Happy Friyay the 13th and blog 13! Friday the 13th is synonymous with bad luck and as luck would have it; it’s the opening day of the Premier League. Arsenal will be without their 2 first choice strikers due to illness so, not to be superstitious luck is not on their side this evening. Besides the return of the Premier League this weekend, it has been a huge week in football. This is due to Lionel Messi, one of the greatest players of all time, completing his transfer to PSG from Barcelona on a FREE! I will certainly be tuning into a few more Ligue 1 games this season. This week I got to see Mo the Comedian perform his WIP material ahead of his UK tour on stage.
Happy Friyay the 13th and blog 13! Friday the 13th is synonymous with bad luck and as luck would have it; it’s the opening day of the Premier League. Arsenal will be without their 2 first choice strikers due to illness so, not to be superstitious luck is not on their side this evening. Besides the return of the Premier League this weekend, it has been a huge week in football. This is due to Lionel Messi, one of the greatest players of all time, completing his transfer to PSG from Barcelona on a FREE! I will certainly be tuning into a few more Ligue 1 games this season. This week I got to see Mo the Comedian perform his WIP material ahead of his UK tour on stage.
Principle 5 – Manage by Exception
This is a key principle in Prince 2, project managers are given tolerances for certain aspects of the project:
- Time
- Cost
- Quality
- Scope
- Risk
- Benefit
Tolerances vary project to project, but could be set at ±5% for example. Where the exception element comes in is where an issue or change arises in one of the aspects listed above. If the issue or change is set to exceed that ±5% tolerance the project board should be alerted for guidance, however if is within the tolerance it is at the discretion of the project manager to handle.
The Oakerview Review into HS2 costs show that the Phase One part of the project will exceed near £11.2 billion, over than the cost estimate range of £35-45bn (Q3 2019)1 including contingency. As a result of the project exceeded costs this will have certainly been a case where the project manager would have had to raise this to the project board.
Principle 6 – Focus on Products
Products are also commonly described as Deliverables too, and these are what the project is looking to produce from the project. Time is frequently lost when products are not clearly described so having detailed and well-articulated product descriptions helps guide the project and its stakeholders.
For this blog, a product I had made was the logo. There were a few iterations made before the designer was able to execute the vision I had in mind. To make my product description clearer I sent over a sketch, which led to a marked improvement in the following iteration.
Principle 7 – Tailor to Suit the Project Environment
This principle description as the title says as every project is unique. These differences can come in the project environment, importance, risk, size and capability. The following should be considered when tailoring Prince 2 projects:
- Use of Terms, Jargon and Language
- The 7 Principles
- Prince 2 Themes
- Management Products
- Processes
I caught up with an old colleague this week, and when describing their new project they explained that their colleagues project delivery experience was minimal at the time of starting the project. For this reason they had to tailor the project to reflect the capability of the team, this benefited the team tremendously as they built up their experience.
That was my whiz through of the remaining Prince 2 principles and I hope the examples used were able to make them understandable. It would be beneficial to consider those principles and how you are using them without realising. Making to do lists can be considered a form of management by stages, and let’s hope that Arsenal have some luck tonight! #COYG
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