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These headlines make you think that Prince2 (Projects In Controlled Environments) is a must to manage large IT projects and get on. Think again.
Let me paraphrase from a website ‘PRINCE2 is set of principles, themes, a project lifecycle and guidance on matching the method to the project’s environment. The processes detail a set of activities that are required to direct, manage and deliver a project.’
If it was that simple, why do so many projects fail?
Fact - £38 Billion lost per year on IT projects in the UK.
Does Prince2 or its variations work? Does it deliver what it claims. The answer is yes and no. They work in limited cases but ail in others. We are looking at what that break point is. In my experience it come down to two issues is IT project delivery.
1. Soft skills
2. Decisions making
Often the project manager is appointed after the project is agreed with policy makers. Which means the project manager has had little, if any say in the whys, how’s and risks. Everything become defined by internal processes and needs. The project managers task is to execute the project plan and hope the outcome meet the needs. Without the project manager being involved from the start and inception and making hard decisions its hard to implement and plan. The reality of what the outcome expected by senior managers and other stakeholders and the project manager or director start to fall apart. The tendency is to blame changing environments or people. Matters are made to look like a success when they have failed as the data shows.
Soft skills matter
These are a combination of people management, creative leadership, empathy, stress management, emotional intelligence and communication skills that make teams perform, people to get along together well successfully for one focus. These software skills are hardly taught in colleges or universities and often its ‘lip service’ but these are more important than the technical skills, which all can learn and use.
1. People management, choosing the team members based on skills and cohesion.
2. Creative leadership is fixing problems fast within project constraints.
3. Empathy with other team members to see things from their point of view.
4. Stress management is knowing when to push or backdown. Support team members.
5. Emotional intelligence come with age, experience and intelligence.
6. Communication skills is vital so that messages and emails are simple, direct and focused.
To find such people is not easy but critical in project management. HR is usually not up to the task as they tend to recruit from similar traits as themselves. This is the task of senior management or main stakeholders but without this detailed work, your IT project is just another failed statistic.
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