I have been head of the Project Management Office of a financial institution for some time. I am
responsible for the organisation and professionalization of projects and programmes. I also take
care of the guidance, coaching and training of project managers.
The management of the institution for which I work has chosen PRINCE2® as the standard
for project management. We have set up and implemented a comprehensive training course for
project managers. In addition to behaviour training, PRINCE2 foundation and practitioner
training have also been included.
A great deal of literature is available on PRINCE2. Judging by the number of publications, a
new book about PRINCE2 seems redundant. However, this is not the case. The existing books
mainly describe the theory behind PRINCE2. The stages, relevant processes and underlying subprocesses
are discussed, usually accompanied by the relevant techniques. What I missed in my
organisation with the introduction of PRINCE2, was a pragmatic approach to translate formal
reports into practice: how could we make PRINCE2 practical? There were indeed reporting
criteria, but these criteria were useful enough. Executives either did not read the documents or
could not recognize the main ideas. I therefore needed a pragmatic translation trick. Because
such a trick did not exist, I created it myself. The approach that I describe in this book has
subsequently been successfully applied by my organisation.
The points of departure of our approach generate the familiar management products, such as the
Project Brief, the Project Initiation Document, and the Project Board Report. I have stripped
these products of technical jargon under the catchwords ‘KISS’ (Keep It Short and Simple) and
‘business in the driver seat’. Project managers and executives can use them together.
This book is meant for everyone who has anything to do with project management. It is for:
- the line manager who wants to bring about change and base a temporary organisation on it;
- the head of the Project Management Office who is looking for handles to create a professionalizing
device; and
- the project manager who has adopted the PRINCE2 theory and now wants to apply this
theory in practice.
But the book is also meant for experienced project managers who wish to improve their
relationship with their executive, and project managers who want to manage instead of getting
bogged down in the filling in of endless documents and templates. This book is to be used
particularly as a reference book.