What's New in P3M?

The Project, Programme and Portfolio series of infoKits have their basis in the established methodologies: PRINCE2 (for projects) and Managing Successful Programmes (MSP - for programmes). At your request we have made the links to these methodologies clearer. Highlight boxes indicate how each of our sections corresponds to the relevant parts of PRINCE2 or MSP.

This begs the question why don't we just point you to the definitive reference sources for PRINCE2 and MSP and let you get on with it? The answer is that we believe the infoKits offer an approach that is more easily scalable and tailored to the education sector. PRINCE2 and MSP are heavyweight frameworks - we try to show what is essential in all projects and what needs to be added for larger, more complex undertakings. We also recognise that you work within complex organisational cultures that can be quite different from those in industry or other parts of the public sector. Our approach doesn't just cover the mechanics of management activity - we balance this with equal emphasis on the organisational change needed to achieve your goals.

'We find organisations may be well-versed in standard project management methods including work breakdown structures, critical chain identification and so on but still struggle with the almighty 'scope creep', risk management and enterprise change management.'
Gartner Inc 2007

The other simple fact is that the world is changing faster than the 'heavyweight' methodologies can keep up with. There is currently something of a methodological vacuum in the P3M arena. The industry standard approaches are all based on the 'traditional' IT project lifecycle of big projects with a long execution time (and generally big expenditure as well). Such projects tended to be viewed as the instruments of change between two periods of stability. Although the fundamentals of the core good practice in the methodologies still hold true we are on the brink of a major shift in the type and nature of the kind of projects that go on across the IT industry as a whole.

We are seeing projects that are shorter and more incremental, that re-use components from other projects and that exist in an environment of continuous change. This is manifest at the IT architecture level in approaches such as service-oriented architectures and the e-Framework. To learning and teaching practitioners it has its most visible manifestation in the Web 2.0 phenomenon and the explosion of social and collaborative technologies in use across the sector.

The use of such technologies and approaches is seeming to signal the death of the 'traditional' IT project based around the standard systems lifecycle approach. These approaches were based around lengthy projects often where the whole process from requirements definition through development and implementation was carried out in-house. We have already seen a shift whereby implementation of third party software has become more common than in-house development in the sector. The current trend is towards use of social software, often supplied under open source agreements, to enhance learning. Concepts such as Product Based Planning and multiple Work Packages are being cut down to size by the use of quick and easy 'mashups'. In many cases the technologies being explored are already more familiar to the learners than to the institution. All of this has important implications for our future projects using technology to enhance our activities. As a sector we are still grappling with how to learn the lessons of our VLE implementations yet with Stiles (2007) and others prophesising the 'Death of the VLE'¹ we need to keep an eye to the future.

Projects using Web 2.0 technologies and social and collaborative tools undergo a different type of development lifecycle. The traditional stages of Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Review are still valid but now form a series of iterative loops rather than one lengthy lifecycle. Flexibility, adaptability and responsiveness are the key words of a new type of project management. Projects will tend to be broken down into much smaller chunks and forward planning will depend on the outcomes of much shorter review stages. Gartner identifies key success factors as being 'The willingness to be wrong - to pilot, experiment and revisit' (ITXPO 2007). In many ways these characteristics are more likely to find favour in an academic community than more rigid project frameworks but they represent a challenge to organisations that are already struggling to overcome extreme risk aversion and an inflexible approach to planning.

Our traditional good practice models will take us so far but we also need to incorporate new ideas, techniques and ways of working. Some of the key issues are highlighted below:

Issues	Old Attributes	New Attributes
Objectives	Repeatability, Consistency	Flexibility, Agility
Lifecycle	Sequential with some iteration	Iterative with many loops
Vocabulary	Control, Management, Stages	Creativity, Collaboration, Social
Team	Dedicated, Seconded	Distributed, Diverse
Key Skills	Scheduling, Costing	Problem Solving, Networking
Technologies	Proprietary, Monolithic	Web 2.0, User owned, Open source

PRINCE2 stands for Projects in Controlled Environments - let's hope PRINCE3 will encompass Projects in Creative Environments...

¹Stiles, M.J., (2007) 'Death of the VLE - a challenge to a new orthodoxy' Serials Vol 20, No 1, pp 31-36.