Chapter 3

Using Project Standards

In This Chapter

The international ISO standard

About PMBoKs and professional bodies

Project methods

Using the checklists alongside a standard

On the one hand there are a number of standards, approaches and methods around, which you may find helpful; on the other there are some you may actually be required to work with. This last, and short, chapter in Part I is to explain them briefly and then to say how the checklists in the rest of this book fit in.

If you don’t need to be too bothered with international standards and professional bodies, you may like to skip most of this chapter and move on to the section ‘Using a Project Method’ because that’s something you may want to consider.

Standardising Internationally

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) have issued an international standard for project management . The current one at the time of writing is ISO 21500:2012, published in September 2012.

The ISO standard is short but very practical … as far as it goes. It has some really solid content based on a lot of project management experience. For example, as mentioned briefly in Chapter 1, it emphasises the importance of Stage Gates for effective control and governance (good management). The checklists in this book are influenced by ISO, but necessarily go beyond it because the standard doesn’t have the space to go into much specific detail.

Although it looks simple enough at first sight, complying with the ISO is harder work than you might think. It has a straightforward process model including, for example, planning and then execution and control. The problems start when you realise that you have to apply that model at project level, then again with overlaps at stage level. Clearly you are still working on the execution of one stage when you start to plan the next one. Then, taking into account other ISOs such as the one for project quality, running an ISO-compliant project becomes a much bigger job.

Following a PMBoK

The rather strange acronym stands for Project Management Body of Knowledge. Predictably there are a number of professional project management organisations. The biggest single organisation worldwide is undoubtedly the Project Management Institute (PMI). The PMI is a USA-based organisation but has chapters (branches) worldwide. The PMI has produced a book which is its Project Management Body of Knowledge. It’s available from booksellers, so you don’t have to join the PMI to get hold of a copy.

In the UK, the Association for Project Management (APM) – of which I happen to be a member – also has a PMBoK. Other countries have their own national bodies and many, including the APM, are affiliated to an international federation, the Swiss-based International Project Management Association (IPMA). If you are thinking of making project management your career, you might like to consider joining one of these professional bodies.

The PMBoKs say what you should include at particular points of a project, and if you are following one then you will need to factor that in when you come to use and adapt the checklists in this book. Because the book doesn’t follow any one single standard, it can’t be a ‘one-size-fits-all’. Rather it is focused on what most readers should find really practical and helpful. While the PMBoKs give you the ‘what’ they don’t try to say much on the ‘how’, or sometimes the ‘when’ either, and that’s where project methods come in.

Using a Project Method

Most Project Managers that I’ve come across say that they find some structure useful when planning and running a project. If that describes you too, then you may like to use a project method.

A method provides a structure, suggests what you should do at each point, and sometimes offers some techniques to help do it. Don’t worry that you will get locked into a series of steps from which you can’t escape, though. To use a method properly you need to adjust it to the exact needs of each project. That can be quite a bit of work, or just a little, depending on the method involved.

Probably the biggest and most well-known project method is PRINCE2^®. This is particularly high-profile in the UK, but it’s also used worldwide. The method goes through the project to say what activities you should do at each point. However, its format is quite complicated since, like the project management ISO, it has overlapping project processes. Most people need a training course to understand PRINCE2, and they go on to take exams in it.

PRINCE2^® is a registered trademark of AXELOS Limited.

Strangely, PRINCE2 leaves out a number of important elements of project management, even within its scope of project planning and control. For example it doesn’t include the vital area of project budgeting, and has very limited content on financial control. The manual also covers the full complexity of the method in one go, so if you have a simple project to run your first job is to think through how you will cut it down, which all makes for extra work.

Another method is PRIME^® – the PRoject Implementation MEthod. As joint author of PRIME I have to declare an interest and more than a little bias. PRIME has set out to be comprehensive but also simple to use. In contrast to many other approaches it offers a straighforward, linear path through the project with no complex overlapping processes. The main part of the manual is also simple, aimed at ‘normal’ projects so you don’t have a big job to strip out the bits you don’t need. However, it then extends its reach considerably with PowerPacks that you add in when you need to, but only when you need to. For example, if you have a very high risk project, or a very long one, or both.

PRIME covers all of the main areas of project management, including financial control. Unlike PRINCE2 it is also compliant with ISO 21500:2012, and with the ISO standards on risk and project quality management. By using PRIME you will comply with the international standards but without the complexity.

There are still more methods around. For example many of the large management consultancies have their own project method. Perhaps that’s because they want to be seen as experts and not needing someone else’s! A lot of large organisations have also developed their own standards and methods. If yours has, be careful to comply with any mandatory ones and adapt the checklists in this book if you need to.

Using Checklists with Standards

If you are following a PMBoK or a project method or standard, you’ll have contents lists in that particular approach. In that case simply use them as your checklists for things like the key documents. Other checklists in this book will still be extremely useful though, for example to help ensure that you have thought through the full range of benefits that could come from your project or the things to think through if you have a problem with team performance being below that which you expected and planned for.

Chapter 1 included a ‘heads up’ on avoiding paper mountains on projects. Where your organisation has a standard for projects, you’ll need to be particularly careful. Standards can be really sensible but always check to make sure that the standard fits your project, and work hard to get exemption where it doesn’t. If you don’t check, you’re likely to end up with a lot of documents which are neither helpful nor necessary. That may be because you just don’t need certain documents at all this time around, or because they are too complex for your project. Don’t get led down the path of having ‘well documented failures’ where the focus shifts from delivering the project successfully to filling in unnecessary forms and keeping over-zealous compliance staff happy.

PRIME^® is a registered trademark.