The Secrets Of tailoring PRINCE2

The Secrets Of Tailoring PRINCE2

One of the many reasons for the success of PRINCE2 is its ability to be tailored to suit the context and the environment within which the project is to be delivered.  Applying PRINCE2 has a framework for your project can be done independently of the project scale, its complexity, risk, geography or culture.

Tailoring of a PRINCE2 project is driven by the amount of planning that is required, the amount of control that is required, the government’s that is needed, and the application of the use of the seven PRINCE2 processes and the PRINCE2 themes.

It is important to compare and contrast the use of tailoring verses embedding.  Tailoring involves adapting the PRINCE2 method to suit the context of an individual project, whereas embedding is carried out at organisation level to adopt and adapt PRINCE2 for all of its project endeavours.

PRINCE2 consists of a set of interlocking and holistic framework elements, and therefore should not be seen as just a collection of bits and pieces related to project management that can be picked and mixed at a whim or preference.  The seven processes incorporate the seven themes which draw upon the various techniques to apply in the themes in an appropriate manner, and all of these are used and applied by the project management and a specialist teams.

The watch word here is that PRINCE2 must be tailored as an entity, and if any element of PRINCE2 is arbitrarily discarded, the project will be negatively impacted with an increased risk of failure.

Factors external to the project will determine how PRINCE2 is to be adapted to suit the environment within which the project is to be delivered, and a rule of thumb here is to adapt and adopt PRINCE2 at its minimal level conducive to the size, complexity and risk of the project.

Aspects which will influence and how PRINCE2 is tailored will depend upon environmental and project factors, and these must be used as the drivers to adapt PRINCE2 – ‘lean and mean’ is a good way of thinking here.

Environmental factors.

These could include the importance of the project within the organization, the culture of the organisation, standards that must be met, organisational maturity, etc.  Other examples may include if the project is part of a programme, whether it is an internal or external project, and whether or not third party suppliers are to be used.  Also use of PESTLE can be helpful here.

Project factors.

These could include aspects such as the complexity of the solution, the amount of risk both within the project including the risk appetite of the management team, the level of governance, the maturity and skills set of the team, the approach and life-cycle model that must be applied, etc.

Aspects of tailoring.

The seven PRINCE2 principles must never be tailored as they are the bedrock upon which the method is based.  Instead, these principles must be used as the key drivers to adapt the processes and themes against the back drop of the environmental and project factors.

PRINCE2 processes.

Similarly, all seven of the PRINCE2 processes must be used, but the secret here, is to consider carefully how each of the process activities are to be carried out and who is to be responsible for them.  This is important because roles may have been adapted or shared.  Similarly, management products may also have been adapted and this will have an effect on carrying out the activities within the processes.

PRINCE2 themes.

The environmental and project factors will influence the level of control required and how formal and often such controls are applied during the monitoring, reviewing and reporting of the project.  A key aspect here is to apply a them organizations policies and standards and two documents these within the risk, quality, configuration, and communication management strategies.  Since these documents described the ‘How’ of the project, they will drive how the themes are to be adapted and tailored.

PRINCE2 roles and management products.

PRINCE2 does not dictate the number of individuals involved within a project, rather it describes a Project Management Team set of roles which can be filled by one or more individuals, or shared by a single individual.  Some of the responsibilities laid out for each role may be given to others if the individual filling that role does not have appropriate knowledge, skills, experience, or authority to carry them out.

PRINCE2 describes the set of management products via product descriptions for each, and if a product is to be tailored, then its product description should also be modified.  To ensure that each modified product description remains affective, it must still described the products purpose, its composition and derivation, and its quality criteria.

It may also be appropriate to consider the language and descriptive terms of an organization uses, and considers this when naming products for example.  This may also include combining some of the PRINCE2 management products under a new name.  Again, what is important here, is that each management product retains a clear understanding of its use an application within the project.

PRINCE2 tailoring factors.

There are probably an infinite number of factors against which PRINCE2 may be modified or tailored in some way, but some obvious examples are:

• Projects that form part of a programme
• The business and organisational environment
• The level of complexity of quality assurance and control
• Project planning methods
• The approach and tools used for risk management
• The change control procedure to be used
• The formality and frequency of reviewing and reporting
• The complexity and number of management stages to be used
• The scale of the project
• The level of formality of the project
• The commercial customer and supplier environment
• Processes and procedures to be followed
• The use of multiple organizations
• The lifecycle model to be used
• Evolving projects
• Industry and sector differences
• The project management body of knowledge
• The technical or specialist complexity of the project

For more information CLICK HERE