As a company the Ferrier Pearce style of project management is based on PRINCE2 methodologies, incorporating as many of the aspects as suitable for the size, scale and complexity of the project. This itself is utilising one of the key processes of ‘tailoring PRINCE2 to the project environment.’ We can follow it to the tee if required but in the real world often clients’ budgets won’t quite stretch that far.
You may already know that PRINCE2 stands for PRojects IN Controlled Environments. It’s a process-based approach to project management with the elements behind it broadly comprising principles, themes and processes.
To build upon the knowledge already gained from other qualified members of the FP team, last week I attended a PRINCE2 training course and found myself enjoying it a lot more than I expected, despite the daily homework! It proved that project management is definitely for me.
Much of the methodology covered was instantly recognisable as being applicable to the day-to-day tasks in my role of Client Relationship Manager. Perhaps the way we refer to the management products or processes being used may not always be exactly the same but I learnt this isn’t important, it’s all about using them as you need them. For example PRINCE2 refers to the Project Manager ‘authorising a work package’ but for me that’s briefing in to the studio, but it doesn’t matter, the underlying process is there.
Similarly the use of ‘tolerances’ for cost purposes, we refer to this as a contingency budget. ‘Lessons learned’ as a team, whilst we may not always formally log these in a report format, we are continually sharing our experiences of project successes along with any key issues allowing us to be fully armed with considerations to help us the next time.
The course was over a whole week so as you can imagine the content was vast. It’s given me plenty of food for thought and I’m looking forward to putting the new knowledge to good use.
