Tailoring PRINCE2 Methodology – The Secrets!
When tailoring the PRINCE2 method, the seven principles must remain untouched. This means that apart from documentation, the only parts of PRINCE2 that can be tailored are the Processes and the Themes. I shall discuss tailoring the PRINCE2 Themes in this article.
Organization theme. Scaling the project management team is primarily about role and function consolidation. Roles can be combined but should not left out. As the Executive and Senior User roles are both from the customer environment, these can often be combined.
The Project Manager will be working much closer to the Project Board than on larger projects, and the Project Board members are likely to carry out their own Project Assurance.
For small teams it may not be necessary to appoint Team Managers. The Project Manager of a small project can carry out those responsibilities, as well as undertaking the role of Project Support and be a team member.
Tailoring PRINCE2 – The Requirements
When considering the other themes, the minimum requirements for them would be:
Business Case Theme. As a minimum they would need to be some form of business justification even if this were not expressed in a formal Business Case.
Plans Theme. The minimum would be Product Descriptions for the key deliverables and a simple plan, in the form of a schedule of who is involved in producing, reviewing and approving products, together with key milestones. This is often referred to as a product checklist
Quality Theme. An simple understanding of the levels of quality required in the project, and of the project products
Risk Theme. An analysis of the risks facing the project, actions that will be taken to implement risk responses, and communicating risk status via Checkpoint and Highlight Reports
Change Theme. A simple method of controlling changes to the project and managing the configuration of the products being delivered, for example, simple product identification and version control standards with secure arrangements for the storage of work products
Progress Theme. Some form of agreed controls and reporting requirements (whether written or oral).
One of the many reasons for the success of tailoring PRINCE2 is its ability to suit the context and the environment within which the project is to be delivered. Applying PRINCE2 has a framework for your project can be done independently of the project scale, its complexity, risk, geography or culture.
Tailoring PRINCE2 projects is driven by the amount of planning that is required, the amount of control that is required, the governance that is needed, and the application of the use of the seven PRINCE2 processes and the PRINCE2 themes.
It is important to compare and contrast the use of tailoring verses embedding. Tailoring PRINCE2 involves adapting tailoring PRINCE2 method to suit the context of an individual project, whereas embedding is carried out at organisation level to adopt and adapt PRINCE2 for all of its project endeavours.
PRINCE2 consists of a set of interlocking and holistic framework elements, and therefore should not be seen as just a collection of bits and pieces related to project management that can be picked and mixed at a whim or preference. The seven processes incorporate the seven themes which draw upon the various techniques to apply in the themes in an appropriate manner, and all of these are used and applied by the project management and a specialist teams.
The watch word here is that tailoring PRINCE2 must be done as an entity, and if any element of PRINCE2 is arbitrarily discarded, the project will be negatively impacted with an increased risk of failure.
Factors external to the project will determine how tailoring PRINCE2 is to be adapted to suit the environment within which the project is to be delivered, and a rule of thumb here is to adapt and adopt PRINCE2 at its minimal level conducive to the size, complexity and risk of the project.
Aspects which will influence and how tailoring PRINCE2 is to occur, will depend upon environmental and project factors, and these must be used as the drivers to adapt PRINCE2 – ‘lean and mean’ is a good way of thinking here.
Tailoring PRINCE2 – Environmental factors
These could include the importance of the project within the organization, the culture of the organisation, standards that must be met, organisational maturity, etc. Other examples may include if the project is part of a programme, whether it is an internal or external project, and whether or not third party suppliers are to be used. Also use of PESTLE can be helpful here.
Tailoring PRINCE2 – Project factors
These could include aspects such as the complexity of the solution, the amount of risk both within the project including the risk appetite of the management team, the level of governance, the maturity and skills set of the team, the approach and life-cycle model that must be applied, etc.
Tailoring PRINCE2 – Aspects of tailoring
The seven PRINCE2 principles must never be tailored as they are the bedrock upon which the method is based. Instead, these principles must be used as the key drivers to adapt the processes and themes against the back drop of the environmental and project factors.
Tailoring PRINCE2 – PRINCE2 processes
Similarly, all seven of the PRINCE2 processes must be used, but the secret here, is to consider carefully how each of the process activities are to be carried out and who is to be responsible for them. This is important because roles may have been adapted or shared. Similarly, management products may also have been adapted and this will have an effect on carrying out the activities within the processes.
Tailoring PRINCE2 – PRINCE2 themes
The environmental and project factors will influence the level of control required and how formal and often such controls are applied during the monitoring, reviewing and reporting of the project. A key aspect here is to apply a the organizations policies and standards into documents within the risk, quality, configuration, and communication management strategies. Since these documents described the ‘How’ of the project, they will drive how the themes are to be adapted and tailoring PRINCE2 is to occur.
Tailoring PRINCE2 – PRINCE2 roles and management products
PRINCE2 does not dictate the number of individuals involved within a project, rather it describes a Project Management Team set of roles which can be filled by one or more individuals, or shared by a single individual. Some of the responsibilities laid out for each role may be given to others if the individual filling that role does not have appropriate knowledge, skills, experience, or authority to carry them out.
PRINCE2 describes the set of management products via product descriptions for each, and if a product is to be tailored, then its product description should also be modified. To ensure that each modified product description remains affective, it must still described the products purpose, its composition and derivation, and its quality criteria.
It may also be appropriate to consider the language and descriptive terms of an organization uses, and considers this when naming products for example. This may also include combining some of the PRINCE2 management products under a new name. Again, what is important here, is that each management product retains a clear understanding of its use an application within the project.
Tailoring PRINCE2 – PRINCE2 tailoring factors
There are probably an infinite number of factors against which tailoring PRINCE2 may be modified in some way, but some obvious examples are:
- Projects that form part of a programme
- The business and organisational environment
- The level of complexity of quality assurance and control
- Project planning methods
- The approach and tools used for risk management
- The change control procedure to be used
- The formality and frequency of reviewing and reporting
- The complexity and number of management stages to be used
- The scale of the project
- The level of formality of the project
- The commercial customer and supplier environment
- Processes and procedures to be followed
- The use of multiple organizations
- The lifecycle model to be used
- Evolving projects
- Industry and sector differences
- The project management body of knowledge
- The technical or specialist complexity of the project
Tailoring PRINCE2 Methodology – Process Tailoring
When tailoring PRINCE2 method, the seven principles must remain untouched. Which means that apart from documentation, the only parts of PRINCE2 that can be tailored are the Processes and the Themes. I shall discuss tailoring PRINCE2 Processes in this blog.
Processes
All processes remain relevant even in simple projects. However, the Starting up a Project process can usually be handled in a less formal manner. The Executive and Project Manager should, however, avoid the temptation to bypass it altogether.
In some cases it may be appropriate to combine the Starting up a Project and Initiating a Project processes (i.e. creating the Project Initiation Documentation straight from the mandate and skipping the production of a Project Brief).
Tailoring PRINCE2 Methodology – Management products
The choice of format of the management product can help reduce the project management effort for a small project, for example:
The Project Board may decide to receive some, or all, reports orally or have a verbal exchange of information and decisions instead of formal meetings. In such cases, the Project Manager should, as a minimum, document the exchange in the Daily Log since people’s recollection of a verbal agreement can differ weeks, or even days, later
Reports could be in the form of an email
The Project Initiation Documentation could be a set of presentation slides. Consideration should be given to creating documents that physically include more than one management product. It is possible to manage a small PRINCE2 project with just four sets of documentation:
The Project Initiation Documentation when tailoring PRINCE2, includes:
- Project Brief
- Business Case
- Risk Management Strategy
- Quality Management Strategy
- Configuration Management Strategy
- Communication Management Strategy
- Project Plan, which includes:
- Project Product Description
- Product Descriptions
The Benefits Review Plan is kept separate.
Tailoring PRINCE2 – Highlight Reports, which include the Product Status Account
The Daily Log, which includes, issues, risks, lessons, planned and actual quality management activities and Configuration Item Records
The End Project Report, which includes the Lessons Report.
The following management products may not be needed when tailoring PRINCE2:
Tailoring PRINCE2 – Stage Plans
If there is only one delivery stage, then the Stage Plan details can be included in the Project Plan
Tailoring PRINCE2 – Checkpoint Reports
If there are no Team Managers, there may be no need for Checkpoint Reports (although the Project Manager may request individual team members to provide them)
Tailoring PRINCE2 – Work Packages
May only be appropriate when the project has Team Managers. When there is only the Project Manager, then the Stage Plan may suffice. However, even in such cases, the Project Manager may choose to use Work Packages as a control for individual team members
Tailoring PRINCE2 – Reports
End Stage Report. If there is only one delivery stage, then the end of that stage is also the end of the project and only an End Project Report is required
Issue Report. If the details of the issue are adequately captured in the Issue Register (or Daily Log), there may be no need for an Issue Report.
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