s best practice trilogy of PRINCE2, MSP and M_o_R. Andy was an early adopter of PRINCE2 back in 1997, and has been helping organisations implement and gain value from PRINCE2 ever since.

He has helped implement PRINCE2 in numerous organisations in more than a dozen countries. Andy is a recognised expert in using maturity models to help diagnose organisations’ strengths and weaknesses as a means to prioritise and plan improvement initiatives and measure progress.

Andy is the co-author of Improving Project Performance Using the PRINCE2 Maturity Model (P2MM).

PRINCE2: 2009 Project - Background

• 29 Jan 2008 17:09
• by Andy Murray

PRINCE2 is being refreshed as part of its lifecycle. Its name is not changing but there will be fundamental enhancements to the method. The refresh is being led by the UK's Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and involves OGC's two main partners for its Best Practice portfolio, TSO, the official publisher and the APM Group, the official accreditor.

Since its launch in 1996, there have only been two major updates (in 2002 and 2005) of PRINCE2. Both of these updates were in response to issues raised via the official Issue Log. The updates were mainly corrections to the manual, clarifications and a few incremental improvements. The method itself has remained largely unchanged whilst today's pace of change and level of connected communication mean that projects now face challenges that simply did not exist in 1996.

Methods of publication have also evolved. There is an appetite from both the users and the publisher to expand the ways in which people access the PRINCE2 methodology and complementary publications.

The PRINCE2 practitioner exam has recently been updated to make it more internationally acceptable and to speed up processing so that candidates get their results quickly.

The updated PRINCE2 Method should be available in the early part of 2009. There will be a core set of three publications which address public feedback and provide:

• A universally applicable and repeatable project management method - the principles, processes and techniques - that enable individuals and organizations to successfully deliver their projects within time, cost and quality constraints
• The standard against which individuals' knowledge and competency in applying the method can be examined and assessed.

The core set of publications will comprise:

• The PRINCE2 Method
• PRINCE2 in Practice: Directing a Project
• PRINCE2 in Practice: Managing a Project

The purpose of the PRINCE2 Method publication is to provide a reference book suitable for all types of user (Senior Managers, Project Board, Project Manager, Project Team) that:

• Explains the principles of PRINCE2
• Describes the PRINCE2 processes in their entirety
• Describes 'Key Themes' of project management, specific to PRINCE2, that are required for the processes to be effective
• Cross-reference techniques that may be applied
• Explains how to scale the method
• Provides context of when and how to use PRINCE2 for different perspectives (e.g. standalone or as part of a programme).

The PRINCE2 Method publication will provide the content for the Foundation Exam syllabus. This will be a closed book one hour objective test.

The 'PRINCE2 in Practice: Managing a Project' publication will provide a handbook describing how Project Managers, Team Managers and Project Support can apply PRINCE2. It will set PRINCE2 in the wider context of project management (but will remain non-specific for industry sector) and will describe or cross-reference techniques which support the PRINCE2 Method.

Used in conjunction with the PRINCE2 Method, the 'PRINCE2 in Practice: Managing a Project' publication will be the sole source of information for the Practitioner Exam syllabus. It will replace Tailoring PRINCE2 and PRINCE2 and People Issues. The Practitioner exam will remain a three hours examination and will provide a scenario or case study which candidates will assess and analyse before choosing one of several possible answers given to them. The exam is open book.

The 'PRINCE2 in Practice: Directing a Project' publication will provide a role specific handbook for senior managers and project board members describing how to oversee projects being managed using PRINCE2. This guide will also set PRINCE2 in the wider context of project management and will describe or cross-reference techniques which support the PRINCE2 Method. The guide may provide the basis for a possible future qualification for project board members.

The PRINCE2 Method publications will be aligned with the already refreshed OGC guidance: Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), Management of Risk ( M_o_R), and the OGC Gateway Review process.

To ensure you keep up-to-date will all aspects of the PRINCE2: 2009 Project™ project simply register at: www.best-management-practice.com/PRINCE2Register.