Last time I looked at the high-level changes in the new release of Prince2, this week I will look at the more detailed amendments. This is quite a detailed post, and directed only at those proficient with the previous Prince2 manual. For others I would refer them to last time’s post.
Changes to the Processes
Start Up
The most substantial changes to this process are the addition of a step to review lessons from previous projects and the creation of a Project Product Description. The latter describes the final output of the project and contains the Customer Quality Expectations and Acceptance Criteria. There are also some minor changes; the Executive appoints the Project Manager and drafts the Outline Business Case, the Daily Log is used at this stage to record issues and risks (the Issue and Risk Registers are created later in Initiating a Project) and the Project Brief contains a number of new items such as the Project Approach, the Roles and Responsibilities and the Project Product Description.
Initiating a Project
Four new documents are created in IP, the Risk Management, Quality Management, Configuration Management and Communication Strategies. All of them show how their respective areas will be managed. The Configuration Management Strategy includes Change Control. The creation of project files has been removed. A new product, the Benefits Review Plan is created. It shows how and when the achievement of expected benefits will be measured. This replaces the Post Project Review Plan, which used to be created at the close of the project. Creating it at the outset shows that benefits might be achieved during, as well as after the project.
Directing a Project
The only fundamental change is that after Initiation, as well as Authorising the Project, Authorising a Stage is used.
Controlling a Stage
This is largely unchanged, although Capture Issues and Examine Issues have been combined into one activity called Capture and Examine Issues and Risks.
Managing Product Delivery
Largely Unchanged.
Managing a Stage Boundary
The activities are largely unchanged although Updating the Risk Log has gone (the Risk Register gets updates in most of the steps anyway.) There is more emphasis on dealing with projects that, rather than delivering all their products at the end of the project, might deliver some at the end of various stages. As such there is provision for getting user, operational and maintenance acceptance for anything delivered by this point. The Benefits Review Plan is also reviewed and maybe updated for any benefits delivered yet.
Closing a Project
Here there are now five activities rather than three. The main change is that there is one activity for dealing with a planned closure and another for dealing with a premature closure. There is no separate follow-on-action-recommendation as this is now embedded into the End Project Report.
Themes
Themes are the new name for Components. All of them include a table describing which roles have which responsibilities for that Theme.
Business Case
The Business Case contents are largely the same although there is a new section for forecasting dis-benefits. It is now the Senior User’s responsibility to specify the benefits and demonstrate they have been achieved, even if this occurs after the project has finished. The Benefits Review Plan replaces the old Post Project Review Plan (see Initiating a Project.) A high-level guide to a range of Investment Appraisal Techniques is also given.
Organisation
The fundamentals of the Prince2 organisation structure remains largely the same, although the Change Authority and the three Project Assurance roles for the Executive, Senior User and Senior Supplier have been added to it. Two roles have gone, Configuration Librarian and Project Support Office. There is a new section entitled “Working with the Project Team” which discusses dealing with different personalities, part-time and cross functional teams and training for staff. There is also a section on how to deal with stakeholders who are outside the Prince2 project structure and a stakeholder engagement technique taken from MSP.
Quality
The quality theme has received a substantial upgrade making it clearer and more consistent with standards such as ISO9000. The management products have been revised; the Project Quality Plan becomes the Quality Management Strategy, the Stage Quality Plan disappears and a new product, the Project Product Description is introduced (see Start Up). A simplified version of the Quality Review Technique is described with a section considering it’s relationship with project leadership, team building and developing individuals. A Quality Document Audit Trial replaces the Path to Quality. There are also some case studies about setting acceptance and quality criteria for products and a high-level guide to using the MoSCoW requirements prioritisation technique.
Plans
The Planning Theme contains the old Product Based Planning Technique and Planning Process, clearly showing the link between the two. There is guidance on using a plethora of other planning approaches with Prince2 such as critical path and critical chain, a section on estimating techniques such as comparative, parametric and Delphi, guidance on different ways of presenting schedules using Gantt Charts, spreadsheets and critical path diagrams and a guide to likely causes of risk within a plan. The detailed prescriptive way of creating a Product Breakdown Structure has gone, leaving it up to the user how this is presented. (There are some example formats in Appendix D) There is now a Plan product description in Appendix A with full details of its composition points, rather than the old sketchy Elements of a Plan.
Risk
The terminology in the Risk Theme has been better aligned with the MoR and MSP products. A Risk Management Strategy has been introduced which is used to detail how risk will be managed. Guidance on potential early warning indicators for risk are given, for example monitoring how many issues are being raised or unresolved. Direction is given on how to evaluate the project’s overall exposure to risk. There are risk identification and estimation techniques such as risk breakdown structures, impact grids and expected value. The old five responses to risks have been replaced by nine responses, four of which can be used to develop risks that are opportunities for the project. The risk owner now has the responsibility of managing the risk responses rather than just keeping an eye on the risk as before. The Contingency Budget now disappears and is replaced by a Risk Budget that can be used to fund all possible responses.
Change
The Change Theme incorporates the old Configuration Management Component and the Change Control Technique. There is a new document, the Configuration Management Strategy, which sets out how configuration management and change control will be done. There is a much simpler five-step change control process. Issues can now be managed informally – through the Daily Log – or formally – using the Issue Register and a new product, called the Issue Report. (The Issue Report replaces the Request for Change, Off Specification and Project Issue)
Progress
The Progress Theme replaces the Controls Component. It contains the same core information as before but is better presented. There is a table showing in which products all the different elements and levels of tolerance are recorded.
Tailoring Prince2 to the Project Environment
How successful Prince2 is relies on how it is applied to any particular environment. There is a new chapter giving guidance on how to do this. There are a number of situations considered.
- How to implement Prince2 in a Programme Environment that is using MSP. This shows how the Prince2 and MSP organisation structures and process frameworks can work together.
- How to scale Prince2 to different sizes of projects. This gives a table showing how to adapt areas of the method for differing scales of projects.
- How to operate Prince2 in a commercial customer/supplier environment. This shows how to use Prince2 when the project spans several different organisational boundaries. It particularly looks at how to assign the roles of the Senior Supplier and Project Manager
- How Prince2 works in multi organisation projects involving situation such as joint ventures, alliance contracting and bidding consortium
- Integrating Prince2 to different project types such as Agile and R & D projects
- How Prince2 links with other Project Bodies of Knowledge such as PMI’s or the APM’s
All trademarks are acknowledged. Prince2, MSP and MoR are trademarks of the Office of Government Commerce.
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