Let's think about success

I am looking greatly forward to the session by Clive Billenness, Programme Manager, Corporate Programme Office, The British Library on the first day of the conference. Clive’s presentation is entitled ‘The upside of risk: Even success is a risk.'

He will advise us that after people have been through a risk planning exercise, they can become worried about the outcome of the project they’re working on. The whole process can create an expectation of failure.

If the project then goes on to achieve a successful outcome, this can be a real shock to the Project Team and the stakeholders. They can find this outcome more difficult to cope with than if the project had been delayed or over budget because it wasn’t planned for.

This session will show us how to cope with successful outcomes, and to manage those just as effectively as negative outcomes.

I like the idea of this session because at the moment we’re all looking forward and anticipating what the next year will bring us.

It’s a great start to think about what we will do when our programmes and projects succeed.

I wish you a very enjoyable break and will be blogging again in the New Year.

Happy Christmas!

PRINCE2 update

People mistakenly think that PRINCE2 is a static method but it isn’t. OGC is committed to ensuring that PRINCE2 is fit for purpose. BPUG is heavily involved in this improvement process; as you may know I am the Senior User on the PRINCE2 Board. Since the last version of the manual was published all the issues identified by users were logged by BPUG. In tandem with the issues log, we’ve been running a series of workshops where users have had the chance to air their views of the current manual.

PRINCE2 is changing – but not out of all recognition. The strong PRINCE2 brand is something we all want to keep hence the new manual will retain the PRINCE2 title. The process to produce the new manual is known as PRINCE2: 2009 ProjectÔ. The new version will demonstrate refinements to the existing version and will be aligned to MSP™ and M_o_R®.

Together the best practice portfolio is a reflection the user community’s needs and is a collaborative effort. And as we all know, the best projects are a team effort.

The Congress will be the ideal opportunity to find out about how PRINCE2 2009 Project is shaping up.