Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective (c) Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective...................................................1 Prologue.................................................................................................................2 Introduction............................................................................................................2 History and usage...................................................................................................2 Overview of PRINCE2...........................................................................................4 Eight components...............................................................................................4 Three Techniques...............................................................................................8 Eight Processes...................................................................................................9 Other elements..................................................................................................12 Critique................................................................................................................14 Projects – or Products and Programmes?..........................................................14 Controlled Environments?................................................................................15 More is less......................................................................................................16 Assumptions.....................................................................................................17 Overhead..........................................................................................................18 Summary of Critique........................................................................................20 Risk transmission.................................................................................................20 Advantages...........................................................................................................21 PRINCE2 and Agile, together?.............................................................................23 Plug in Agile....................................................................................................23 Costs of plugging in Agile................................................................................25 Evolving to Agile.............................................................................................26 Tailoring PRINCE for Agile.............................................................................26 Tailoring...........................................................................................................35 Marrying PRINCE2 and other Agile methods...................................................37 Conclusion - Reconciliation and lost benefits.......................................................37 Epilogue...............................................................................................................39 Links....................................................................................................................39 About the author...................................................................................................40 References................................................................................................................40 © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 1 of 41 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 Prologue Having completed the first part of PRINCE2 training course I am now aPRINCE2 certified. practitioner. However, I do not expect to ever use PRINCE2 in anger. For me this is largely an academic exercise. I am an advocate of Agile development methods. In this paper I hope to show where Agile and PRINCE2 differ, and where they match. I will also give a brief outline of the method for completeness, and to enlighten those who have not encourntered it before. Overall PRINCE2 offers a solid framework for managing projects. However this framework is based on a set of assumptions – explicit or tacit – many of which are not held by Agile project management methods. This means that while some parts of PRINCE2 may be useful, in the Agile world things must be done differently. Introduction PRINCE2 is a formalised project management supported by the British Government. In adheres to similar principles and practices as those promoted by the Project Management Institute in America. Projects are defined as: “A management environment that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to a specified Business Case.” (Commerce 2005, p.7) Or: “A temporary organisation that is needed to produce a unique and predefined outcome or result at a prespecified time using predetermined resources.” (Commerce 2005, p.7) While supporters of the method claim it can be used for any sort of project its IT are clearly visible. This article will confine itself to PRINCE2 in an IT setting. The method is designed to be tailored to the specific needs of organizations and projects where it is applied. For those who must show PRINCE2 compliance but wish to take an Agile approach to software development there are several it is possible options for reconciling PRINCE2 and Agile methods, however, none are perfect. In this article we will briefly review the history of PRINCE2, present an overview of the method, critique the method and then examine how we might reconcile the Agile approach to project management with the more formal PRINCE2 method. History and usage PRINCE2 is a project management methodology owned, and originally created for, the UK Government. Today the method is managed out of the UK Office of Government Commerce which regards the method as a commercial product. In its current, version two, form the method has existed since 1996. PRINCE (version one) dates from 1989 and was originally a project management technique aimed © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 2 of 41 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 specifically at IT projects. PRINCE itself developed from a method known as PROMPT dating from 1975. (PROMPT also had a mid-life revision to PROMPT II). Although anyone can buy the PRINCE2 books and start using the techniques few do. The PRINCE2 manual (Commerce 2005) is both an instruction book on how to use PRINCE2 and the official standard. Anyone who has ever read an official standard will know they are not the easiest thing to read or learn from. As a result the manual suffers from trying to be all things to all people. Most people take one of the many formal training courses and pass certification exams at the end of the course. The APM Group is responsible for administering these exams and marketing the method. There are two levels of exams; the first Foundation exams simply test knowledge of the method while the second, Practitioner exams, test use of the method. Both exams are multiple choice based (i.e. answer A, B, C, etc.) although the second uses some surprising complex questions. (The second exam used to be an essay based question but this has been replaced.) As one might expect of a method originating in the public sector it is widely used in Government projects. However even in the UK the method is only advised and not mandated so even Government projects may not use it in full. Increasingly the private sector has taken up the method, or at least, the private sector appears to have taken up the method. Undoubtedly some private sector organizations are using PRINCE2 however, if anecdotal evidence is true, very few organizations are using in the full most formal sense. It appears that private sector organizations are using PRINCE2 qualifications as a filter for staff involved with project management. Selecting a project manager is a difficult business, possession of a PRINCE2 qualification is seen to imply that the individual knows about project management and has a professional approach. Undoubtedly someone holding a PRINCE2 qualification knows something about project management. At a minimum they know enough about how PRINCE2 suggests you run a project to pass an exam. However the qualification does little imply that the holder can actually manage a project. Like all qualification they prove you can pass the qualification, not that you can put that knowledge to practical use. Passing a PRINCE2 exam, and obtaining the qualification has more to do with knowledge of PRINCE2 than with project management. Training and certifying people in PRINCE2 is now a big business. Individuals have learned that obtaining this qualification enhances their employment prospects so they are prepared to pay upwards of £1,500 for five days training and two exam passes. However, this also means individuals are focused on passing the exam rather than necessarily improving their project management skills. Consequently schools may focus on teaching to the exam to ensure people pass rather than training people to be better project managers. It would be unfair to dismiss the PRINCE2 exams lightly. Most people who take the course and pass the exams will certainly be better project managers for doing so. You can’t sit through five days of training and two exams and not learn something. Much of the advice is good and the method helps focus analytical thinking. If PRINCE2 was the last word on project management this would not be a problem, passing the exam and project management would be the same thing. However there is © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 3 of 41 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 a limit to what one can learn in five days and the PRINCE2 authors intentionally limit the scope of the method. So, while a PRINCE2 qualification may be necessary it is not sufficient. More troubling the method has some limitations which may make it unsuitable in every situation. Applying the method, or even parts of the method, when it is not applicable may do more harm than good. For example, as argued below, PRINCE2 is highly risk averse – probably stemming from its public sector roots. The approach is foreign to many private sector environments. Economists tell us: profit is the reward for risk. Rather than avoiding risk many companies wish to take on risk. In such an environment adopting PRINCE2 could be fatal. Employing those who use PRINCE2 thinking may limit the risk a company embraces and thus reduce the profits. Overview of PRINCE2 The eight processes, eight components and three techniques and how they fit together is the basis of the PRINCE2 Foundation certificate. These 21 elements are not as intimidating as they might seem at first. On the one hand they provide a comprehensive, breakdown of everything you need to think about to manage a project. On the other hand they say very little about what you actually do to get a project delivered on schedule, on budget and with the features requested. Eight components The eight components are basically things you need to use and manage in order to deliver the project. Most of these will be familiar to any IT practitioners. They are: • Business Case: there is no point in undertaking any project unless someone wants it. Who ever wants it should be able to demonstrate that the benefits of the project make it worthwhile. Ideally a business case should be written by the business, unfortunately all too often it is left to people in the IT department who do not necessarily understand what the business needs. In PRINCE2 the business case is both a reference document to be consulted when deciding what to build and how to build it; and it is a changing document that is updated as the project progresses. • Organization: every project, every company, every Government department needs some kind of organization. Even if this is a flexible organization or self- organizing team there is an organization of a type. So it is reasonable to consider the project organization PRINCE2 has some things to say about the organization of projects. All projects have four levels of management – shown in Figure 1. The top level is external to the project, this is corporate management or a programme management board. They set the wheels in motion to create the project and may stop it but they have little to do with how the project is managed or run. In effect they are God, omni- present but also absent. The second laver is the Project Board led by the Project Executive. The Executive is ultimately responsible for everything on the project, they may the key decisions and authorisations. The Executive is assisted by a Senior Supplier and a Senior User to create a Project Board of three individuals. This enshrines other © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 4 of 41 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 organizational assumption PRINCE2: that all projects use the customer-supplier model. Many projects are indeed organised along customer-supplier lines, for example, in the UK the Government has engaged to develop and manage income tax systems. The Government is the customer, EDS are the supplier. In the private sector too many development effort are organized this way. PRINCE2 further assume that even when the supplier is not an external body the development process will still be managed as customer-supplier model. So, if Microsoft were to adopt PRINCE2 the development groups would be suppliers to the sales and marketing departments. © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 5 of 41 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 Figure 1 - Basic organizational structure Next in the hierarchy comes the Project Manager and below them the Team Leader or Team Leader who actually direct the people doing the work. In some cases the Project Manager may double up as the Team Manager. This would normally happen on small projects where the Project Manager has the specialist (technical) knowledge needed to direct the team. © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 6 of 41 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 There may be additional people and roles added to this model to support these layers. The Project Manager may be assisted by Project Support and the Board my delegate aspects of their work to Project Assurance. Finally, PRINCE2 assumes that all project organizations are temporary structures. This fits with the definition of a project as having specific start and end dates. Configuration Management: Configuration Management is concerned with the versioning of documents and products so we can uniquely identify items, trace backwards for audit and roll back changes. Most people in software development will have used a configuration management system such as SCCS, ClearCase, CVS, Subversion, PerForce, etc. If you have then you will know what is involved in using such a system and the benefits. You probably also understand the benefits of versioning documents which would otherwise not be in source code control. Basically the PRINCE2 configuration management component and process steps describe a manual source control process. This is necessary both to justify the use of a configuration management system and to explain to people unfamiliar with systems what is going on. These first three components are fairly easy to grasp an intuitive. The next five get more complicated: • Change Control: PRINCE2 has both a Change Control component and a Change Control Technique, more on the latter below. Change Control, unlike Configuration Management, deals with requests for change and authorisation to make changes. PRINCE2 assumes that the starting point of a project – the business case, the requirements, etc. – are well defined. It also accepts that things will change, requirements are not fixed, new ones will emerge and existing ones disappear. Such changes can, and will, have an impact on what work is needed, when the project is delivered, how much it will cost and how well it meets customer needs. Key to the method is ensuring that all these changes are managed. Any (intentional) deviation from requirements and project goals needs to pass through the Change Control mechanism. No work should be undertaken on a change unless it has been properly authorised. • Risk Management: PRINCE2 defined risk as ‘uncertainty about the outcome [of the project]’ and points out that this can be positive as well as negative. The important point is that a risk might happen, or it might not, and it has certainly not happened yet. As you might expect the Project Manager is responsible for identifying risks, gathering information and analysing the risks, however it is the Project Executive who is ultimately responsible for risk. PRINCE2 lays down, in detail, how Project Manager are supposed to identify and evaluate risks, and how they may draw up counter measures. Within certain tolerances Project Manager may act on their risk assessments, beyond these tolerances they must refer matters upwards to the Project Board. © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 7 of 41 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 • Quality: PRINCE2 takes a very broad view of quality, it is not just the quality of a given feature or aspect of a product, but it is the ability of the entire product to meet customer needs. As such many aspects of product specification and capabilities are encompassed by quality. Again quality is the responsibility of the Project Board, specifically the Senior User who, as the representative of those who will use the product, has a special interest in the output. Actually checking on quality may be delegated to one or more Quality Assurance staff who are independent of both the developers and Project Manager. However, the Project Manager is still tasked with managing quality issues. • Controls: Running throughout PRINCE2 is the concept of ‘management by exception’. This is the idea that when planning a project tolerances can be assigned to activities, while the activity stays within tolerance the Project Manager (or Team Leader) is free to arrange the work. Once activities break tolerances problems must be passed up the hierarchy for decisions and potential actions. In order to ensure we are within tolerances the Project Manager is tasked with regularly assessing the state of the project and deviation from plan. Therefore, much of the project managers work becomes monitoring, assessing and updating plans to reflect changes. The irony here is that there is very little the Project Manager can actually control, beyond updating plans, reporting and escalating there is very little they can actually do to change things. Work is conducted by one or more Work Teams while major decisions are made by the Project Board. • Plans: Plans run throughout PRINCE2: Project Plan, Project Quality Plan, Team Plans, Configuration Management Plan, Communication Plans, Stage Plans and Exception Plans. One of the three Techniques (below) is, as one might expect, Planning. Much of the Project Managers work is the creation of plans, monitoring of progress against plan. Plans are considered to be ‘the backbone of the management information system required for any project.’ Without plans management by exception could not operate because exceptions are raised when work differs from plans. The eight components are nothing out of the ordinary really, anyone who has worked on a software project will immediately see where they fit in. They are in effect a breakdown the aspects of a project. Three Techniques PRINCE2 suggests three techniques which may be used at various times during a project. These are: Product Based Planning, Change Control and Quality Review. The Quality Review technique will be immediately familiar to anyone who has read about or conducted a formal code review. The creator of a document (or similar artefact) distributes copies to nominated reviewers. A review meeting is then held where the reviewers pass comment on the document and a scribe notes down the changes suggested. The meeting is chaired by another individual who is neither a reviewer, producer or scribe. All documents are supposed to comply with a description written in advance. This descriptions specifies the content and form of the document to be produced. For © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 8 of 41 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 regularly reoccurring documents, such as reports and requirements, this should not be a problem – especially if the company concerned already has templates. However where templates do not exist or documents are ad hoc this adds an additional step to be performed before the document is creationed. The Change Control technique will also be quite familiar to anyone who has worked on an IT project. Suggestions for change start life as Project Issue. When reviewed issues may be the basis for Risks, Exceptions, off-specification report, clarification or the creation of a Change Request. The Project Board is normally responsible for evaluating Change Requests and approving, or not, the change. However the board can delegate Change Authority to nominated individuals (e.g. the Project Manager) or a board comprised of suitable people. The Product Based Planning technique is exactly what the name suggests and suggests planners first identify the end products of a project then refine this list, identifying interim products and dependencies. This has much in common with the Plan Backwards pattern (Prince and Schneider 2004). In addition the technique recommends a basic diagramming notation to use when drawing the breakdown. As products are identified it is expected that a description will be written for each one. Later the breakdown diagram is transformed into a Product Flow Diagram which becomes the basis for planning charts. Interestingly PRINCE2 does not contain a planning technique or mandate use of GANTT, PERT, Critical Path or any other planning mechanism. However it does contain a Planning process. The process describes what needs to be done and what output is expected but it does not describe how to do this. Some authors see this as an omission and added it their descriptions of PRINCE2 (Hedeman et al. 2005). Eight Processes The eight processes until are the most involved and complicated part of PRINCE2, each is broken down into a number of sub-processes, in total there are 44 sub-process. Each process is assigned a two letter code – like SU or IP – and each sub-process is assigned the two letter code of the main process and a numeral, for example, SU1 and IP2. Some of these sub-processes are little more than single decisions or points at which to perform a particular action. In some cases the decision is already constrained to a set of pre-determined options. Rather than present processes as multiple sub-processes the method may have been better off presenting simple check-list for project managers to review and action. While some of the sub-processes are involved many of them are quite simple, the actual action or decision is buried beneath the weight of sub-process description. Detailing each of the 52 processes and sub-process in turn is beyond the scope of this review. Figure 2 gives a high level over view of the major processes and actions. For simplicity it is easier to say each project has a beginning, a middle and an end. In PRINCE2 terminology these correspond to Controlled Start, Controlled Progress and Controlled Close respectively. For the sake of brevity this description will consider the most common – or most expected – process flow through a PRINCE2 project. Aficionados of PRINCE2 will © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 9 of 41 Reflections on PRINCE2 from an Agile perspective 4-May-08 notice many omissions and abbreviations. Anyone wishing for more detail on PRINCE2 is referred to the official manuals or one of the many books on the subject. Figure 2 - Overview of PRINCE2 process flow Before any project happens there will be some activity and someone, or some group will decide that there should be a project. PRINCE2 is right to leave these details vague. The start of a PRINCE2 process occurs when someone in authority issues a Project Mandate, this is the trigger for the first process. The mandate itself could be anything, a verbal request, a formal document or a chat in a pub. What ever it is the mandate is enough to set the wheels in motion. Still, there is not enough information to start a project. In order to start a project there needs to be a few people and some basic agreement on what is to be done and how. PRINCE2 calls this pre-project stage Starting a Project or SU for short. In this stage the key people are appointed – at least a Project Manager and an Executive – and some basic details are decided. These are documented in a Project Brief – not yet a © Allan Kelly – www.allankelly.net Page 10 of 41