Scheduling the PRINCE2 way

Once you’ve done your estimates and understand what tasks are required, you need to prepare your project schedule.  PRINCE2 has some advice on how to put this together.  It says:

A plan can only show the ultimate feasibility of achieving its objectives when the activities are put together in a schedule that defines when each activity will be carried out.

Step 1: Define activity sequence

This is the part where you work out the optimal sequence for all your tasks.  You should know the dependencies, so slotting them together is easy.  Or is it?

Read more »

Books and Chairs: Industry news

If you have been awaiting the publication of the latest revision of PRINCE2 in your language, you could be a step closer today.  PRINCE2:2009 is now available in French, German and Spanish editions.  It doesn’t look yet as if the Directing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 book is available in other languages – this is the book for project sponsors and project boards.  However, for project managers wanting to take the PRINCE2 exam, you can now study the Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 book in French, German or Spanish.  They  are available in both hard copy and PDF formats.

The books are:

• Exito en la Gestión de Proyectos con PRINCE2 (Spanish)
• Erfolgreiche Projekte Managen mit PRINCE2 (German)
• Réussir le Management de Projet avec PRINCE2 (French)

And they are all available from the Best Practice website, along with the English versions.

In other news, PMI has announced the re-election of Eugene (Gene) Bounds, PMP, to its Board of Directors, and this year he will sit as the Chair for 2010, after being a successful Vice-Chair this year.  He replaces Ricardo Vargas, who was the first Brazilian Chair.  The volunteer leadership Board governs PMI and is comprised of 15 elected directors-at-large, each serving three-year terms.

“PMI is fortunate to have a board of experienced and knowledgeable individuals who are willing to volunteer their time to advance the project management profession,” said Gregory Balestrero, president and CEO of PMI. “Gene’s extensive experience and steadfast leadership on project management embodies PMI’s philosophy of excellence in project management, and we look forward to his continued leadership over the next three years.”

A retired United States Air Force officer, Bounds has a long history with PMI, since joining in 1989.  He’s travelled about a bit too, being affiliated to the Mile-Hi and Pittsburgh chapters and he’s now with the Washington DC chapter.  “PMI is in a great position to lead the evolution and maturation of the global project, program and portfolio management standards,” said Bounds.  “I am honored to once again be elected to the PMI Board of Directors, and look forward to the opportunity to continue to represent members of our profession.”

I look forward to hearing Bounds speak at Congress next year – in 2010 the North American Congress will be in Washington, so he’ll be on home turf.

A Project Management Historical Timeline

While reviewing my latest copy of Project Manager Today – a UK-based PM magazine – I was reading their article entitled “A Profession is Born” which looks back on the 20-year history of the publication. Included in the article is a timeline of some key points in project management history – though with a very UK twist to it.

I decided to put together a more all-inclusive timeline by grabbing some info from Wikipedia and whatever other sources I could find.  The resulting timeline follows – I hope you find it as interesting as I did. If you have anything that should be added or revised – please let me know…I’m always interested in accuracy and completeness.

Project Management Timeline

1910s

• 1910 – The Gantt Chart developed by Henry Laurence Gantt (1861–1919)

1950s

• 1954 – Bernard Shriever (US Air Force) coins the term Project Management
• 1956 - The Critical path method (CPM) invented by Du Pont employees
• 1956 – The American Association of Cost Engineers (now AACE International) formed
• 1958 – The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) method invented and used on the Polaris project

1960s

• 1962 – DoD/NASA publish a description of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• 1967 – The International Project Management Association (IPMA) founded in Europe
• 1969 – Project Management Institute (PMI) launched to promote project management profession

1970s

• 1973 – International Computers Limited (ICL) offer PERT on a mainframe computer
• 1974 -PROMPT method launched (later known as PRINCE2)
• 1975 – PROMPTII methodology created by Simpact Systems Ltd (source: PRINCE2 manual)
• 1975 – The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Fred Brooks published
• 1979 – Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA – later known as Office of Government Commerce or OGC – UK) adopt PROMPT II

1980s

• 1980 – First ‘on screen’ bar chart on early PCs
• 1981 – UK Army adopts PROMPT method
• 1984 – The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt published
• 1986 – Scrum was named as a project management style in the article The New New Product Development Game by Takeuchi and Nonaka
• 1987 – First Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide (PMBoK) published as a white paper by PMI
• 1989 – PRINCE method derived from PROMPTII is published by the UK Government agency CCTA and becomes the UK standard for all government information projects

1990s

• 1996 PRINCE2 published by CCTA (now OGC) as a generic product management methodology for all UK government projects.
• 1996 – First published edition of the PMBoK appears
• 1997 – Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt published

2000s

• 2000 PMBoK second edition published
• 2001 Agile Alliance formed to promote “lightweight” software development projects
• 2004 PMBoK third edition published
• 2006 Total Cost Management Framework release by AACE
• 2008 PMBoK fourth edition published

Stopping doesn’t equal closing

We talk about stopping projects as if it always means that they are over – and effectively, we are closing them down.  It isn’t always the case.  There is a fine line between stopping a project and closing a project.

Stopping a project can happen once a major issue is uncovered.  If it is something you need a Project Board decision on, the project stops until you have the direction that you were waiting for. In practice, what will happen is that as soon as you realise you are going off track in a serious way, you’ll have to go through the issues process (talking in terms of the PRINCE2 approach) and produce an exception report.  The Project Board will request an exception plan and project effort will shift to producing one of those, based on the options available.  The project manager and Project Board will arrange an exception assessment to discuss and agree the new way forward.

During this planning and approval process there isn’t much that can be done, depending on the issue you are facing. The project, therefore, is stopped.  You might want to call it ‘on hold’ but the outcome is the same regardless.  In practical terms it might not be everything that is stopped.  You could find that there is some project work that is not subject to the exception plan and these tasks can carry on.  It is likely, however, that for a significant issue there will be an impact on all areas of the planned work, so even if you are able to keep things moving in certain workstreams, there may be changes to these later as a result of the outcome from the exception assessment.

The exception assessment will give you the green light to continue, albeit by putting the exception plan into practice.  The old plan gets thrown away and the exception plan takes its place, and you follow that until the end of the stage.  The ‘stopping’ is over, the issue is resolved, the Project Board decision is made about the route forward and the project can recommence.  So a stopped project can get ‘unstopped’ if there is a way out of the problem.

Closing a project does mean closing it down.  The project may have been temporarily stopped – either like in the above situation or for any other reason such as a change in the economic situation.  In PRINCE2 terms, closing is a project is the equivalent of the Managing Stage Boundaries process, but in your final iteration of the Controlling a Stage process, instead of invoking Managing Stage Boundaries, you invoke Closing a Project.  It involves some of the same principles as Managing Stage Boundaries, but doesn’t include any of the work required to start up a new stage, as obviously by this point there isn’t any more work to do.

During the Closing a Project process you are effectively decommissioning the project in its entirety.  The project manager gains operational acceptance from the people who will be running with the product in the long term.  The customer also has to provide their acceptance and agree that the project has delivered what was required.  Files are archive, the post-project review is planned and the lessons learned log is updated.  Any follow on actions are documented for the operational team.  Finally, you should produce an end project report, summarising whether the project has met its objectives and any comments on the project management process.

In summary, if you stop a project you can start it up again, but if you close a project, it’s decommissioned and no longer possible to do any work on it.  Next time someone asks you to stop a project, make sure you understand what they are asking for!

5 more tips for the PRINCE2 exam

Last week I gave you five tips for taking the PRINCE2 exam.  Here are five more tips to exam success.

1. Check the language of the question

There are very few absolutes in PRINCE2, so questions with ‘must’ or ‘all’ in the text need special attention.  It is rare that something ‘must’ be done, so don’t get carried away.  Equally, questions that refer to making decisions or providing commitment normally relate to the Project Board as it is this group that are the main decision-making body on the project.  Answer each question in isolation, so if a question asks for the ‘most suitable’ person to carry out a particular role (for example), think about the answers provided and select the ‘most suitable’ one.  In the next question, select the same person again if they are ‘most suitable’ for the next role.  It doesn’t matter that you have already pegged them as carrying out the first role – the answers are not linked in any way.

2. Understand product breakdown structures

The product breakdown structure (PBS) is a key component of PRINCE2 and not something used in other methodologies.  It is really important to understand how it works and what the symbols mean.  Spend some time working out how to interpret the diagrams: do you know how an intermediate product is represented?  What about a grouping?  Or an external product?  On top of understanding the schematic, you need to know what comes off the PBS and onto the product flow diagram – and in which order.  If you understand PBS you won’t find the questions on this topic difficult, and it could be a place to pick up some easy marks.

3. Do your pre-course preparation

In all honesty, the PRINCE2 manual is a dull read.  It is hard to get motivated to work your way through it, but it is essential to make sure you have covered the whole text.  If you are doing PRINCE2 for the first time, you will find the 5 day course very intensive, so you’ll have a head start if you at least comprehend some of the material before it is presented for the first time.

If you have chosen to take the course by self-study you really need to be motivated.  Put together a revision timetable.  If your training provider has sent you online materials or a CD, work through it.  You’ll get most benefit – whatever type of training you are doing – from past papers and sample exam questions.  The APM Group has released some questions into the public domain for training purposes, so ask your training provider what they can let you have.

4. Forget your common sense

Answer the questions based on the scenario.  Forget the fact that if it was your project in real life you’d be doing things differently, or have appointed a more effective Project Board, or factored in better tolerances.  In real life your users might not be capable of setting Acceptance Criteria, but the manual says that it’s their responsibility to do so.  It’s not your project (and it’s not real life) and you are stuck with answering regarding the scenario you are given.

Put common sense aside and make sure that your answers relate to the scenario. You may find that you don’t need to use the detail of the scenario for most of the questions (doing some sample papers will give you an indication of how much of the scenario is pulled into the questions).  Even so, reading it will give you the context for the questions, so read through the scenario booklet and underline or highlight anything that you consider important.

5. Turn up on time with the right stuff!

The exam might be in a different room to where you have taken your course, especially as it will need to be laid out differently – exam style, surprisingly enough.  The course might have been informal and fun but the exam will have a different atmosphere.  Remember your photographic identification: without it the invigilator won’t let you take the exam.  If you have changed your name since you took the Foundation paper, or the Practitioner paper and you are now re-sitting, check in advance if you need to bring a copy of your marriage certificate (or other name-change paperwork) to the exam.  If you are taking the Practitioner paper you will be allowed to take in your manual, so don’t leave it at home.