Process MeNtOR as a Prince2 Implementation
Prince2 is a generic approach to project management (PRINCE stands for Projects in Controlled Environment). Being generic it needs to use generic principles and approaches, which the practitioner then has to translate into specific activities and deliverable structures. Being more specific to Software Projects, Process MeNtOR has taken these generic principles and approaches and implemented them as concrete guidance that is specific to the problem at hand. This reduces the effort the project manager would have to spend on creating templates and procedures for a project.
Example: Setting up Project Controls
Prince 2 has a sub process called: ‘Setting up Project Controls’. Its purpose is described as:
“Establishes control points and reporting arrangements, based upon the project’s size, criticality, risks situation, the customers’ and suppliers’ control standards, and the diversity of stakeholders.”
This is a very good but also very generic principle and it requires the practitioner to develop an approach that fits this principle and is applicable for their project context. Prince2 provides some more detailed guidance:
- Agree the stage breakdown with the project board
- Agree the format of reports to the project board and stakeholders
- Agree the frequency of project board and stakeholder reports
- Establish reporting requirements from team(s) to the project manager
- Check that there are sufficient risk and business case monitoring activities in the plans
To achieve this in a consistent manner requires standards to be defined, documented and agreed to by all parties. Its practioners need to make non-trivial judgements (what is ‘sufficient risk and business case monitoring’?) that require very good project management experience.
The effort for creating this is non-trivial and it makes sense to implement this in an organisation wide standard where the cost of creation can be spread over many projects.
So how does Process MeNtOR address this:
- It provides breakdowns in a number of roadmaps, with each roadmap addressing a typical project situation (Large Software Development, Fasttrack Software development, Software Procurement, etc.) .
- For each stage in a roadmap it defines the deliverables and deliverable content that is appropriate. This includes the reporting requirements.
- For the end of each stage it describes the process and conditions required to pass the control point.
It is important to note that Process MeNtOR uses deliverables and their maturity as its core control mechanism. If mandated deliverables do not meet their review requirements then a stage has not completed – which in turn can trigger what Prince2 calls an exception report.
Conclusion
Process MeNtOR provides a specific implementation of many of Prince2’s generic guidance and principles, including processes, deliverable templates and quality criteria for control points. This specific implementation embodies the project experience of many practitioners that have contributed to Process MeNtOR over a time span of 14+ years. It has been put to test at Object Consulting in many projects and is being regularly reviewed and upgraded.