•Organization: how to distribute roles and responsibilities among project team members in order to manage the project effectively?
•Quality: what are the requirements and criteria for quality and how to provide them?
•Plans: the steps required to develop the plan, and the PRINCE2 tools to use.
•Risk: how will the project management solve the problem of uncertain events in the project plan and in the external environment?
•Change: how will the project management evaluate and respond to the impact of unforeseen tasks and changes?
•Progress: feasibility of the project, the implementation of plans and further development of the project.
The 7 Processes
Finally, PRINCE2 involves the following seven project management processes:
• Starting Up a Project (SU)
• Directing a Project (DP)
• Initiating a Project (IP)
• Controlling a Stage (CS)
• Managing Product Delivery (MP)
• Managing Stage Boundaries (SB)
• Closing a Project (CP).
PRINCE2 allows standardizing project management procedures, improving coordination of activities, and helps understand how to plan a project and monitor its implementation, what should be done if a project plan is not executed. However, PRINCE2 methodology is not the best choice for small-scale projects or for projects with a greater of likelihood of changes in the scope of work and requirements for them.
PRINCE2 strengths are:
• Adaptability to the organizational features;
• Having a clear description of roles and responsibilities;
• Focus on project products;
• Certain management levels;
• Focus on economic feasibility;
• The sequence of project work;
• Focus on experience fixing and continuous improvement.
PRINCE2 weaknesses are lack or absence of industry practices and specific work tools.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE (PMI)
General provisions
This methodology represents Process-Based Project Management (PBPM) and is based on the methodology of the traditional, classical approach to project management. The most obvious way to make a project more manageable is to break its execution into consecutive stages. Traditional project management is based on this linear structure. All processes in the PMBooK manual are divided into the following groups (phases):
Initiating
At this stage, meetings and brainstorming sessions are often held to determine what the project product should be. In some ways, the most important part of the project is the beginning. This stage gives clear understanding whether the project is well developed and can be terminated within the deadlines set by the top management and within the budget, or it has no prospects and is doomed to failure from the very beginning. This part of the project is not a place for rash promises to win. It is rather a time for a rational and creative approach to formulate initial project requirements in order to avoid dead ends. One should remember that once the project goal is set, leadership would expect you to achieve it. Initiating consists of processes that facilitate the formal authorization of a new project start.
• Develop Project Charter
• Identity Stakeholders
Planning
Defines and clarifies goals and action plans required to achieve the objectives and content of the project. Planning is the definition of clear and precise tasks, and as a result of assignments that serve to achieve the ultimate goal. The goal may be a solution to a problem or the attainment of a state or condition different from the existing one. At this stage, the team decides how they will achieve the goal set at the previous stage. At this stage, the team clarifies and details the goals and project results, as well as the scope of work needed. This information is used to make a calendar plan and estimate the budget, assess the risks and identify the stakeholders. Project planning may require a significant investment of time, effort and resources, depending on its size. As practice shows that efforts and resources can be wasted if you do not plan properly for a specific project before deciding whether to implement it or not.
Project organization is a primary project management task. A project owner, a person or group authorizes to make decisions, should be defined, a project manager should be appointed and a project team should be formed, project managing and interacting procedure should be determined, and the relevant powers to the project manager and project team should be highlighted. Project management beyond the functional boundaries of the organization is one of the project manager’s tasks. He/she has to communicate, generate ideas, negotiate, solve problems and resolve conflicts outside the functional and sometimes geographical boundaries of the organization. Setting a task, justifying the need for a project and describing its capabilities allow formulating the goal of the project. Such a formulation can be very brief, but it should be precise. Setting project objectives is important for two reasons:
• The task clearly defines what needs to be done to achieve the goals;
• A task is an event with determinable deadline.
The “SMART” method helps formulate the project goals and objectives as:
• Specific – be accurate when setting goals;
• Measurable – Set measurable status indicators;
• Assignable – be able to assign a task to someone;
• Realistic – Determine whether the project can actually be terminated duly and within allocated resources;
• Time related – determine the timeframe, i.e. the duration of project implementation.
To achieve this goal, one should perform several basic project tasks. These tasks are private goals and the main project components (sometimes the term “milestone” is used). Individual goals are not actual assignments within the project, but are checkpoints setting the direction of work. They are more precisely formulated than the main goal and action oriented. To achieve the main goal requires realizing all private goals. The allocation of resources for the project implies that money is not the only resource required. The main resources are:
• Financial resources (direct funds required for project implementation and project management);
• Human resources (who, when, how and how long is involved in the project);
• Material resources (available, required, and so on);
• Administrative resources (authorities, organization).
Besides, this list of required resources may include changes in the company’s organizational structure, office space (for large projects), and so on. The practice shows that two most likely scenarios for resource allocation can be identified as follows:
• The project manager determines the necessary resources based on a preliminary plan, which provides an initial estimate of the amount of resources required for the project. The project manager will be able to formulate resource requirements and discuss them with the authorized manager. This scenario is the most preferable one.
• Required resources are assigned without involving the project manager. The project manager usually may not have a choice, regardless of whether sufficient resources are allocated to the project, or not. One should not be misled by the leadership and agree to the level of support, which is clearly insufficient for the project implementation. Caution and common sense should be decisive at this early stage.
The document containing the project review is compiled, analyzed by experts, and then submitted to the organization’s leadership. The next important aspect of project management is the process of splitting a project into parts, resulted in a work breakdown. A work breakdown is a hierarchical representation of a project. It helps the project manager determine the tasks to be done in order to start and finish the project. At this stage, the manager has a goal and a number of tasks that must be expressed through the tasks and work to be performed. A well-defined assignment has the following features: