Way back in 2001, I ran the first PRINCE2 course in South Africa. I still remember those first eight candidates who wrote and passed the tough essay style practitioner exam, thanks more to their pioneering enthusiasm than my recently acquired accredited trainer status.
The group included the first African to achieve PRINCE2 practitioner status, and is now the CEO of an international software company. Another delegate went on to become the CIO of a large financial corporate. An indication of the usefulness of a well-applied project management skill?
Even in that first course, the question of bureaucracy in project management came up, as it still does. So let's evaluate how to find the balance between bureaucracy and agility in a PRINCE2 driven project.
Bureaucracy will probably be driven by groups or individuals who will be rigidly devoted to the details of administration, procedures and physical documents.
The agile team will be looking to do the right things and in the best way possible, sticking to those principles that define their boundaries while allowing them to adapt to changing situations.
I'm not referring to 'agile' as defined in the 2001 Agile Manifesto for system development, but rather to a broader definition for all situations of change, where our agility allows for a common sense and real-world approach to project management that facilitates teamwork, self-organisation, and leadership. Possibly the type of spontaneous organisation you see on the playground.
Project managers seldom make their own projects bureaucratic; this is done by an official or project office with insufficient experience and skill, often “group thinking” the PRINCE2 method into an unusable state, replacing best practice with experimental, poorly conceived pet ideas, even re-imposing the rubbish left behind by predecessors.
PRINCE2 becomes the victim, described as “template driven” and a “process minefield”. Yet it is neither template nor process driven. It is, in fact, decision driven.
If tailored competently, the PRINCE2 method will ensure that the right amount of appropriate management information will be generated in a controlled manner, to ensure that for decisions to continue, change or stop the project can be made at the right time and with confidence.
PRINCE2 has seven principles that should be applied to all projects. One of them is: “Learn from experience”. You will have to get the others from the 2009 manual.
Learn from experience. Isn't it amazing that those who instil or complain about unwanted bureaucracy do nothing about it the next time round? Surly by now we should be starting to get the hang of continuous quality improvement. Of course, this must be quality of deliverables and of our project management, including how well we tailor each and every project.
There is a dedicated chapter in the newly released 2009 manual that gives excellent guidance on tailoring each of your PRINCE2 projects, and in particular, reminds you to adjust each project against your organisation's predefined tailoring rules. After all, each project is different in terms of factors like size, cost, constituent base, risk, and client impact, etc. It is these predefined tailoring rules plus the project's specific factors that dictate whether a project is going to be “bureaucratic”, or “agile”.
Either way, if well tailored, then each of your projects will have the appropriate governance in place to reduce risk, improve decision-making, realise benefits and achieve overall success. And don't forget the contribution to senior management's corporate governance responsibilities!
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