Everyone is a project manager right? If you are reading this I will take the assumption that you have an interest in project management, that being true I will take the following distinction that you have a conscious or subconscious ability to identify, interpret and understand the real meaning behind the words people say. All ‘good’ managers of people have fundamental rapport building, intuition and body language understanding to aid any understanding of the current situations, opinions and possible options. Even if you have not studied these specifically in the past you understand the unconscious knowledge of these skills helping you in your Project Management direction.

You will have also previously found yourself in situations where project management methodology on any particular project has been brought up in conversation. Imagine the situation; you sit down to a meeting where a new project is put on the table. You have your corporate methodology or no methodology at all and the conversation spins from constructive to idea pushing. Comments start arising like “we could go agile”, “we don’t need all this documentation” and “lets do it like this”. You kindly step in and say “These are all good idea’s, but you all must remember that we are using the prince2 methodology”

This is where your PM intuition kicks in. All of the responses around the room seem to agree and voice compliance with this, but every single eye roll, crossed arms and nervous twitch gives you one clear message.

“Project Management Methodologies – get in the way of project progression and diversity not aid it. It is the treacle not the oil on the wheels”

Behold the Superhero of Project Management – Prince2-Man!

OK, so I could have spent more effort on the Prince2 superhero title (I’m sure you will have a better one) but this character is here, he is lurking outside your board room waiting for the magical call sign “Project Management Methodologies”. So what’s the big deal? You cant have too much Project Management right? Wrong!

If you want to keep your upper management happy then you can tell them that Prince2-Man will make 100% sure, golden guarantee that all projects will be successful, no time slippage, no scope creep but the best most successful project you will have ever seen. Now try telling the same upper management how much it will cost, how much more time and how much more bureaucracy is needed to maintain such success from start-up to realisation and they will probably pull a very weak smile and confidently inform you that “they will look into it”

The role of Prince2-man is there to help, he does not! Mr Prince2-man is dressed in a familiar golden cape with prince2 purple highlights (maybe even wearing his dad’s pants on the outside) He is bursting with enthusiasm of the knowledge he has recently discovered from his Prince2 course and will inject 100% of the methodology into every project he touches, like Midas with gold Prince2-Man infuses abundant and unnecessary paperwork into every project he touches. Don’t blame him though it is not his fault.

Prince2 Tailoring – the finest cut of projects

Tailoring, in the eyes of so many project and programme mangers, is the key to it all. When you boil it all down and find the roots of successful projects, project teams and project managers. You will find at the heart of it (among crucial other things) Project Management Methodology Tailoring. Sounds like a holy grail right? Well before you go off booking the next course in this holy grail of courses, let me tell you one thing – you don’t have to (and I’m pretty sure you cant). I hate to break it to you but Prince2 Tailoring is very simple.

In the words of prince2, The purpose of tailoring is to:

• Ensure the project management method relates to the project environment (e.g. aligning the method to the business process that may govern and support the project such as human resources, finance and procurement)
• Ensure that project controls are based on the projects scale, complexity, importance, capability and risk (e.g. the reporting and reviewing frequency and formality)

What does this mean?

Well like I said its simple, using your own judgement each project’s management documentation and process can be ‘tailored’ to aid the progress of each project. Its very simple really, if you are looking at a £50k website build that has a duration of 8 weeks for example, it may be unnecessary to document each week as a stage boundary and a new stage plan generated in due course, it may be unnecessary to write a full detailed PID detailing each and every part of the project and every possible risk regardless of its likelihood. Tailoring, in a nutshell, allows a project manager to record all of the required parts of the Prince2 methodology (in his or her own way – e-mail, attachment to plans etc) depending on the individual needs of the project. Well why not? We all know that each project is unique in its own right yes?

Why am I writing about this you ask? Well you are looking at someone who has previously worn the Prince2 outfit and while I though that all of my enthusiasm and strict adherence to the Prince2 methodology was helping I was unaware of the stress, time and rolling eyes that all the extra documentation was causing. I’m highlighting my ‘lessons learned’ so that they are not forgotten in the abyss of ‘lessons identified and seemingly lost’.

Project Management Reality!

Like the title suggests, ‘PM reality’ is not about strict adherence to the methods that you use, Prince2, APMP, ITIL or any other (and there are many) but its all about tailoring each project management method to the needs of the project. Find a balance that will satisfy both the success of the project and the sanity and stress of the people working on it. short summary huh? well its that easy – believe me there are lots of posts, books and article that go into it in much more detail. In my eyes, why bother, it really is that easy. Your an intelligent, proactive and driven person, you understand these things!