Can your PRINCE deliver?

By Tony Perera, Principal, and Tim Phillips, Director, Moorhouse Consulting Ltd.

When I asked a project manager recently at a conference what delivery model he was using on his project, he answered “PRINCE2 of course”.  Is there a lack of understanding amongst some project managers of the difference between project management methodologies and delivery models?  What are the pitfalls? How does this impact the ability to deliver? How can this be avoided?

First, let’s explore the differences between project management methodologies and delivery models.

Project management methodologies

Project management methodologies, such as the Office of Government Commerce’s PRojects IN Controlled Environments (OGC PRINCE2) , provide guidance and tools that support the justification, planning and management of work to produce specific outputs.

All projects require the following generic questions to be answered; What are we trying to do? What do we need? How much will it cost? When will we start? Can we do it alone, or do we need help? How long will it take?  Project management methodologies provide a structured approach (defining organisation and processes) to ensure that these questions are answered in a controlled and financially prudent manner.

The OGC’s ‘Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2’ manual defines a project as "A management environment that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to a specified Business Case."  This definition points to the primary aim of PRINCE2 being to provide similar levels of assurance and control to organisations for projects as the organisation has over business as usual activities.  This means the methodology focuses on the start, end and stage boundaries of a project where key decisions are required rather than the middle where the execution occurs.

Other project management methodologies exist such as the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMI PMBOK)  .  PMBOK provides a broader approach than PRINCE2 and aims to provide a common lexicon for project practitioners.

Despite the differences, these project methodologies are ‘vanilla’, meaning that choice of methodology is independent of what individual projects are delivering. Best practice suggests that an organisation should implement a tailored version of these methodologies as their standard project approach.

Delivery models

Delivery models are process methods (or route maps) which help a project manager convert the project definition document into tangible outputs.  Typically these models have developed according to the nature of what they are attempting to deliver e.g. large capital infrastructure, new product development, business transformation, and software and application development. 

These models range from the ‘predictive’ – those that attempt to plan delivery activity from start to finish at the outset, to those that are adaptive / emergent – where planning tends to be more short term, emerge iteratively and is able to adapt to change.  Figure 1 outlines the more common delivery models.

Traditionally organisations have adopted the predictive waterfall approach as a matter of course but over recent years there has been an increasing interest in the more adaptive models. 

Figure 1. Delivery Models

Common Pitfalls

The project manager I met fell into the common trap of thinking of PRINCE2 as providing a delivery model and was confusing the approach needed to control the project with the approach needed to actually deliver.  The lack of clarity between these two methods is the source of a number of pitfalls which can potentially impact delivery performance.  These include:

• Allowing different parts of your organisation to develop their own approaches. Typically strategy and operations teams will develop project management methodologies while IT and new product development departments will create delivery models, resulting in conflicts and an inability to manage your portfolio of work at a corporate level.
• Many organisations have a tailored standard project management methodology which has an implicit delivery model built in, for example the Guide to Rail Investment Projects (GRIP).  The danger occurs when this standard delivery model is ‘slavishly’ applied for all the different types of project undertaken, as this may lead inexperienced project managers to adopt an inappropriate delivery approach.
• Always choosing the waterfall delivery model.  The waterfall model is widely held up as a standard delivery model, however even its creator Winston Royce, recognised its limitations in his seminar paper in 1970.  The issue is that the most appropriate delivery model may not be applied.
• Using an adaptive delivery model in the absence of a project management methodology which delivers a product to time and cost but which may not meet the wider business objectives, may not have a solid business case and may not in fact meet the (quality) expectations of the stakeholders.

The importance of getting the project management methodology and delivery model right is highlighted in Figure 2.  The figure identifies the causes of failure from the National Audit Office / Office of Government Commerce list of common causes which relate to methodology and delivery model.

Avoiding the pitfalls

So, how do we avoid these pitfalls?  There are a few simple principles:

• Ensure that your organisation uses a standard project management methodology which will drive consistency throughout.  The methodology should be applied to all of the projects but should be tailored to your organisation.  PRINCE2 is not a bad place to start.
• If a wide range of different projects exist in your organisation ensure that the tailored project management methodology is not prescriptive about which delivery model to apply.
• On an individual project basis consider which delivery model is appropriate for your project, and use this to breakdown the project into manageable stages of work.  Raise your project manager’s awareness of the different delivery models.

Selecting the right delivery model

The choice of the delivery model is dependent on the type of project you are seeking to deliver.  Two main variables drive the model choice; certainty and consensus.  The less certain you are about the outcomes of the project and its subsequent acceptance the more you move away from using the traditional predictive delivery model e.g. waterfall, and move towards an adaptive approach e.g. Agile.  This is illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Choosing your delivery model

Bringing it all together

To summarise; project management methodologies and delivery models are different – but are complementary.  Your project management methodology provides the organisation with assurance that the project is appropriate and in control – an organisation should adopt a standard approach.  The delivery model dictates the approach to developing, creating and implementing solutions – different models are appropriate for different project types.  Figure 4 shows how these can be combined into a single lifecycle for your project.

Figure 4. Combined project lifecycle

So, my response to the project manager who believed that he was using PRINCE2 to deliver his project is – your PRINCE can’t deliver on his own.  He needs to choose the right horse on which to successfully rescue his princess.

 1. The Office of Government Commerce PRojects IN a Controlled Environment – a project management method based on processes e.g. ‘Managing Stage Boundaries’, components e.g. ‘Management of Risk’ and techniques e.g. Change Control’.  Note that PRINCE2 2009 is in development.  PRINCE2 2009 will simplify its processes, recut components into ‘Themes’ and cross reference techniques rather than including them within the method and add ‘Principles’.
 2. The Project Management Institute (PMI) Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) includes project management processes and competency areas to assist in the management of projects.  The fourth edition of PMBOK is due Q4 2008.

© 2008. Moorhouse Consulting Ltd.

If you would like to talk to us call on the number below. Alternatively, click on the consultants email address, provide us with your details and we will call you back. We look forward to speaking to you. Contact: Email: Tel: Tim Phillips timphillips@moorhouseconsulting.com +44 (0) 20 3004 4482