2.2 Principles
Figure 2.2: PRINCE2 principles
Continued business justification.
What is the justifiable reason for doing the project?
- What are the expected benefits?
- Document them in measurable terms
Is it worth to do / continue the project?
- Are the expected benefits above the tolerances? Why? What are the reasons?
- Yes → Ok, continue the project
- No → Stop the project! What was the problem? Document lessons learned!
The reasons have to be approved and to be documented in the Business Case document
- Continuously
- At each stage’s end (Project Board use it for assessing the project)
The reasons are the driving force of the project, therefore
- These have to be clear for everybody
- These have to be strong to be followed by everybody
Example: “I will have an informatics-chemistry BsC diploma and basic knowledge that will be very valuable on the market and on the top of that I really like to deal with these fields. It is absolutely worth to continue. “
Learn from experience.
Humans tend to do mistakes
Aim: avoiding the repetition of previous mistakes again
Learn from previous experience (or from others experience)
- Both from failures and successes
- Learn from previous projects: both internal and external/public field, e.g. case studies, etc.
- Hire experts with a lot of experience in the domain / field
Record current lessons
- Identify, document and disseminate lessons learned
- Create Lessons Report at end of each stage / end of overall project (Closing a Project process)
Example: “during the last semester I misunderstand the teacher and prepared for a theoretical exam (theorems, lemmas, proves) but it was a practical one (exercises, laboratory). Therefore I got only 4. Moreover, I should ask my cousin who has graduated 5 years ago and has several experience on this field.”
Defined roles and responsibilities.
Clear responsibilities:
- everybody have to know what is expected from her/him
Three groups of people are defined:
- Business/Corporate: ensuring that the project provides value for the investment
- User: members of the Business who will use the project’s result, i.e. the product
- Supplier: providing the resources and expertise (internal/external)
- User and Business together represent the Customer
All three groups must be represented to succeed.
Management hierarchy:
- 1st level: Project Board with three roles:
- Executive – the project's sponsor (exactly one people):
- represents the Business
- decision maker in case of disagreements, conflicts
- Senior User: any number of people (0 or many)
- Senior Supplier: any number of people (0 or many)
- 2nd level: Project Manager: daily management of the project (teams)
- 3rd level: Team Manager: daily management of the team’s work package
Example: “at first sight it seems that it is not applicable to our (a little bit artificial) example. However, considering the basic motivation that we want to achieve a valuable degree and knowledge, i.e. the final product will be our knowledge (and the degree), the Project Board could be our potential future employer. If our cousin has such a degree and experience in this field he could be our potential Project Manager with her advices and guidelines, etc.”
Manage by stages.
PRINCE2 describes two stages at least:
- first stage is fixed: Initiation
- arbitrary number of further stages (at least one)
Each stage must to be planned, monitored and controlled:
- Initiation:
- cost and time forecasts
- Project Initiation Document (PID)
- Project Board: GO / NO GO decision
- Further stages:
- End of a stage is a control point for reviewing the project’s progress: “can we deliver the Business Case?”
- Project Board: GO / NO GO decision
Planning horizon: plan only to a manageable and predictable level of detail
Three level of plans (according to management levels):
- Project Plan:
- Stage: Initiation
- Management level: Project Board
- Stage Plan
- Stage: Further Stages
- Management level: Project Manager
- Team Plan (optional)
- Stage: Further Stages
- Management level: Team Manager
Example: “the university defines my stages in forms of semesters.”
Manage by exception.
Tolerance level: a limit for an objective that should not be exceeded during the project
Tolerance levels must be given for performance targets: time, cost, quality, scope, risk, benefits
Three levels of tolerance levels:
- Project tolerances are set up by Business stakeholders
- Stage tolerances (Project Manager)
- Work Package tolerances (Team Manager)
Immediate upper level has to be informed through:
- Regular Highlight Reports
- Exception Report: if tolerance levels are exceeded or forecasted to be exceeded
Example: “I have to achieve at least 80% results during preliminary exams to be able to achieve 5 during the final big exam”
Focus on products.
Aims:
- delivering products meeting all quality criteria
- defining project scope
- reducing the chance of scope creep
- decreasing the chance of user dissatisfaction and denial
Everybody must agree and fully understand the desired outcome, i.e. product:
- identifying products
- product descriptions:
- purpose, composition, quality criteria, etc.
- basis for estimation, scheduling and planning
Example: “What is my product? Degree or knowledge? Both, because I need the degree as a requirement for my dream job but I absolutely need the knowledge as well. Moreover, I need some experience to be hired therefore I have to look for an internship.”
Tailored to suit the project environment.
PRINCE2 is a general method but it is adaptable, because projects are different in several aspects:
- geographical location
- cultural context
- complexity level
- size (budget, resources, etc.)
- experience
- risks
- team, employees
Therefore it has to be tailored to such specific needs:
- Differences to the original method should be described in the Project Initiation Document to be compliant with PRINCE2
- All parts of the method should be adopted somehow but not ignored completely
- PRINCE2 prefers information to documents, and decisions to meetings
- Embedding PRINCE2: a whole organization adopts PRINCE2 for all projects
Example: “I have a Project Manager (my cousin) and Project Board (my contact person during the internship) but these are not really corresponds to the PRINCE2 definition.”