PRINCE2 is a flexible project management method that enables you to successfully helm and deliver a wide range of projects.
See how you can keep on top of managing projects with PRINCE2 using these 6 tips for daily routine.
1. Business case maintenance
Your project’s business case is absolutely essential when it comes to helping you and the team have a keen overview of the project, its requirements and benefits. Because your business case is a fine balance between project cost and business benefit, you’ll need to keep a daily eye on it during the project if time allows. A little daily maintenance of your business case goes a long way.
2. Planning
It’s rare that any project manager is able to plan a project down to the finest detail before the project execution stage. For reference, find out more about the 5 stages of project management – planning is the second stage.
With PRINCE2 stage plans you can take an iterative approach to project planning. No doing everything in one go – instead, treat planning as a continuous rolling activity. Use stage plans to plan your next work phase in more detail. Taking a daily look at your stage plans to see if they need updating will ensure you are logging consistent updates and making your project plan a living, breathing work in progress that’s a constantly valuable resource.
3. Risk management
The project planning stage is a key time to document and outline any foreseeable risks to a project’s success. However, managing risk is a rolling process. As a certified PRINCE2 project manager you’ll use the PRINCE2 5-step process (Identify, Assess, Plan, Implement, Communicate) to identify, analyse and respond to risks on a regular basis.
4. Manage work packages
The PRINCE2 method of management is to enable team leaders directly below you to own work packages. You can authorise the activity of others so that they can deliver the package. You can monitor daily progress with team checkpoint reports. If things start getting off-kilter and there’s a danger of scope creep, you can implement a corrective action and then accept the completed work product.
5. Project board report
One of your key roles as a PRINCE2 project manager is to keep your project board up to date on a project’s status. When it comes to smooth project management and delivery, communication is key! You can achieve this with highlight reports (or an exception report if things are getting off-track). Regular project board reporting means you’ll have fewer questions from others distracting you from the work at hand. The project board is getting accurate, regular information – and that frees you up to get on with project management.
6. Every day is a good day to reflect and improve
When managing projects, it’s not an optimal use of your time and resources to reflect and improve on project delivery when – and only when – the project is complete. Instead, you can maintain a lessons learned log in PRINCE2 and update it every day. You can see at a glance what’s going well, and where improvements can be made to the delivery process.
If you’re already using the PRINCE2 project management method and you’re seeking to improve your team’s performance, remember that these daily activities, when performed little and often, can really help to smoothen out the wrinkles in any project.
These recommended daily activities have been pulled from the PRINCE2 2017 A3 Process Map, which is available to download for free.