The other years we had to explain what the method was, and this year people knew.

We feel that our efforts are starting to pay off and that we are now truely in the first phase of development of the method in the french marketplace.

We will keep you informed of progress.

john higham
The french PRINCE2 expert in France.
Le Spécialiste PRINCE2 en France.

As most of you in Europe, our offices are completely covered with snow.

anyway, it doesn’t reduce our spirit which we keep high to work harder to help the development of PRINCE2 in France.

see you soon at the RMP 2008 show in Paris (CNIT La Défense).

Happy Easter to all,

john higham
The french PRINCE2 expert based in France
Le Spécialiste PRINCE2 en France

The Project Manager may however not have all the knowledge or access to all the information required to create a full Business Case. But she/he must ensure it is done and ask the right people to give the right level of information to be able to finalise the document in IP3 (Refining the Business Case and Risks).

When you start using PRINCE2, the most difficult part of the Business Case is most likely going to be the identification and definition of Business Benefits of the project.

It helps to confirm what Benefits really are as often they are understood to be solely profits. This is not the case as there can be many more types of benefits beyond the simple profit defined as the result of turnover minus costs.
You can define legal benefits, technology benefits, human benefits, environmental benefits and many more depending on the exact nature of the project.

Some projects may never result in pure financial profits, some will even loose money to the company but they are nevertheless compulsory for the viability of the company.

A good example of this are projects of compliance with new legal or regulatory requirements, a new law or a new european directive.

Another example are data migration projects allowing various legacy systems to function together as one operational entity.
Projects of that nature will most of the time cost organisation money without bringing any direct profit. There are nevertheless essential to the good functionning of the business operation and should clearly be done.

When defining the benefits you’ve identified, ensure you make them as measurable as possible.
Don’t forget the Executive will do a Post Project Review of the project outside of the project once those benefits have become measurable, so we need to know how to analyse them in clear and unambiguous terms.

john higham
the french PRINCE2 expert based in France

One fun way is to resolve crosswords another is answering quizzes.

you’ll find a growing numbers of each of those as weeks go by.

simply choose Crosswords or Quizzes and see if you can solve them

i hope you’ll enjoy our weekly edition.

keep in touch,

john higham
the french PRINCE2 expert based in France

For a while i have been thinking about a sentence that would help us remember the 8 components of PRINCE2.

Let’s first line them up :
1. the Business Case
2. the Organisation
3. the Plans
4. the Controls
5. Quality (in a Project environment)
6. Risk (Management)
7. Configuration Management
8. Change Control

i simply remember them as B-O-P-C Q-R-CM-CC

But Carlo, one of my participants, started a nice sentence which i added a variation to and so got the following :

Big Open Projects Can Quickly Return Companies’ Management Crazy Cash.

so, there you have it, a strange sentence maybe, but something that might help some of you easily remember the 8 Components of PRINCE2.

keep in touch,

john higham

Currently, we expect there will be a french manual available early February, but that can still change at this stage.
A couple of very good signs however is that an ISBN number has been allocated for the manual and that there is some intensive pre-production work going on.

I’ll keep you informed as i’m told of progress.

take care and keep in touch,

john higham

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john higham

First, one has to realize that PRINCE2 is recommended, not mandated. There is an English saying that ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’. Similarly, although PRINCE2 is available to them, not all government projects make use of it. When we look at establishments which either have or had close ties to government, such as police departments, public utilities (water, electricity, railways), we find PRINCE2 adopted and many very successful projects being the result. But in government there are many departments that don’t currently use the method.

There are many reasons for the (relative) failure of some government projects. Let’s have a look at a number of these.

First, politicians do not always take kindly to the discipline of PRINCE2 or any project management method that requires them to identify all their requirements at the beginning of the project – and then stick to those requirements. Too often they like to announce to the public that they have started a project to react immediately to a perceived problem – usually one that has just received some adverse publicity in the media. One example was the reaction some years ago in England to adverse publicity about the disease affecting coal miners who got coal dust in their lungs. A feasibility study was rushed through and the project was launched with a budget suitable to the cost forecast in the feasibility. Before long it was realized that the equipment required would cost far more than originally thought and the whole project was restarted with a more realistic budget. The problem then was that the responsible minister had already announced in parliament that the pension scheme for these miners would be ready by date x, and there was no way he was prepared to say publicly that this would be delayed. So everything else, such as cost and quality had to be sacrificed in order to meet the deadline. Luckily this project was run under PRINCE2, so all the impacts, options – and cause of the change – were documented and the project limped through to some semblance of success. The difficulty is caused by – in this case – ministers liking the feel of power and the good publicity of announcing a date by which they have ordained that a solution to a problem will be available. (This also happens in private business).

Linked to this is the problem that politicians, for similar reasons, like to change their minds, and we know what that does to important project items such as target dates and cost. Changing their minds about requirements – usually adding, rather than taking requirements away – is not always matched by a willingness to make appropriate changes to budget and we have already mentioned the reluctance to amend target dates. I was consulting in a government project when we met to discuss the Project Initiation Document. One point that worried us was that the Project Plan slightly exceeded the cost tolerance – set again on the basis of a brief feasibility study. The Executive replied that he had already had one fight with the minister in order to obtain the budget that had been forecast in the feasibility study, and he wasn’t about to go back and ask for more!

I was asked recently to Team Manage the delivery of the major product of a project. The Project Manager, working for a quasi-governmental establishment, had produced a Stage Plan without any reference to me. When I estimated the work, it lasted 3 weeks longer than the Stage Plan. When I pointed this out, I discovered that the target date had been set in order to meet a government deadline, nothing to do with how much work was involved.

Another major reason for the failure of some government projects is the lack of understanding of the PRINCE2 concepts. One military project was handed down to the Fleet Air Arm. It was a small project, but the issuing body was insisting that there must be at least one person identified for each PRINCE2 role in the project management team. It was very nice to have PRINCE2 mandated, but this was not accompanied by any real understanding of PRINCE2, such as the philosophy of tailoring the organization structure, combining roles.

One point about government projects that we mustn’t ignore is that the users tend to be a very large body, i.e. the general public, and it is almost impossible to get agreement on what is needed from such a diverse set of users.

One point that always comes to my mind – although I am accused of being too cynical – is that in government project people are not spending their own money. Those developing the solution tend to be external suppliers and their view of the public’s purse (and that of a number of people in government or public service) is very different to those of the general public. Add this to the tendency to write vague statements of requirement or changes of mind on what is required and you have a recipe for project disaster.

I mentioned that there are government departments that do not use PRINCE2. One department insisted for a long time in continuing its use of a variation of the original method from which PRINCE2 came.

Although PRINCE2 was a major improvement and contained many new features, we were up against that old enemy, reluctance to change; the worry of having to relearn. So, although PRINCE2 is owned by the U.K. government, not all of its employees use the method.
Many managers are ‘too busy’ to learn it and, of course, PRINCE2’s philosophy is that the Project Board carries ultimate responsibility for a project – not a point appreciated by a number of people in these positions of responsibility.

Colin Bentley