PRINCE2 2009 - Directing Projects with PRINCE2 part 76
of the Cabinet Office under delegated authority from the Controller of HMSO.
Tailoring PRINCE2
Project-related factors
ScaleIn general use, the term ‘project’ tends to have a very loose meaning and is applied to initiatives as widely different as the construction of the A380 Airbus or building a domestic garage.
The fact that a project is relatively large-scale, alone, may not have much impact on the application of PRINCE2®.
Projects with complex interdependencies or high business priority are more likely to require higher levels of formal discipline.
Management should be careful not to over-burden simple projects with formality.
Full-scale PRINCE2 implementations really only apply when the effort merits some form of Business Case and a temporary organization of its own.
Otherwise, smaller jobs can usually be managed effectively as free-standing Work Packages (or grouped with similar Work Packages and managed as a maintenance or support service).
A project may be regarded as complex for many different reasons.
For instance, there may be a single highly complex task in an otherwise simple project; or the project might be considered complex because of environmental factors considered in the section ‘Environmental factors’.
Complexity, here, refers to the nature and number of specialist interdependencies (between the products and activities) that have to be managed.
Complex interdependencies may apply in a single-discipline project - such as in engineering.
These types of project require highly rigorous levels of planning and technical control - the technical controls being quality and change.
In particular, sophisticated configuration management is likely to be necessary.
Another example of complexity may be a multi-discipline project, where different ‘work-streams’ employ markedly different specialist skills, e.g. implementing a new patient administration system (PAS) in the hospitals of a healthcare trust: this might involve software development, hardware and network infrastructure changes, re-engineering of the hospitals’ business processes, training, changing the interfaces to General Practitioner systems etc.
Again, rigorous technical controls and configuration management would be needed.
In this case, it is worthwhile considering whether the project would be better managed as a programme, with the individual projects based on the different workstreams.
The maturity of the project management team may influence some of the control decisions.
For example, shorter management stages might be implemented for a novice Project Manager, so that the Project Board can monitor progress more closely; whereas longer stages may be employed for a more experienced project management team.
A project’s type is normally defined by its core specialist activity - engineering, construction, software, procurement etc.
Many types of project have established, industry-recognized ‘lifecycle models’.
These models are extremely helpful for planners, predefining many of the specialist and quality activities required.
For example, in software applications development there are currently two broad types of lifecycle model, known as ‘waterfall’ and ‘agile’.
As is the case in this example, different models, even in the same discipline, may have markedly different characteristics.
Nevertheless, all lifecycle models can be expressed in terms of the products that must be created with their respective quality criteria and can therefore be integrated readily in a PRINCE2 management environment.
For a novel project, where there is no reliable lifecycle model available, the product-based planning technique supplied with PRINCE2 offers a reliable solution where planners have to start with a blank sheet of paper.
All references above are in Directing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 unless stated otherwise.
PRINCE2® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.
Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 - 2005 edition
Managing successful Projects with PRINCE2 – 2009 edition
Directing Projects with PRINCE2.
plus:
The Complete Project Management package.
And much more besides - at a fantastic price.