Prince2 and its relevance for iMedia now

Who would believe that it’s more than 25 years since Prince2 started making an impact on project management. Its original success, arising out of a commitment to train project managers from the IT sector, has helped turn project management into a recognised profession. That’s what we owe it. And, it recognises that as the project environment changes, its practices need to adapt. The present lot of project managers have more access to technology through social media as well as conventional media and they are deploying these to communicate with their global teams, stakeholders and management. This is a far cry from 25 years ago. This implies recognition of the expansion of the team, the cultural differences, the importance of managing stakeholders and communication with management. The role of project manager has changed with the times and now encompasses more upper management and business strategy, as well as the day-to-day projects.

Prince2.com celebrated its 25th birthday on 15th August 2013 with a review of Project Management: Past, Present and Future, by James Hancock. He recognises the changes that technology has brought for the profession and that Project Managers utilise more technology now. But, just like the book, Project Management circa 2025 (2009) edited by David Cleland and Bopaya Bidanda, they all seem to miss out the role of project managers with digital (iMedia ) projects. The chapters in this book address the financial services sector, space exploration, Pacific, European, Indian and Arabic geographical areas, and give attention to the changing role for team management, competencies for project managers, and the impact of cultural and social issues.

No consideration is given to the developers of digital pathways that lead to the changes in the general project management role. Maybe this is because general project management is all about controlling risk factors in the general projects while digital project managers are risk takers themselves by the nature of the type of projects they manage. They still try to control as many risks as possible but when you are pushing the envelope there’s no safety net! General project managers would struggle with the black holes faced by digital project managers. They work from being able to predict the likelihood of risk from previous experience that has been codified from other projects. As an analogy if you have built one house, although there will be variations, a second house has many of the same processes. But digital project management can be like designing new bricks as you build the house. Fundamentals are different and unknown. Now this gives an edge to digital project management that will affect the competencies needed as well as the management skills.

What would you look for in a digital project manager? Maybe you’d agree with Access’s definition of, The Top 10 Skills You Need to be a Super Digital Project Manager – but maybe not as the role spans such a wide set of skills depending on the digital sector. It’ll make you think though, and the first three words, ‘Dark art, witchcraft, science’, are far removed from a traditional project management role and reflect the differences I have been trying to highlight.

The applicability of Prince2 to iMedia is something I've thought long and hard about. You can read more in a white paper on the ATSF web site.

This discussion in no way undermines the strengths of using Prince2 methods and processes. It is versatile enough to employ as needed to fit a project and many digital project managers now have this qualification. All this blog is doing is highlighting some differences in digital project management that can affect Prince2’s use in such projects. Any hints and tips for using Prince2 in digital projects would be fantastic – thanks.

Stakeholder Analysis - don’t forget it’s a continual process

At the scoping stage, you’ve done your initial analysis with the matrices and communication results for all the people who might influence the course of the project. Fantastic. Yes, it does help greatly. But, so many forget that this arrangement is dynamic. Various stakeholders emerge as the most important at different stages of the project. Don’t be caught out. Quite often you just need to flag yourself to ask the dominant stakeholders for a forthcoming phase if they want to be kept informed differently. They’ll appreciate the heads-up and the acknowledgement of their increased status for the phase, while you retain the good will ... and control.

The dynamic nature of stakeholder analysis and communication is neglected at the peril of the project. This factor is not really given the attention it deserves yet, even though stakeholder analysis is cited in many top project management jobs. There are a few who show the wisdom of experience and we should try and learn from them even if they are general project managers rather than digital project managers.
Take for example Omar Muhammad and Abid Mustafa in Managing stakeholders – going beyond conventional wisdom, Project Smart (27 October 2013).

They are experienced in delivering complex projects in the telecommunications industry. This means they are closer to iMedia projects than many. You need to take a view on what they say as to whether your own projects are as complex, but, I’m sure you’ll recognise several of the stakeholder issues they mention.

The first issue they address is the difference between a stakeholder’s motives and expectations. This happens quite frequently. Do you recognise someone blocking progress but you can’t identify who because all the stakeholders appear positive to your face? The article writers warn about different agendas shown in levels of management meetings where you might be excluded. The second issue addressed is ‘Not all stakeholders are equal’, and the writers suggest your team adapts their management style appropriately. The third issue is, revolving alliances. This explains that you become part of a shifting set of alliances between the stakeholders that happens over the course of the project. I reckon the underlying message is, ‘Don’t make enemies’ as you may need the stakeholder’s support in an alliance later!

Finally, Omar and Abid give some hints and tips on ‘picking the right fight’. It’s a shame that they don’t define what ‘acceptable levels of behaviour’ are for stakeholders. But this sounds similar to conflict resolution techniques that we covered in our team management courses. There, you agree boundaries of acceptable behaviour for your team at the beginning of the project that can then be used if a team member becomes so problematic that his/her behaviour is having a negative impact on the project. This is an extension of conflict resolution techniques for stakeholders where you pre-empt difficulties by instituting boundaries of behaviour. Essentially Omar and Abid recommend that you only pick the battles with stakeholders that you can win. Good luck with that!

Otherwise there are some free resources that can help you over specific stakeholder problems. Take a look at free-management – ebooks.com and their range. We’ll focus on the stakeholder one now. The book covers how to identify stakeholders, plan their management, manage their engagement, and control their engagement.

I can imagine that if you are only involved in the short, sharp end of iMedia projects that all this seems unnecessary fuss and a lot of time and effort. Those of you that have to juggle several stakeholders, possibly internationally, will appreciate the insights. Hope they help.