PRINCE2 : Reflections on a method

PRINCE2: it’s all about control

Well, I’m sure you’ll all be glad to know that my Practitioner exam result is now through, and I have passed with flying colours – a much better score than I was expecting, actually. So, I must have been doing something right.

Having had a couple of weeks to reflect, what do I really think about PRINCE2? I think that it’s a good method, overall, as much for what it leaves out as what it includes. Back in the day … I mean, way back in the day, when I was but a callow techie promoted beyond his competence (because the system that needed re-developing was understood by precisely one person – i.e., me), I used a project management framework called METHOD/1. Now, anyone anywhere who complains about PRINCE2 being overly bureaucratic and document-heavy should be dropped down a hole somewhere, and forced to use METHOD/1 to plan his way out. I guarantee he’ll still be there on the other side of Christmas, unless he’s produced enough “deliverables” to clamber to the surface.

METHOD/1 tried to include EVERYTHING you might need to do to implement a computer system, so that (in theory) you could have a retarded chimpanzee as project manager and still come out on top. All you had to do was to fire up PMW (no MS Project in those days!), slot in all the METHOD/1 phases, tasks and steps, assign resources and dependencies (which was easy, as each step was sequential – classic “waterfall” stuff), and voila! You had your plan.

You could then enter it for the Booker Prize, as it bore absolutely no f-ing relation to any of the actual activities you would undertake over the next year or so.

PRINCE2’s aspirations are much more limited. There’s nothing IT-specific about it at all, or, indeed, any attempt to tell you how to do the actual work (whether it be by brickies or software engineers – those sweating workers, hammering out great sheets of code). What it is, fundamentally, is a framework of control, and a means of delegating that control in discrete chunks, while limiting corporate risk exposure. The prescribed organisation structure is key.

A PRINCE2 Project Manager is not there to tell the techies how to do their job (unless he’s also the Team Manager, of course, but this is a case of wearing two hats). Nor, particularly, is it his job to kick butts; if a kicking is required, it is more likely to come from the Senior Supplier. The Project Manager is also not responsible for delivering the benefits of the project, merely “delivering an outcome that is capable of achieving the benefits” (Managing Successful Projects PRINCE2, P 212, my emphasis).

It is the Project Executive who is “ultimately accountable for the project” and who is the “key decision maker”. I hate to break it to you guys, but the PRINCE2 Project Manager is really just the Project Executive’s bitch, who’s job it is to draft the plans (for the Board’s approval), parcel up the Work Packages for the techies, and then monitor progress and go crying to the Board when anything goes wrong. More admin boy than international troubleshooter; the general implication is that the Project Manager doesn’t even have any line management responsibility. In real life, this is quite likely – the Project Manager may be a contractor with a virtual team made up of slices of peoples’ time (been there, done that), or he may be responsible for an outsourced development happening on the other side of the world.

Tolerance, therefore, is a key PRINCE2 concept. The Project Manager hands out Work Packages to the Team Manager (or, directly to the techies), telling them what to do and when it must be done by – with a tolerance level beyond which they are not permitted to proceed. In turn, the Project Manager has been granted (by the Project Board) a budget for a particular project stage (consisting of lots of Work Packages), with a level of tolerance beyond which he must not proceed. One level above that, and the Project Board have been given a budget for the whole project (by corporate or programme management), with a tolerance level which they must not exceed.

Now, it goes beyond PRINCE2 to mention it (you need to learn the OGC’s MSP method now!), but corporate/programme management probably have their own set budget and tolerance level, going all the way up to the actual company board of directors, and (in theory) then to the shareholders (but, the fatal separation between ownership and control that blights modern capitalism is not a subject for this blog), or maybe even the Leather Goddesses of Phobos. And, if anyone does need to exceed their tolerance level, they have to pass the decision back up the chain.

Thus, in combination with PRINCE2’s explicit phasing of any project into stages, risk is strictly controlled, which senior management having the opportunity to pull the plug or make changes as required, rather than money continuing to be poured down the drain on projects which have long ago lost touch with reality. Marvellous, eh? Makes you wonder, then, as PRINCE2 is a product of HMG, how all those NHS and civil service IT projects manage to turn into bloated fiascos?