How Charming is PRINCE2

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HowCharmingisPRINCE2?
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PRINCE2

• is the methodology selected for managing
  projects in ITS, and helps us to deliver a
  successful product.

PRojects IN Controlled Environments
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What we will cover today

• How we can all benefit from good project
  management
• PRINCE2 what it is and why we use it
• Tailoring PRINCE2 for ITS
• Why all this may affect you
• Question time

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Why have a Project Office?

• Project management and PRINCE2 skills
• Resource management across a larger organisation
  ITS USCS BIS ACU MSU
• ITS Director has to report to Senior Management
  (and all professional services are under
  review)
• Student expectations are increasing, especially
  now that they are paying fees

More accountability and transparency, and also
more acknowledgement and recognition
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Project Management (1)

• Juggling time, scope and costs to deliver an
  agreed product
• Other factors include
• priority (business plan)
• the need for good resource management
• Projects are unique and finite (start and end
  dates)

Time
Quality
Scope
Costs
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Project management (2)

• Anticipating likely problems and risks
• Communications plan
• Many of us project manage informally
• to-do lists
• breaking down large jobs into manageable chunks
• setting goals and deadlines
• managing our time, scheduling our diaries

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Sometimes things go wrong

• Creep not another name for the Project Manager!
  
• This means deviating from the original plan
• Delay e.g. delivering late or not at all
• Overspending e.g. not monitoring your budget,
  or not having control of your budget

Impact on individuals as well as on the
organisation and its reputation
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A PRINCE2 project has

• A finite and defined life cycle
• Defined and measurable business products
• A corresponding set of activities to achieve the
  business or specialist products
• A defined amount of resources
• An organisation structure, with defined
  responsibilities, to manage the project

Acknowledgements to Maven Training for this
definition
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PRINCE2 enables us to

• Agree a definition of the product with the
  customer
• Establish the right project team (resources)
• Monitor that tasks are completed on time, and
  manage the situation if they arent
• Deliver the product that was agreed, and get
  customer feedback is it fit for purpose?
• Learn valuable lessons from completed projects
  and feed these into other projects

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PRINCE2 The Basics

• Products
• the specialist product(s) - or deliverables -
  required by the customer
• management products, i.e. the documents/reports
  produced during the project (not necessarily
  formal)
• Components
• - 8 key components, or concepts, e.g. Business
  Case, Plans, Risk
• Processes
• - all part of the project lifecycle, summed up as
  Controlled Start, Controlled Progress, Controlled
  Close
• Roles
• the people involved and what is expected of them

PRINCE2 uses product-based planning rather than
activity-based planning.
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Management Products

• Required as part of managing the project, they
  enable us to
• Establish and maintain quality
• Demonstrate progress and milestones reached
• Highlight problems (e.g. exceptions to the plan,
  also known as managing by exception)
• Will vary in formality, from a chat in the
  corridor or emails, to more formal documents
• Are tailored to suit the project

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Project Roles

• Project Board
• Executive
• Specialist supplier
• Customer / user
• Project Manager
• Team Manager managing the specialist team
• Specialist Team creating the specialist
  product(s), e.g. The XP desktop, or Delivering a
  new email client
• you dont always have a team manager

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Processes

• E.g. Directing a Project (DP)
• Belongs to the Project Board, who
• Authorise initiation and authorise the project
• Approve current progress at stage boundaries, and
  give the go-ahead to the next stage
• Respond to an exception that the Project Manager
  has raised
• Confirm a projects closure

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Tailoring PRINCE2

• All PRINCE2 elements are included but scale will
  differ
• Different projects require different levels of
  formality
• Must maintain the principle of controlling the
  projects start, progress and close
• Guided by what we (or others) need to know about
  a project
• How extensively should this component and/or
  process be applied to this project?

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Where do you fit in?

• You are a project manager
• You are a client manager
• You lead a team working on a project
• You are part of a team creating a product, e.g.
  The XP desktop or Delivering a new email client
• You are engaged on one project, but you are the
  only suitable person for another project
• You are a line manager whose staff have
  conflicting demands made of them
• You want to develop your skills

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Summary

• We can all benefit from good project management
• PRINCE2 and the Project Office approach really is
  Charming (or at least Sensible)
• The Project Office is responsible for a
  particular aspect of project management, but the
  ITS PRINCE2 approach is a team effort

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PRINCE2 Resources

• Office of Government Commerce (OGC)
• Maven Training
• Project Office website
• Project Office staff (its_po_at_sussex.ac.uk)
• Wikipedia
• See also Projects website

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Any questions?
ITS TRAINING ROOM