Delivering successful projects is increasingly becoming a daunting task for most of the organisations that work on projects that deliver strategic, business and operational outcomes.
Today there are many project management practices in use by project managers depending on the industry, organisation and its culture, in order to deliver project successfully.
‘PRINCE2 is claimed to be a rapidly growing project management practice used internationally and specially in the UK Government sector, to manage projects regardless of its type and size.’ (PRINCE2.com)
Task 01 (60 Marks)
Select an organisation that has a implemented a successful Project Management Methodology and critically evaluate the process related to the following areas of Project Management:
Your answer should explain the practices, tools and techniques used and should be elaborated with suitable and relevant sample artefacts.
Task 02 (40 Marks)
Critically evaluate the PRINCE2 methodology against Waterfall and Agile methodologies and assess its suitability in using to manage and successfully deliver projects in Sri Lanka.
The case study selected for the task is Portbase. This case has been selected for the reason that this is a very huge project, which has been built and developed based on the traditional Waterfall project management methodologies. The project has been working for longer period of time and has been experiencing various stages of positive and negative. Eventually, the management and administration has decided to transition the methodology to a new one, which has more Agility.
The Portbase is a natural and reliable hub that is located through the Dutch ports for the logistic information necessary. It is the port-transcending Port Community System that has been developed to benefit the companies with many services that are intelligent for exchange of information between both the public and private sectors as also the companies. The project allows the optimization of the logistic processes by the participants, for the competitive position to be improved (Bannink, 2012). The non-profit organization works as non-profit organization and also serves for the port community.
Portbase has been serving over 10,000 end users in over 2300 companies, through over the services of about 42. The project has been facing many challenges with the Waterfall methods, with which it has been operating. The Portbase project is developed with the methodology called Waterfall.
There are many challenges that have been faced by the organization, from the Waterfall methodology. The waterfall method has been a viable project management methodology, when the project was developed initially. At the point of time, this methodology was considered as a standard methodology and eventually, the same methodology had been selected. However, in the later stages, the problems and challenges associated with the methodologies have been discovered. Though Waterfall methodology is completed structure methodology, certain challenges have been resulting and it even demanded to transition the project towards the Agile management methodology (Bannink, 2012).
The following are the challenges of the project, being used by the Waterfall project management methodologies.
The project has gone through many issues, in terms of time management. The reason is that the Waterfall method has the process, in such a way that the final product or outcome can be checked only at the end of the project. If there are any errors or missing of the features and any incompleteness, the process has to be started overall again. Eventually, the overall design and development tasks would be delayed and consume a lot of time.
When the entire process has to be repeated, the overall budget or cost of the project has also been increasing to an extent that there will be no surprise if the budget is doubled or even more that.
Challenges of delayed design
Since, the entire process is completely structured, where each and every process is to be executed only one after the other, the process of design has taken the time, than the expected time. It is because of the major flaw associated with the methodology (Hajjdiab, et al., 2012). The result, which is the outcome after the ending stages of the process, may or may not meet the expectations or the objectives defined, at the time of commencement of the project. At that point of time, the result may need to modify, as there may be new developments or there may be new challenges that could be discovered, as the time goes on.
The Waterfall methodology does not give any opportunity for the project manager or the team of the project to assess the quantity and quality of the result of the outcome, during the design and development of the product. If the challenges and developments are discovered after testing of the product at the end of the methodology, it would be disappointing for the team of the project. When the deviations are minor, the customer or sponsor may get compromised with the unsatisfied product. However, if the deviation is long and does not give the result as expected and does not fulfil the object of the project, it is definitely going to make a tedious challenge for the project team. Eventually, the correction and development of the objective of the product is going to take, almost double the time and duration of the project. If the final product after the development during the repetition of the product, it has been taking more than double the time of the project. Doubling the time or even more would make the resources to be wasted and it will have a definite and huge impact over the budget and resource allocation for the project.
The project is huge and involves thousands of customers from hundreds of companies. The risk management involves anticipation or prediction of the possible risks, associated with the hub. The risks are more of physical and eventually, they do have influence over the health and welfare of the employees, resulting in massive losses to the company and eventually over the reputation of the company.
Poor communication, between the control of perception and phases
Another major problem associated with the Portbase project development is the hierarchy and the level of communication among various levels of the management. The middle and upper level managements follow the approach of the command and control, would give least powers and privileges to the team of development of the product. It eventually, gives a lot of pressure ot the team of the project and they have not been able to take any decisions independently, even though there is a minor change proposed (Hajjdiab, et al., 2012). The protocol is completely designed and developed by only the management and the workforce or the team of the project would be left with the only option of following the commands.
This kind of command and control approach involved in the Waterfall management methodology, would primarily effect the communication between the management and the members of the team. The communication here is made almost from one way, rather than two ways (Mahalakshmi & Sundararajan, 2013).
The Portbase project eventually, has taken a decision to transition the project management methodology from Waterfall to the new and modern methodologies that have been proven working better (Mahalakshmi & Sundararajan, 2013).
PRINCE2 Project Management Methodology
PRICE2 is an acronym for the projects IN Controlled Environments and is developed in the UK. The methodology consists of six variables, timescales, risk, quality, benefits and scope. The methodologies include the focus and approach on stakeholder involvement, control through review, and business involvement right from the initiation till the end of the project with continuous and consistent improvement (Reid & Amy, 2013). The design of PRINCE2 roles is very specific in design that includes customers, management, suppliers and other stakeholders.
There is a perception in the project management methodologies that PRINCE2 is based on the approach of the traditional waterfall, where the waterfall approach was considered to be a good and standard for the project and software development. In the same way, Agile approach is also a relevant approach to PRINCE2. So, eventually, a new approach called PRINCE2 Agile has been developed, as an extension to PRINCE2. It is an indication of the modernization of the PRINCE2, which is variant deviation from the waterfall method. In a nutshell, PRINCE2 had been synonymous to Waterfall method and now has been associating and integrating with the Agile method, because of its flexibility and application that suits to the modern complex business project management.
PRINCE2 is more about associating with the process. It is more of a linear structure that starts from the starting up a project, initiating project, managing the delivery of project, having the necessary stage boundaries and finally closing the project towards handing the business for its operations.
Figure: PRINCE2 Project Management Methodology
Source: Zen Ex Machine 2013
According to the expert and the project management body opinion, this process is more describes more of the waterfall approach to the execution of the project. This perception is because of the following factors.
Waterfall method is usually assumed to be suitable for the larger projects to manage and develop. And it is not quite suitable for the smaller projects. When it comes to the Agile method, it is suitable for more of small size projects, instead of the larger projects. PRINCE2, has built the perception that this methodology is more suitable for the larger projects and inappropriate for the smaller projects (Reid & Amy, 2013), is suitable for small projects too. It is because of the perception that the smaller projects would be inappropriate, as the methodology needs longer process in the development of the logs, lists, registers and documents. However, according to the OGC (Office for Government Commerce) in the UK, THE PRINCE2 processes can be tailored and more importantly can be scalable to implement for smaller to larger projects, so that it can be made suitable for various unique requirements and projects in various environment.
With no tailoring of the processes, which are needed for the project to adapt quickly for varied environments, needs of the user, business and systems, the project will become bogged down in reporting, red tape, committee meeting and approval processes that are lengthy, which would paralyse instead, than enabling the projects quickly to act to move towards the direction of change. Such difficulty could enable to adapt to change would ultimately stands as a primary reason for the failure of the Waterfall methodology. The same reason, the project management methodology, PRINCE2 is enabled to be implemented in UK, UK and in Sri Lanka.
Figure: Waterfall and Agile Project successes and failures
Combining Prince2 And Agile
PRINCE2 can be made flexible and scalable based on the application of the project management methodology, PRINCE2. This is the characteristic, which is close to Agile, which is flexible and iterative process. So, integration of the PRINCE2 and Agile is considered to be more effective.
The key considered for unlocking the PRINCE2 methodology with the Agile is towards using it in the stage of the Management Product Delivery (Reid & Amy, 2013). Agile processes help the project team to focus intensively, over the delivery of each of the Sprint that would coincide the requirements of management reporting of PRINCE2 and committee meeting cycles of the project.
Here, the opportunities and potentials that would render better outcomes and results, from the integration of the PRINCE2 and Agile to some extent.
The PRINCE2, as opposed to the perception of application to only larger projects, it can be utilized to a better extent, to move towards the Agile, from the inherent similarities of the Waterfall methodology (Reid & Amy, 2013).
References:
Bannink, S, Challenges in the Transition from Waterfall to Scrum – A Casestudy at Portbase, University of Twente.
Friis, D., Ostergaard, J. & Sutherland, J. 2011 “Virtual Reality Meets Scrum: How a Senior Team Moved from Management to Leadership”. In Proceedings of the 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)
Guidelines for Managing Projects (fully consistent with PRINCE2) from the UK Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR)
Hajjdiab, H., Taleb, A. S. & Ali, J 2012, “An Industrial Case Study for Scrum Adoption”. Journal of Software
Karhatsu, H., Ikonen, M., Kettunen, P., Fagerholm, F. & Abrahamsson, P 2010, “Building blocks for self-organizing software development teams a framework model and empirical pilot study”. In Proceedings of the 2010 2nd International Conference on Software Technology and Engineering (ICSTE)
Mahalakshmi, M. & Sundararajan, D. 2013, “Traditional SDLC Vs Scrum Methodology–A Comparative Study”. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Marchenko, A. & Abrahamsson, P 2008, “Scrum in a Multiproject Environment: An Ethnographically- Inspired Case Study on the Adoption Challenges”. In Proceedings of the Agile, 2008. AGILE ’08. Conference.
OGC (Office of Government Commerce), 2009, Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2(2009 ed.). TSO (The Stationery Office)
Overhage, S., Schlauderer, S., Birkmeier, D. & Miller, J. 2011, “What Makes IT Personnel Adopt Scrum? A Framework of Drivers and Inhibitors to Developer Acceptance”. In Proceedings of the 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)
Reid, Amy, 2013 “Capita acquires majority stake in ITIL and PRINCE2”. Association for project management. International project management association
Sumrell, M. 2007, “From waterfall to agile-how does a QA team transition?” In Proceedings of the Agile Conference (AGILE), IEEE
Winston, R 1970, Managing the development of large software systems. IEEE WESCON
Zen Ex Machine, 2013, PRINCE2 Processes Vs. Agile Development Methodologies, viewed 19 July 2016, <https://zenexmachina.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/prince2-processes-vs-agile-development-methodologies/>f
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