Project Management And PRINCE2: An Overview

What is Project Management?

Project can be simply understood as a series of tasks which has to be completed to reach the specific goals of the project. It is a set of input or output that is require for achieving a particular goal. The manager or executive often describe the projects. There are some expectations and goals set by the manager or executive and the team is responsible to manage the logistics and timely execute the project. There are some time limitations and deadline provided for the projects which has to be fulfilled at any cost. The software development for business process improvement, building or bridge construction, natural disaster relief effort is all example of a project.

All such project should be expertly managed and deliver on time and within budget. Thus, the Project Management can be defined as the application that has tools and techniques, skills, knowledge about the project activities that meet the requirement of the project.

The main role that the Project Management has to follow is the process to initiate, plan, execute, monitor and control and finally close the project. There are mainly ten areas where the project management knowledge has been drawn. It includes Integration, Human Resources, Quality, Cost, Time, Scope, Risk Management, Communications, Stakeholder Management and Procurement. The project management has a unique focus on this area that has a project goals, resources and schedule.

Project management history was beginning from the early civilization and in the modern sense it has begun in the year 1950s. If gone back to 2570 BC, Pharaohs has built a great pyramid of Giza that was completed and today still there is an argue with the archaeologists about the achievement of such feat. According to the ancient records, in the Great Pyramid there were managers on each of the four faces who are responsible for the completion. Some degree of the project management involve planning, execution and control phase.  In the 208 BC, there was a construction of the large project which is the wonder of the world till today. It is the Great Wall of China. There were three groups of labour force namely criminals, soldiers and criminal people. To finish the project, millions of people were order by Emperor Qin Shihuang. In the late 1917, the forefather of project management, Henry Gantt has created a scheduling diagram in self named known as the Gantt Chart. This Chart was first used on the project of Hoover Dam in the year 1931. Till today the use of it is important for the project managers’ toolkit. In 1956, the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) was formed with the early practice of project management in planning as well as scheduling, cost and scheduling control and cost estimation. The professional society has been leading for project managers, cost estimators, project control specialist. cost engineers and schedulers. With the framework of total cost management, AACE has integrated process for project management, programme and portfolio. In 2012, PMBoK Guide is released to provide guidelines, rules, and project management characteristics. 

The History and Evolution of Project Management

The Tesco’s Contactless ClubCard is a giant Supermarket. Tesco’s Contactless ClubCard had launched on 7th July 2017. Thames Card Technology with Tesco launched the first contactless loyalty card in UK. With the launch of Contactless ClubCard customers can easily collect points with a host of lot more different changes. 66 % of the Global shoppers has enrolled the loyalty programmes. For the UK retailers, loyalty schemes are the key differentiator. Tesco could achieve a greater brand recognition as it has value for customer and the card is completely redesigned to increase the security. The feature of Tesco loyalty card allows the shoppers to tap on their card at the checkout so that they can earn points through the transaction made instantly. Customer find it easy to use in the store. Customer who are new to use Tesco Clubcard app has to sign up in the Clubcard app at time of shopping. The existing customers access with a touch of the button to their voucher during the checkout. The Tesco Contactless ClubCard contains a new PVC core colour that match the brand of Tesco with red in contrast with deep blue on the front and rare of the card. They have introduced three different ways for the customer to use the CLubCard. They are barcode scanning, magnetic stripe swiping or contactless taping. According to the Chief Customer Officer, Alessandra Bellini and The project manager, Simon Pepperdine, Tesco Clubcard is a unique way for thanking the customers as they had shop with Tesco. The company had made the use of Clubcard simpler and easier to use by the customer. It has introduced a new contactless card for the brand with an upgraded Clubcard app that has added to the partner list of the company. The company has provided a rewarding loyalty scheme for the customer to know the responses of the customer for the improvement of the customer.

PRINCE2 is a methodology and also the de facto standard for project management that is widely used by the private sector and the government of UK extensively from the 1980s. In 1990, PRINCE2 was released and was used in major non-IT project by the UK government. Later in 1996 PRINCE2 was develop with the consultaion of 150 organizations of European. Currently, in 2017 AXELOS has published the updated version of PRINCE2 that has clarifies the minimum bare to qualify the PRINCE2 project.

 

Tesco’s Successful Implementation of PRINCE2 Methodology

Figure 1: Usage of PRINCE2

Source: (ILX Marketing Team, 2018)

The figure shows percentage of current use of PRINCE2 in UK is 44% and the rest of the world is 56 %. The countries that use PRINCE2 are UK, Netherlands, Australia, East and Western Europe, Denmark, Germany, Poland. In UK PRINCE2 certificate holders are more than any other countries.

 

Figure 2: PRINCE2 Principle

Source: (Pawar and Mahajan, 2017)

The seven principles of PRINCE2 are universal as it is applied to every project regardless of their geography, culture or language. The figure shows the seven principle of PRINCE2:

• Continued business
• Define Roles and Responsibilities
• Learn from experience
• Manage by Stage
• Focus on Products
• Tailor to suit the project
• Manage by Exception

 

Figure 2: PRINCE2 Themes

Source: (Pawar and Mahajan, 2017)

The figure shows the theme of PRINCE2 that follow the principle. They are

• Business Case
• Organization
• Quality
• Plans
• Risk
• Change
• Progress

 

Figure 3: PRINCE2 Process

Source: (Pawar and Mahajan, 2017)

PRINCE2 Process has five stages

• Starting and Initiating
• Planning and Directing
• Stage Control
• Stage Management
• Closing

Tesco begin with the implementation of PRINCE2 Principle that include

-Continued business justification: Tesco had justified the reason to start the project which was valid throughout their project life cycle. With the project initiation the case of the business was initially developed. At the end of each stage the update was being provided for benefits, cost, risks and time.

-Learn from experience: The development team of Tesco had learned from the past experience and has considered the good and bad things about the previous project and later incorporated it in the strategies of planning and developing of a new project.

-Define Roles and Responsibilities: The member of the Tesco company who were involved in developing the ClubCard have their own roles and responsibilities. The project manager has clearly defined the roles and responsibilities to each project management team.

– Manage by stages: The Tesco company had broken the stages and planned or execute or controlled accordingly. For every project, the initiation stage has been developing to build the Project Plan and some strategies to manage the risk. It also determines whether the business has mentioned any kind of justification, and if it does, then the project can be move to next stage. The principle of PRINCE2 divide the stages that can be easily track. 

-Manage by exception: when project manager could not deliver the stage plan in PRINCEE2, then it has escalated to the Project Board for taking a decision.

-Focus on Product: The Tesco company had focus on the quality of purchasing with the use of ClibCard.

-Tailor to suit the project environment: The Tesco had to continuously focus on the environment of the project for its success.

Overview of PRINCE2 – Principles, Themes, and Process

Tesco begin with the implementation of PRINCE2 Theme that include

Business Case: This theme has provided a clear knowledge about the planning that the Tesco company had decided to start and check whether it is viable, desirable and achievable.

Organization: The Tesco has organized the roles and responsibility to every member.

Quality: Depending on the principle of the product, Tesco had met the requirement of the project.

Plans: with the use of PRINCE2, Tesco was able to plan and achieve the target.

Risk: There were certain events in Tesco that was identify, assess and control during the development of the project.

Change: with this theme the Tesco were able to describe the efficient and reliable change management. The Tesco were trying to handle the change requests and issues that has arise during the project.

Progress: The Tesco Project manager checks and control the progress of the project and ensure that the project is done as per the plan.

The Tesco had followed certain process of PRINCE2:

Project Direct: In this procedure, the Project Board ensure the project progress that has plan from the beginning till the closing. The project entire duration is span through these procedures.

Project Start: In this procedure, a stage is created by initiating the process of the project.

Project Initiation: In this procedure, initiation of the project is done by considering some of the key factors namely, resource commitment and business justification.

Stage Boundaries Management: In this procedure, the Project Board has to make some important decisions.

Stage of Control: In this procedure, the project is monitor and control

Product Delivery Management: In this procedure, planned products are created that bring an outcome with an expected quality.

Project Closing: This is the final procedure of closing the project.   

Tesco Contactless ClubCard has use Prince2 methodology in their project. The methodology has help Tesco to execute the project effectively and efficiently and is free to use. PRINCE2 Foundation contains the basic terminology and fundamental knowledge about managing the project and with PRINCE2 Practitioner the people of Tesco can easily manage the project. The Tesco can organize and coordinate certain roles with the use of PRINCE2 Project Methodology within their budget and time (Muriana and Vizzini 2017). The Project Manager of Tesco can allocate the work, create a plan, and ensure that whether the work is done depending on the quality that has been defined and ensure that the work get completed on time. The main difference of PRINCE2 with other methodology is that the Project Manager reports the project status to the Project Board. The hurdles raise by the Project Manager is also address by the Project Board. The Customer, Supplier and the User are the main representative of the Project Board. Here Customer are the organization or the person who pay for the project. Users are the organization or person that uses the project outcome and Supplier also called as specialist, are the organization or person who create a project outcome. 

While evaluating PRINCE2 methodology, a systematic approach is made to execute the project of Tesco. With this approach, the goal of the project is achieve in a systematic, organized and logical manner. The process of controlling and monitoring has ensured the execution of the project through PRINCE2 (Marnewick, Erasmus and Joseph 2017). The good things about PRINCE2 is the consistent approach, control over the project progress and plan, providing a proper justification about the business, engaging the stakeholder before it is too late, a detailed competency being provided to play a better role, continuous improvement being shared whenever a lesson is learned (Elhameed 2017). All this benefits ensure the success of the project. There are specific roles for the people who specify each process of PRINCE2.  The main drawback of PRINCE2 is that the flexibility level is not offered by it which most of the project management methodologies usually offer. Project Management has gone to a different level which has made difficult for PRINCE2 to cater the needs of the modern project management (Zaj?c 2016). The methodology needs huge time of planning and designing. In order to use the PRINCE2 methodology they require a thorough knowledge about the methodology. As the methodology is quite complex to understand, a training has been providing to every member of the organization who are involve with the project (Tresselt 2015). The company requires an extensive documentation of PRINCE2 for appraisals of the performance and planning of the project also mitigating certain risks (Marnewick 2016). The team were facing problem in adapting the methodology into the project when they need certain changes in the project as the process contains with lot of documentation. Certain issues that were faced while managing the Tesco project with PRINCE2 have been discuss below:

• Poor Management of Risk: Whenever the problems where identified, there were no guidance provided by PRINCE2 in order to resolve the problems or make any judgement. In that case it has become necessary to carry out risk management as early as possible. There is more risk in leading the project when problems in the Tesco Contactless ClubCard were not resolve properly. The consequences could be severe. During the making of the ClubCard, Risk Management was the continuous activity for the project. Due to poor risk management, more than one project objectives are at threats. Therefore, it was necessary to identify the risk and develop responses appropriately.
• Heavyweight: With the use of PRINCE2, Tesco company required extra time for making the planning comprehensive as the documentation was quite heavy.
• Motivation: The PRINCE2 Project manager needs to understand the importance of motivation within the environment of the company though it has no direct deal with the project management interpersonal aspects.
• Change Management: When changes occur in making the Tesco Contactless ClubCard as per the expectation of the quality by the customer or requirement of the user, it became difficult to use the PRINCE2 methodology for the change management when changes are required in between the development of the project. As it is procedure oriented and much difficult to use PRINCE2 project in comparison with the Agile projects.

 

Figure 4: Logical Structure of the PRINCE2 Process Model

Source: Author

Conclusion

From the report it has concluded that the complexity level of PRINCE2 cannot be cleared without a proper training. In the methodology section two basic training has been discuss for managing the Tesco project and to make it successful. If this methodology is not understood, then it can lead to a problem and difficulty starts while carrying out the project. The PRICE2 methodology is equipped fully with methods, techniques and processes to evaluate the in-depth knowledge of the Tesco project. PRINCE2 with its broader perspective identify and mitigate the risk. This methodology is specially applied in budgeting, planning, designing, mitigation of the risk and documenting. There are processes for PRINCE2 that needs to be implemented that follow in completing the Tesco project. The way the project manager approach to organize a project methodology it has a tremendous impact on the project success. Thus, it is important to approach a correct methodology for the organization to make the project successful.

It is recommended that the company get the certification of PRINCE2 to implement it in the project when sudden changes is required keeping aside the complexity of the project. As PRINCE2 can be used for major project in future use. Therefore, PRINCE2 necessity will slowly become mandatory for the company to achieve success in the project. 

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