Project Management Guide Copyright 2005 Lindsay Sherwin |  |
Lindsay Sherwin Tel: 01491 577079 e-mail: FredSherwin@lindsay-sherwin.co.uk | |
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)Well perhaps not frequently asked but certainly occasionally asked. These are a set of questions that people have asked, mainly about applying the project management approach to their normal work situation. We have tried to give what we feel are "best practice" answers but cannot pretend that our answers are definitive.
What is PRINCE2?PRINCE stands for Projects in Controlled Environments. It is a project management method covering the organisation, management and control of projects. It was first developed by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) in 1989 as a UK Government standard for IT project management.
PRINCE2 follows the same generic principles that we have covered in our descriptions but tends to be much more prescriptive and bureaucratic. PRINCE2 tends to be heavy on documentation. See the list of documents and team roles below taken from the PRINCE2 manual "Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2". PRINCE2 has been promoted by the Office of Government Commerce as a general project management system suitable for all projects including policy and service delivery. In practice, the vast majority of the applications of PRINCE2 still are in the IT arena for which it was originally developed. It is used also in private sector IT projects but in many other areas each major industry sector (e.g. petrochemicals, construction, aerospace) has developed their own approaches to suit their own issues. Our own experience is that PRINCE2 is too rigid and bureaucratic for government policy and service delivery projects. For those that wish to know more, information is available from the Office of Government Commerce web site at www.ogc.gov.uk or the Association for Project Managers at www.prince2.org.uk. Appendix A: Product Description Outlines
Appendix B: Project Management Team Roles
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