Page 24 - DCAP304_DCAP515_SOFTWARE_PROJECT_MANAGEMENT

Software Project Management

Notes Advantages

Besides the key idea of PRINCE2, there are some other advantages of the use of PRINCE2:
 PRINCE2 is a structured methodology as long as organizations with a standard approach
to the management of projects. The methodology embodies proven and established best-
practice in project management. It is widely recognized and unstated, and so provides a
common language for all participants in the project, also PRINCE2 is very useful for
educative use.
 PRINCE2 enables projects to have:

 A controlled and planned start, middle and end
 Usual reviews of progress against plan and against the Business Case
 Flexible decision points
 Automatic management control of any deviations from the plan
 The involvement of management and stakeholders at the right time and place during
the project
 Good communication channels between the project, project management, and the
rest of the organization.
 Since there are no chapters on test methods in the PRINCE2 handbook, the choice which
test method you want to use, is totally without restrictions. PRINCE2 gives you a free
choice of test method, but does ask attention for it when putting together the project
quality plan, which is part of the PID.

Disadvantages

 Every person who works on a PRINCE2 project should be quite well-known with every
aspect of PRINCE2 to know how to play the game. It often happens that this is not the case,
because it is very expensive to give everyone concerned a course to study PRINCE2.

 Using PRINCE2 means that a lot of documents and lists have to be written, and because
Project Managers only have to inform the PB about the status of the project, when
something goes wrong they can simply blame others. It is also very easy to blame other
project groups when something goes wrong. This leads to the so called “cover your ass
behavior”.
 Splitting up a PRINCE2 project often results in a lack of knowledge of the project by
accountable persons like the Project Manager. Also it’s not useful to make use of expensive
Project Managers when the only work they have to do is to administrate and inform the
PB.

Did u know? What is Project Initiation Document (PID)?
The Project Initiation Documentation bundles the information which was acquired through
the Starting up a Project and Initiating a Project processes in a PRINCE2 controlled project
environment. Since PRINCE2’s 2009 revision it explicitly renamed the Document part of
the initial definition into Documentation, which means that the methodology not so much
seeks a master document describing all of the project at hand, but more the collection of
documents until Authorizing a Project up to then created.

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