What are PRINCE2 Project Management Best Practices?The experienced project managers who came up with (and are continuously developing and improving) the PRINCE2 project management methodology proposed eight 'best practices' or 'components' - i.e: the 8 practices that maximise your chances of project success.
1) The PRINCE2 Business Case
This document justifies investment in the project by comparing the expected costs to the expected benefits. It needs to be re-assessed stage by stage to consider if the project is still a worthwhile investment. If not, the project should be closed down.
2) Organisation
This PRINCE2 component describes the formal roles within a PRINCE2 project. Deciding at the start who does what and who is answerable to whom saves fuss and resentment later on in the project. By following the PRINCE2 organisational structure you will ensure that all the major project interests are represented.
3) Plans
Every successful project relies on minute planning. If you are prepared for every stage, for every obstacle and for every question that your customer or (worse) boss might ask, then you will be more respected as a project manager, your project will not sink at the first challenge, and you will have the greatest possible chance of producing results to promised schedule, budget and quality.
4) Controls
As project manager it is vital that you are in control of every aspect of your project, from the initial decision-making to immediate awareness of any changes or risks that might affect your project plan.
The PRINCE2 method suggests a number of control mechanisms that enable freer communication channels and automatic responses to Project Issues. This means that you can relax, sure in the knowledge that if anything comes up, you will have enough warning and preparation to deal with it.
5) Risk Management
No project is totally watertight. Learning to anticipate, acknowledge and manage risks to your project is essential to project management success.
PRINCE2 risk analysis comes as a four-step plan:
- Identify the risk
- Evaluate the impact that the risk could have on the project
- Consider suitable responses to the risk
- Decide which response is most suitable
6) Quality in a Project Environment
Meeting the customer's quality specification is possibly the most important part of delivering your products. If you promised to provide a wireless internet connection for all office workers in a large corporation, but the connection only functions in restricted areas of the building, then you should not be surprised if your customer refuses to accept the product.
Deciding how you will manage the quality of the product, and then executing your quality-management plan is the safest way of sticking to target.
7) Configuration Management
The Configuration Librarian is appointed to keep tabs on all the products generated as a result of the project. These may be specialist products, like software programs, or they may be management products - that is, the documents that are produced as tools for successful project management.
Your Configuration Librarian will look after your plans, your Business Case, your log-books and all those other necessary documents. Your Configuration Librarian is therefore a very important person.
It is also the librarian's job to record changes to the products, and to store versions of every product in the archive. This means that when people disagree over what Project Plan #32.3 said in the paragraph about the areas covered by the internet connection, you simply have to go to your Configuration Librarian to find out.
8) Change Management
Sometimes change is inevitable. The project environment changes, the quality specification changes, or perhaps project progress is not as strong as expected.
It is the responsibility of the project manager to consider the impact of any changes and to put in place mechanisms for dealing with Requests for Change that come from any member of the project team. If change is not managed correctly, then you could wake up one morning to find your project
Using the PRINCE2 Best Practices will not turn you and your project into an overnight success. What it will do is ensure that the foundations for effective project management are in place. All you have to do is keep an eye on what’s going on, react to every challenge with nerve and brilliance, and communicate telepathically with every member of the project team. Should be no problem.
Note: this article was based upon the PRINCE2 project management framework prior to 2009. After this date, the framework was updated and the components were renamed "themes". The Change Control and Configuration components were merged into one theme called the Change theme. Knowledge Train's PRINCE2 training courses describe each of these themes and how they can be applied.
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