Driving projects
Written by STEPHEN J GOODWIN
Tuesday, 30 January 2007 (Addenda Saturday, 20 March 2010)
This is not about attacking your project with a hammer and nails, taking a torque driver to nuts or reaching for a screwdriver.
Many of us read the road, adapt to conditions and reach our chosen destination for round about the right cost and near enough on time without anyone dying.
Read on to find out more about the similarities between the rules of the road and project management in action as seen through the eyes of engagedprojects.
Many of us do it every day - we jump in to our vehicles, take a cursory glance at the dashboard to check that there are no urgent warnings, perhaps look at the fuel guage and then set off on our journey.
Project management isn't so different. A project can be a bit of a journey that we set out on. We may pick up some passengers on the way - hopefully the sort that contribute to the process and don't just sit in the back like Donkey in Shrek asking, "Are we there yet?'.
In terms of finding an appropriate vehicle for your projects to be successful there are numerous ways that you may choose to travel...
If you like to Barnstorm and 'fly by the seat of your pants' then probably your best option is the biplane of budget and motivation - you may have a thrilling ride and risk crashing with every turn or change of direction. You may even successfully reach the ground again. Likely, you'll find you haven't moved very far and that you've just expended time and fuel... But, "Wow!" what a ride...
Sometimes we can be behind the wheel of a supertanker - it's a BIG project with a kilometre of deck from end to end - a single view from the bridge but really hard to steer and navigate through changing seas.
From a practical view the outcome-focussed approach of PRINCE2 is like driving a well-proportioned and well-specified vehicle - adequate controls, a range of choices to be made and a governance structure that encourages review of the journey and adjustment of the plan to meet the changing circumstances that we find ourselves in.
A few extra passengers; we can adjust the seating. Need to go faster; we can adjust the rate and look at the fuel consumption. By breaking the journey down into stages we can re-configure, change drivers and refuel as needed.
The product-based approach is applicable to most, if not all, project journeys. It helps to make each step a more confident one by giving the team a measure of what success for that step looks like. It makes it easy to hand over packages of work that are interlinked.
It could be said that the PRINCE2-based project is really like driving a car...
The rules of the road are set by the project board - Speed of the project, what turns can be made and what resources can be consumed. The project board are the 'law-makers' and take the decisions of interpretation when one of the project 'bye-laws' appears to be being threatened or broken. Theirs is the business case, the power and authority. The Project Director can be in place as a friendly traffic cop and the project manager resources the drivers (the project team) and interprets the maps and way-points.
PRINCE2 is one approach to managing projects; scalable, applicable to most situations and very highly recommended.
engagedprojects is happy to recommend and use PRINCE2 in the delivery of projects...
Tuesday, 30 January 2007 (Addenda Saturday, 20 March 2010)
This is not about attacking your project with a hammer and nails, taking a torque driver to nuts or reaching for a screwdriver.
Many of us read the road, adapt to conditions and reach our chosen destination for round about the right cost and near enough on time without anyone dying.
Read on to find out more about the similarities between the rules of the road and project management in action as seen through the eyes of engagedprojects.
Many of us do it every day - we jump in to our vehicles, take a cursory glance at the dashboard to check that there are no urgent warnings, perhaps look at the fuel guage and then set off on our journey.
Project management isn't so different. A project can be a bit of a journey that we set out on. We may pick up some passengers on the way - hopefully the sort that contribute to the process and don't just sit in the back like Donkey in Shrek asking, "Are we there yet?'.
In terms of finding an appropriate vehicle for your projects to be successful there are numerous ways that you may choose to travel...
If you like to Barnstorm and 'fly by the seat of your pants' then probably your best option is the biplane of budget and motivation - you may have a thrilling ride and risk crashing with every turn or change of direction. You may even successfully reach the ground again. Likely, you'll find you haven't moved very far and that you've just expended time and fuel... But, "Wow!" what a ride...
Sometimes we can be behind the wheel of a supertanker - it's a BIG project with a kilometre of deck from end to end - a single view from the bridge but really hard to steer and navigate through changing seas.
From a practical view the outcome-focussed approach of PRINCE2 is like driving a well-proportioned and well-specified vehicle - adequate controls, a range of choices to be made and a governance structure that encourages review of the journey and adjustment of the plan to meet the changing circumstances that we find ourselves in.
A few extra passengers; we can adjust the seating. Need to go faster; we can adjust the rate and look at the fuel consumption. By breaking the journey down into stages we can re-configure, change drivers and refuel as needed.
The product-based approach is applicable to most, if not all, project journeys. It helps to make each step a more confident one by giving the team a measure of what success for that step looks like. It makes it easy to hand over packages of work that are interlinked.
It could be said that the PRINCE2-based project is really like driving a car...
The rules of the road are set by the project board - Speed of the project, what turns can be made and what resources can be consumed. The project board are the 'law-makers' and take the decisions of interpretation when one of the project 'bye-laws' appears to be being threatened or broken. Theirs is the business case, the power and authority. The Project Director can be in place as a friendly traffic cop and the project manager resources the drivers (the project team) and interprets the maps and way-points.
PRINCE2 is one approach to managing projects; scalable, applicable to most situations and very highly recommended.
engagedprojects is happy to recommend and use PRINCE2 in the delivery of projects...