Prince 2

This approach to project management connects up the context as well s the processes used to focus on learning and continuous improvement. By structuring the decision-making making process, unnecessary work is eliminated and the chnaces of success maximised. It ensures that all the components, processes and techniques needed are in place and of the right standard to deliver success.

Project management only works well when you are prepared to learn from your mistakes. Maybe you are happy firefighting all the time, but it isn't good for your you, your organisation or your customers/clients. To be effective, you must be constantly paying attention to the health of the processes you are using and how to improve them.

Who needs it ?
Prince 2 is powerful enough to help you project manage the smallets or the largest of projects. The processes, components and techniques remain the same. It is quite common PINO's, which are 'Prince In Name Only' schemes You may not want to use oall the components for a small scale initiative.

You need project management when:

You don't get what you need when you need it
Things change direction or scale at short notice
You are losing direction or control of work activities
Staff are feeling over or under worked
Costs are regularly getting out of control
People and resources are not available when you need them
There is a lot of reworking and wastage of time and expertise
Tasks are rushed, badly coordinated and of a poor quality
Small problems seem to have a big impact

The above problems are symptomatic of top-down driven change that lacks a balance in the four dimensions of change. Prince 2 attemtps to build into the control process the other dimensions. Such as communication from the bottom-up, customer involvement from the outside-in and quality control from the inside-out.

Getting into the detail
A simple guide to the components, processes and techniques of Prince 2 can be found in a book by Colin Bentley

Prince 2 - a practical handbook by Colin Bentley.
Published by Butterworth-Heinemann 2003 ISBN 0-7506-53302

In this book you will find the questions you need to ask the processes you need to put in place to answer them. For example:

What exactly are you trying to do ?
Why does it need to be done ?
In what ways will we be better off ?
Who is going to pay for it ?
Who will define what's needed ?
Who is going to do all the work ?
What is the expected quality ?
How will we go about it ?
Can we see any risks ?
On what basis will the projected be considered complete ?
How much effort would be needed to draw up a contract ?
How are we going to control the processes and check on progress ?

Training
There are a wide range of agencies who provide training in the
Prince 2 methodology. A simple websearch will reveal hundreds.