Combining APM, PMI and PRINCE2 into a Holistic Approach to Project Management?

BY PAUL NAYBOUR
Source: http://www.arraspeople.co.uk/camel-blog/projectmanagement/combining-apm-pmi-and-prince2-into-a-holistic-approach-to-project-management/

In this article we will discuss the pros and cons of APM, PMI and PRINCE2 for individuals and organisations wishing to develop competence in project management and how they can be combined into a common approach which delivers a holistic approach giving organisations who deliver project for clients a real competitive edge and a more effective approach to project management.

Project managers have a wide range of choice for project management trainingincluding certification and non certification courses. In the certification arena that have choice between
1. PMP qualification from the USA based Project Management Institute (PMI)
2. PRINCE2 which is the project management method sponsored by the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC)
3. Qualifications from the International Project Management Association (IPMA), which vary from country to country but are represented in the UK by qualifications from the Association for Project Management.

A range of other project related qualifications exist targeted at the needs of specific sectors, such as ITIL.
As an alternative many organisations develop their own bespoke training programmes which are targeted at the specific needs within that organisation. Often these are supplemented by top up certification courses.

APM	PMI	PRINCE2
Advantages A range of qualifications from introductory to advanced project management. A pragmatic approach to project management based on a published Body of Knowledge. Competences include leadership and management of teams. Very strong within certain sectors in the UK including defence, infrastructure, telecoms. Links to professional development.	Advantages Most widely recognised global project management qualification. Computer based test can be administered from anywhere in the world. Detailed comprehensive body of knowledge (PMBoK) available in many languages. Requirement for experience and formal training add value to qualification. Formal requirement for CPD to maintain certification.	Advantages Most widely recognised project management in the UK. Increasing value in the international market. Clear and simple step by step process to follow. Detailed and comprehensive PRINCE2 manual. Need for ongoing certification to maintain credibility
Disadvantages Only recognised strongly in the UK and other parts of the commonwealth. Examinations and certification are not computer based making logistic more difficult outside the UK. Body of knowledge lacks the detail in the PMBoK and PRINCE2 manual	Disadvantages Not widely recognised in the UK. Highest level of qualification in the PMP with no options for further development beyond this knowledge level. Need to learn the PMBoK way for working which may not reflect practice in your organisation.	Disadvantages Method only works in a PRINCE2 environment. It can be hard to apply PRINCE2 to general project management. Excludes the important area of people leadership and management. Only strongly recognised in the UK

Looking to the future it would be good to see these different standards combined into one common approach. Parallel Project Training recently did this for one of its international programme management consultancy clients with offices around the world. It can be relatively easily done, especially since the release of the new 2009 PRINCE2 manual.
Combining the best of all three approaches into one common method?

It is relatively simple to produce a combined method that meets the requirements of all three approaches. A detailed analysis of the APM and PMI BoKs reveals that they have much in common. The high level nature of the APM Bok is helpful here because its knowledge areas are very similar to the PMI BoK. The fourth edition of the PMI BoK increased this similarity because many of the changes brought it is much closer to the APM BoK in the areas such as risk management.

PRINCE2 is slightly more difficult to integrate, because it has a much wider definition or project management and views the project from the perspective of a client organisation. It is much more concerned with the formulation and management of the project business case, governance structures and interface to the users in client business to ensure the benefits are realised. This is understandable because of its roots in national government. It pays less attention to the mechanisms for the delivery of the project.

The PMI Bok however views the project as more of a delivery process for the scope defined on the project charter. It pays less attention to the processes used to formulate the project charter in the first place and the governance of the project by the client. PRINCE2 is however very weak on the delivery mechanisms such as resource planning
However these two approached (PRINCE2 and PMBoK) form a useful complement, with PRINCE2 clearly describing the processes for the formulation, governance and control of the project charter (project brief) and business case. The PMBoK described in more detail the processes to turn the project charter (project brief) into deliverables. By the way the APM BoK covers both these processes although at a high level.

Any multinational organisation that can demonstrate compliance to all three of the major international standard for project management has both a real competitive edge but also a more holistic approach and effective approach to project management. For more information contact Parallel Project Training.

 

5 Key Components of a Project That You Need to Get Right

By Michelle Symonds

There are many factors that contribute to the final outcome of a project, whether it is large or small, simple or complex. But just a few of these factors will determine the ultimate success of your project.

Projects come in all shapes and sizes such as straightforward improvements to products or operations procedures through to new product research or major software development. But the key components that contribute to the success of a project are the same no matter how simple or complex the project is and whether it is being run in a small organization without any formal project framework or in a large organization as part of a well-established framework in an ongoing program of projects and with the support of a project office.

The most important factors that will contribute to a project being completed successfully can be broadly broken down into the following 5 areas:

What’s the Profile of a Good Project Manager?

By Ben Snyder, CEO of Systemation

Management often wishes they had a very clear mechanism for identifying candidates who will turn out to be better than average project managers. They know that having to rely on their gut works fairly well but still feel there must be a better way to evaluate candidates in order to succeed more often.

For over a decade, we evaluated projects managers using our comprehensive project manager assessment. The overwhelming majority of the project managers assessed were part of a larger training and coaching program, where one of our coaches mentored each project manager for two hours, every other week, for six months. Because of this, we became intimately aware of the project manager’s strengths and weaknesses in performance and was able to reflect back on the assessment results and draw specific conclusions.

Before we discuss these findings, you first need to know some background information. The assessment has three distinct categories: knowledge, skills, and aptitudes. The knowledge portion identifies through multiple choice questions the amount of PMBOK knowledge the project manager comprehends. The skills component targets the softer skills and assesses them using a 360 degree tool. Lastly, the aptitudes evaluate the core characteristics of the individual project manager through a battery of psychological tests. In advance, it was clear that the knowledge and skills categories would improve over the course of the program but aptitudes were core to the individual and not easily changeable without a major environmental change and five to ten years of time. Given that, we are not sure what trends would develop in the years to come related to aptitudes and the ultimate profile for a good project manager.

Many assessments later the profile for a good project manager looks like this:

The Fallacy of Planning

By Jerry Bishop

The Fallacy of Planning says we are terrible at planning how long something will take and how much it will cost. Restated another way, the planning fallacy is people’s tendency to underestimate what it will take to get something done. The phenomenon of the planning fallacy ought not be a big surprise to any CIO or project management professional given the attention it has received over the years. What may be a surprise though is the pervasiveness of the fallacy of planning in our organizations and the cumulative impact it has on IT and the CIO’s reputation for delivering results.

The fallacy of planning is just one of the many forms of cognitive bias that affect decision-making in every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Cognitive bias is when a persons’ judgment is affected by a lack of metal abilities or from the misapplication of one. Most often this is a decision-making shortcut resulting from insufficient information, social pressure, or personal motivations. Cognitive bias is a very powerful form of irrationality, where people act in opposition to what is expected under the rationale choice theory which requires consideration in every risk management plan.

Cognitive bias includes innumeracy which is a particular form of irrationality related to a person’s fundamental inability to conduct basic reasoning with numbers. It is a form of mathematics illiteracy often manifesting itself when dealing with really large (and small) numbers, probabilities, estimating, and even basic arithmetic.

What makes innumeracy so insidious is how pervasive it is in adults including highly educated professionals and how much we tolerate it because “math is hard”. Just consider the knit picking and tirades you have been witness to over innocent spelling or grammatical errors, yet hardly a peep when a gross error occurs in someone’s math or misapplication of statistics.

Measuring ROI on Project Management / Project Controls

For years the question has been, “How do organizations justify implementing or utilizing PM / PC?” To put this question to the test, Integrated Consulting conducted a year-long study analyzing over fifty (50) projects. In addition, interviews were completed with over 100 Project Managers, Project Controls Managers, and Engineers who were involved with projects in Upstream, Downstream, Midstream Oil and Gas, and Power sectors.

Return on investment (ROI) is imperative when capitalizing in Project Management/Project Controls best practices. Understanding what ROI is and how to measure the results is a good practice to ensure that your PM/PC process is properly supporting your projects and organization. At the same time, senior managers are demanding that the investment in PM tools, systems, and practices, be measured and justified. Because every industry is requiring employees to manage multiple projects with competing priorities, critical deadlines, and unexpected interruptions, organizations have responded by investing large amounts of time and money to improve or implement PM.

It was identified that successful projects have the following in their organizational structure and Project Life Cycles (PLC):

• Highly trained and qualified staff (with real project experience in the lead role at a minimum)
• Well defined roles and responsibilities
• Risk Management and Analysis to determine project contingencies
• Contingency and Change Management Policies followed and updated
• Project Peer and Constructability Reviews
• Estimate Classifications and Validations throughout the PLC
• Logically tied and updated schedules (utilizing EVM in Construction stages) throughout the PLC
• Executive level “buy-in” and support
• Client or 3rd party non bias project controls support
• Benchmarking PM/PC to establish historical data

It was discovered that projects which had the above PM processes (in plan and followed) inside their PLC, saw their projects completed (on an average) +/- 5% of the target schedule and budget for the current stage. Projects that did not properly utilize effective PM/PC (listed above) processes completed their project anywhere from +10 to +50% over their project budgets and target schedules.

Also noted, the projects totaled a savings of +$250MM USD (with PM/PC) compared to a total loss of $655MM USD (without or limited use of PM/PC). By comparing similar projects and impacts, we concluded that having PM/PC support and processes in place allow you to minimize your effects on an individual average basis of 65%. This savings was largely due to effective project management and controls, which gave the project teams the ability to identify issues early enough to minimize impacts.

In conclusion, we found the answer to the question, “How do organizations justify implementing or utilizing PM / PC?” Companies have to be straight forward and quantifiable. To have an increased probability of project success, firms should have some level of PM/PC in place and followed.

via Measuring ROI on Project Management / Project Controls | Integratedconsulting’s Blog.