Pass PRINCE2 PRINCE2-Foundation Exam in First Attempt Easily

Introduction

1. Introduction

When a customer wanted a new system developed, I was sent to the customer site for a few weeks to research and discuss in detail what the customer wanted. Then I would scope the work and provide a quote for the cost. When a customer signed a contract, I would be given a team, a budget and a deadline. And that was i.e. was a technology and business expert, but I was somehow expected to make all this happen. So basically my methodology was I would work really hard day at night, and I would work my team hard day and night as well. And if they started to fall behind, even if nagged them harder, I would have to do some of their specialist work as well. This is not with manager project, is it? My company provided me with what they called project management software. But it wasn’t. It was a programmer for creating project schedules. It was a good program. And a project schedule is an essential tool for any project manager, but it does not somehow manage projects. I was required to produce project plan for each shared project. And by project plan, they meant a project schedule. A project schedule is not a project plan. So my projects were completed on time, but my team and I were really paying the price. We were slaves to the system. So I began researching project management and I improved my techniques. I developed Templates next sale and Word documents. But my greatest step forward was when discovered a Pinball guide by PMI. PMBOK stands for a guide tithe project management body of knowledge. This taught me in detail to do all sorts of project related processes. But I was still lacking an overall structure. I didn't have a methodology, because Pinball, as good as it is, is not a methodology. Every project manager works out their own method. And some are okay, some are bad, some are worse than useless. What you need is a reliable repeatable method, which has stood the test of time in every industry, in every size and type of project, in every country and every culture. And you need a method that does not expect you as project manager to work day and night in panic mode. And that method is, in case you haven't guessed, prints too. As I mentioned before, print Two is an acronym, so you always write it in capital letters. And it is a truly generic method. That means it works on any project, anywhere. If your industry has a specific body of knowledge, or it has life cycles or engineering models or even a specific glossary of terms, pins Two can be tailored to work alongside them. Even if you are an experienced project manager who uses PMBOK, you do not have to give up using PMBOK. I never did, because Pinball and Print work so well together. Because printout is a structure. But it leaves many of the detailed techniques to the project manager. The PMBOK, on the other hand, is very strong and detailed techniques, but it leaves the overall structure to the project manager. I believe that another big advantage of Prince2 is that it is entirely focused on delivering actual benefits to the organization. Stop and think about that for a moment. You'll be given a scope statement, a budget and a deadline. You meet all three of these goals, but the product, for whatever reason, does not deliver benefits to the organization. Was your project successful? If you said yes, then how can you justify spending all that time, effort and money without actually benefiting the organization? Really? What happened? You wasted time, effort, and money achieving nothing. Do you still think it was successful? When they designed Prints Out, they realized that so many project managers were totally focused on managing the project and ticking boxes and using graphs and charts. They often lost sight of the reason for an issue in the project in the first place. It reminds me of a line from an old poem which says that not that you won or lost, but how you played the game. But Prince2 tells us that in Princeton sorry, in project management you must win as well as playing the game professionally. Or to use another sporting metaphor, never take your eyes off the ball. And the ball in this case, of course, are the benefits for the organization. Another key principle of Prince2 is that you must learn from experience so that the projects and the organization can continually improve. This probably sounds rather obvious, but in this Prince2 principle, it is talking about not just your own development, although that will happen to you, but really the entire organization. Stop for a moment and think about your previous projects. Imagine when you were faced with a new problem and you thought to yourself somebody must have solved this problem before. Yes, they probably did. But if they didn't record it anywhere, or you didn't read what they wrote, then you'll have to reinvent the wheel. Does that sound efficient? No, of course not. So that's why Prince2 tells us to record our lessons learned. And then, when we are managing projects, this is a valuable resource that might not only help provide the answer, but if we read it at the start of the projects, it might even help us avoid encountering the problems in the first place.

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Projects, Project Manager and Project Management

1. What is a Project, Project Manager and Project Management

So in this segment, I will cover what is not a project. What is a project? What does a project manager do? What are we trying to control on a project? And what is project management? So what is not a project? Organizations need to do things every day in order to remain in business. These daily operations tend to be repetitive and don't really take much planning. Organizations usually have a mission statement which you should be able to find on their website, and they often have it hanging and framed on a wall. A mission statement says why the organization exists and what it does. For example, the Gray Campus mission statement is grey Campus transforms careers through skills and certification training. We are a leading provider of training for working professionals in the area of project management, big data, data science service management, and quality management. We offer live online, structured led online, classroom, instructor led classroom and elearning online self-learning courses. Our growing suite of accredited course sis constantly upgraded to address the career enhancement goals of working professionals. And this is what Gray Campus does every day. We call this Everyday Work Operations or business as usual, which people often abbreviate to beau because people often abbreviate things. Suppose a student wants to start a new course at Gray Campus. The Gray Campus staff follow a few step by step instructions and in fact, most of it is automated. There's obviously no need to involve an executive, a project manager, home management meetings, develop a risk management plan for the students starting anew course, or anything out of the ordinary. So then clearly operations are not projects. Operations maintain the organisation's mission statement. Or to set another way, operations maintain the organization's business as usual. So what is a project? To understand what a project is, we will consider Gray Campus again working every day to maintain its business as usual. But then something happens that is out of the ordinary. For example, there could be a change to the country's tax laws. Prince2 may release at Prince 2017 and Gray Campus may want a new course developed for it, very like this one. Or they may decide to build a bricks and mortar college somewhere. Of course, they could decide to redesign their website to their office It systems or their Elearning platform, or countless other circumstances that cannot be dealt with by business as usual. And one of the clues that this is approach is each of these circumstances requires a change. But business as usual does not involve change. It is the same, then the same, then the same. So let's have a look at projects. Prince2 defines projects as a temporary organisation that is created for the purpose of delivering one ormore business products according to an agreed business case that's on page eight of Prince 2017.This is an important definition to remember for the exam. Now, the project is a temporary organisation so that means it's not the everyday business as usual organization, but instead a group of people working within the Van organization. Next, it said created for the purpose of delivering water more business products. So here again we see that the focus of Prince2 is on the products rather than the project. And lastly, according to a great business case, and this is another major focus of Prince2, the project has to deliver benefits to the organization, or you're simply using organisational resources on meaningless endeavors. And just in case you missed it, it says agreed business case, not just business case. And that is because it is vitally important that you do not rush ahead and initiate project without the key stakeholders meet in full agreement that the project should proceed. This means that unlike a process which continues until it’s no longer required, a project will have an expected end date calculated before the project even begins. The project will be unique in some way. Again, unlike operations which may turn out widgets endlessly without planning meetings, a project will require detailed planning and consultation. Legal requirements may have to be met, a local council may have to provide permission. Team members may have problems working together. Risk and uncertainty change in risk go hand in hand. The risks may be negative Ie threats or positive Ie opportunities. But in general, organisations tend to focus more on threats because they're what caused real damage and can bring your project to a standstill. The other characteristics of a project are usually cross functional. So what does that mean? in an organization? Functions are operational areas, and they're also called "silos," which group people into operational areas such as sales, marketing, production, human resources distribution, and so on. And your team will probably use operational staff from several different functional areas. Often you'll be moving these people away from their usual locations to work with and bringing them together with people that they don't really know that well, doing different work from what they usually do. And the work that they are expected to do may be so different from their everyday work that they may be afraid of failing. All of these things can be uncomfortable and stressful for them and for you as project manager. And so what does a project manager do? In order to achieve control over anything, there must be a plan. It is the project manager who is responsible for planning the sequence of activities to build the house. Working harmony, brick, glares will be required and so on. It may be possible to build a house yourself, but being a manager implies that you will delegate some or all of the work to others. The ability to delegate is important in any form of management, but particularly so in project management, because all of the cross functionality and risks with the dedicated work underway, the aim is that you should go according to plan. But we cannot rely on this always been the case. It's a project manager's responsibility to monitor how well the work in progress matches the plan. Of course, if the work does not go according to plan, the project manager has to do something about it. I E exert Control even if the work is going well, the project manager may identify an opportunity to speed up or reduce costs. And that was from Prince2 guide. Page ten. What are we trying to control on a project? This list is well worth remembering. Prince2 says that there are six variables in any project, namely cost, time, quality, scope, benefits and risk. Let's consider each one of these briefly costs. Your budget will be under attack from day one on your project. When I train project managers, they often say I would add 20% to the budget to allow for unexpected cost increases. But no, that's not project management. You have to actually manage the spending. It's part of your job as a project manager. Time Skill in a perfect world, the project manager will consider all of the deliverables, break them down into work packages, then arrive at a reasonable time estimate for each one, then decide which work packages could be done in parallel, which must be done in serial and with all the internal and external dependencies. They would feed that information into a Gantshirt and that would then give them a reasonable completion date of November 30.But this is an imperfect world. So when you say November 30, your boss will say it must be finished by September 30.Then you have to squish and squash everything down until your gang chart is like an overstuffed holiday suitcase is threatening to burst up on. So, just like the costs, you will need to use all of your training to manage time quality. Prince2 says that products must be fit for purpose. That means the products must do what they're supposed to do. For example, I bought a new wireless microphone online to record this course. It arrived on time and it obviously meant the budget. But no matter what I did, the microphone produced a poor quality sound. It was not fit for its intended purpose, and we say the quality was low. Scope the scope of a project is a list of everything the project has to deliver. And when we get to the end of the project, the customer is going to compare the products that they receive against the scope. Imagine, for example, you decide to have a house built and you look at the builder's website until eventually you see a beautiful house with a lovely garden, a lawn and a stone pathway. And you think, that is perfect for me. So the builder goes, builds a house, then the builder will inform you that the house is not ready for inspection. But when you arrive, there's just bare soil all around the house. There's no lawn and there's no path. You complain to the builder that the lawn and paths were definitely on the one that you chose, but the builder says that you did not request landscaping and tells you to check your contract, which is like your scope statement. And the project manager for your house would have been constrained by that contract. Benefits as I keep mentioning, benefits are the big ticket item in prints too. There must be trillions of dollars wasted on projects that people don't benefit from and the organisation doesn't need. So before you consider initiating the project, check that the organisation is going to benefit from it. And this is not just a matter of adding up benefit. You also have to weigh the benefits against the disbenefits, ie.What you're going to lose by doing the project. Risk things won't always go according to plan on your project. Or to put it another way, things will often go wrong on your project, but you can't just wait until problems occur. You need to consider in advance what might go wrong and use techniques to reduce the likelihood of the risk of carrying or to reduce the severity of the impact. If it does happen at some risks, it may be possible to avoid them completely, usually by removing part of the scope with the agreement of the customer, of course. And in real terms, it is quite rare that you can actually do that. And where possible, you will need to devise a contingency plan, so that if an expected risk does occur, you will know what to do. And just to remind you, we were talking about the six variables on any project that might change, which pinched her calls performance targets. And you do need to remember these. So I will say again cost timescale, quality, scope, benefits and risk. So, now that we know what a project is and what it isn't, it's time to answer our final question. In this video, what is project Management? Prince Two says project management is a planning, delegating, monitoring and control of all aspects of the project and the motivation of those involved to achieve the project objectives within the expected performance targets for time, cost, quality, scope, benefits and risks. The key message from this segment, according to Princeton is 01:00 A.m. Of Prince2, is to make the right information available at the right time for the right people to make the right decisions about the project. Those decisions include whether to take corrective action or implement measures to improve performance. And that's from the principal guide, page eleven.

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Introduction to Principles

1. Introduction to Principles

Introduction to Principles. Prince2 is based on seven principles, and you will find them listed on page 20 of The Principal Guide. They are one continued business justification to learn from experience. Three define roles, tools, and responsibilities. Four are managed by stages. Five are managed by exception. Six focus on products. Seven are tailored to set the project. But before looking at them in detail, we must answer the question: What is a principle? According to the Oxford Dictionary, a principle Isa fundamental truth that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior. And so we could say that the seven principles of Prince Two are the fundamental truths drawn from best practice, which form the foundation of the beliefs and behaviors of Prince2. And here I am reminded of quote by George Packer, an American journalist. He was talking about principles in general, but they seem to sum up Pins three principles quite well. He said Principles are something different, asset of values that have to be adapted to circumstances but not compromised away. Principal principles are a set of values. We have to adapt them. I tailor those principles to suit our project and a project environment. And even though we tailor them, we must not compromise them away. We must apply all seven principal principles. In fact, if a project is not following all seven principal principles, then it is not a principal project. And the reason why principal requires these principles to be applied is so that Prince Two can remain a generic method. Generic means that it doesn't matter what your project is, what industry it is, what country or culture, what size, from timing to enormous, or what sort of life cycles you use. Principle can be tailored to suit your project, and the tailor ensures that the project team is not burdened by bureaucracy and needless form filling. But as I mentioned in the introduction, Prince Two is strong and what you should do in any part of the project, but it does not accept in a few instances go into real great detail of how you should do it. That's another benefit of Prince2, because it means it could fit in with what you already do when you manage projects, it's not like you have to forget everything you've ever learned as a project manager and start from scratch. Far from it’s the Principal Guide says, prince Twos principle based rather than prescriptive. The principles are universal in that they apply to every project self-validating, in that they have been proven in practice over many years, and in part in because they give practitioners of the method added confidence and ability to influence and shape how the project will be managed, which is also on page 20, the Principle Guide. The next seven videos I will cover the seven principles in detail, but I would strongly recommend that you read through the corresponding section of the Pinchot guide before watching each video so that you get the maximum benefit from it.

2. Principles No 1 Continued Business Justification

Tip number one the business case. This video will cover the purpose of the Prince2 business case. Where to find information on the business case the Dictionary meaning of business case the Prince2 meaning of business case judging, if approved, desirable, viable and achievable disbenefits versus risks benefits versus risks, business case responsibilities of the executive business case responsibilities of the senior users business case responsibilities of the senior supplier and business case responsibilities of the project manager. What's the purpose of the principal business case? The Principal Guide says the purpose of the business case theme is to establish mechanisms to judge whether the project is and remains desirable, viable and achievable as a means to support decision making in its continued investment. And so we said the business case is necessary to support principle number One continued business justification. The justification is based on costs, risks and expected benefits and will be continually reviewed to ensure it is still valid. I mentioned previously that sometimes the benefits of a project can be expressed in negative terms, and we will see that in principle in the Guide on page 46, where it refers to the benefits from a mandatory project to suit legal or regulatory requirements as removing the detrimental impact on the organization if they did not deliver the required outputs. So where to find the information on the business case? This is covered in Chapter six of the Prince 2017 Guide. The business case is a product and you will find outlines of all product descriptions in Appendix A. Note that the appendix contains outline descriptions, not the full descriptions, because principal is not prescriptive the business case product description you will find in Appendix Eight Two on page 294. This is a key product that you must know thoroughly for the exam, and I would strongly recommend pausing the video at this point and studying Appendix Eight Two. Welcome back. If you studied eight two in the exam, you are able to access your copy of the printed guide. But the chapter six, which is the business case, is huge and the outline product description is very large. And even if you use tabs and highlighters and all the tricks that people use in their prints to guide in the Open Book Exam, you could waste a lot of valuable time reading it. The exam is not the place to be studying something for the first time. You must have a good understanding of the business case before you attempt the exam. Let's have a look at the dictionary meeting of the business case. What does the term business case mean? First of all, let's consider the word case. There are many meanings for case in English, but in this case, and in case you don't know the correct meaning, the Dictionary, the Cambridge Dictionary defines this type of case as arguments, facts and reasons in support of something. So you can see that the case is the justification for doing something. And the Cambridge Dictionary goes on to say the business case is an explanation or set of reasons describing how a business decision will improve a business, a product, et cetera, and how it will affect costs and profits and other investments. These are dictionary definitions, so you don't need to know them for the examination, but I believe that they help understanding the purpose of the business case. So now we'll return to Prince2 and its definition of business case, which you can find in the glossary on page three. Seven two it is the justification for an organisational activity which typically contains time, skills, costs, benefits and risks, and against which continuing viability is tested. This justification would normally begin by describing the business need to be met or the problem to be overcome. It would also describe the anticipated benefits, such as how the benefits will be achieved and how the organization will know that the benefits have been achieved. This is done within the business case by explaining the techniques to be used for measuring the benefits. This is critical information because, as I've said before, benefits must be measurable. And we also need to take into consideration the cost of dis benefits incurred in delivering them. Please remember, the benefits must be measurable. You'll hear me so many times, because it is that important. Otherwise your organisation can't tell that they've been achieved. Judging if the project is desirable, viable and achievable. Let's look at the Prince2 purpose for the business case. Again, the purpose of the business case theme is to establish mechanisms to judge whether the project is and remains desirable, viable and achievable as a means to support decision making in its continued investment. We want to know that the project is desirable, viable and achievable. So what does that actually mean? Desirable means that when you weigh up the benefits against the dis benefits, risks and associated costs, the benefits are still worth the time and trouble of undertaking the project. To be viable, this means that the project must be able to exit deliver the necessary products. And lastly, achievable means that if the organisation uses the outputs of the products of the project, then these products will actually produce the benefits. Let's have a look now at dis benefits versus risks, because some people get that mixed up. It's important to understand the difference between dis benefits and risks because you need to be clear about them for the examination. A risk, and in this case I'm talking about a threat, is something that may or may not occur, but if it does happen, it will cause the organisation to lose something as a result of undertaking the project. A dis benefit, on the other hand, is something that will definitely happen and it will always cause your organisation to lose something as a result of undertaking the project. For example, suppose the project involves storing equipment and materials in the staff dining room for two months. The room is almost full, wall to wall, right? Up to the ceiling with a little narrow passageway to lifestyle to get from one side of the building to the other. The risk could be that the materials or equipment may injure someone as they go through the passageway. It is something that may or may not happen. A disbenefit would be the staff cannot use the dining room for two months and it will cause a lack of motivation. This will definitely happen. Now we have a look at benefits for the risks in this case. In this risk I'm talking about an opportunity. So an opportunity is something that may or may not happen, but if it does happen, then the organisation will gain something as a result of undertaking the project. A benefit, on the other hand, is something that should definitely happen and it will always cause your organisation to gain something as a result of undertaking the project. For example, suppose a project is intended to restructure the customer service department of a car hire organization. One of the outputs of the project will be a new support ticketing package which will be open source, which means it doesn't cost anything to buy. But a local company will be required to modify the package to match local conditions and specific needs of the car hire organization. This will cost 150,000 for five weeks of work and one of the expected benefits of the restructure is a reduction of 25% in call resolution time during the project. A team manager reports to the project manager that a friend who works for an equipment hire organisation has just completed a similar project. The organisation bought a commercial ticketing package from a local supplier for $90,000, but it is specifically designed for the equipment industry and they would have to pay for minor modifications. The team manager suggests they should buy the commercial package because the modifications will be minor and shoes should be inexpensive and the two indices are very similar, so it should work. So the risk, which is an opportunity this time is that if the organisation buys a commercial package, it may save a considerable amount of time and cost on the project. But they will need to research the option and they may find the savings can't be realized or may not be sufficient to consider a change in the project business Case key Responsibilities let's have a look at the executive. First of all, place your vice table 6.1 in the Prince2 guide which begins on page 52. This details who is responsible for what in relation to the business. Guess we will discover these roles later in the course. Briefly, the main roles and responsibilities are the executive and there can only be one executive on the project board because the executive takes advice from the rest of the board but is a single decision maker, represents the business interests and is accountable for the business case and the benefits management approach throughout the life of the project. The executive ensures the business case is aligned with corporate strategies and represents value for money, and is also responsible for securing funding for the project. If you're familiar with the Prince2 2009 edition, the benefits management approach was called Benefit Management Strategy. Business case Responsibilities for the Senior Users there is a danger that although the benefits may be fully defined, but after the project is completed, everyone forgets to check the benefits were actually achieved. And so in the business case, as well as defining how the benefits will be measured, it will also state who will measure them and how long after the project is completed that this will occur. And the who in this case is normally a senior user, a senior user, or can be users is a manager who represents the people who will use the project outputs. They are accountable for specifying the benefits and must assure that the project produces outputs that will ultimately deliver the benefits. The senior user must also ensure post project that the benefits are realized. Business case Responsibilities for the Senior Supplier the senior supplier or senior suppliers who represent the people who will create the project outputs and is responsible for confirming that the required products can be delivered at the expected cost and they are viable. That means that they are capable of producing the benefits. Business case Responsibilities of the Project Manager The project manager is responsible for creating the business case on behalf of the executive, but the executive is responsible for the business case, so please bear that in mind. The project manager also creates a benefit management approach and will assess and update the business case at the end of each management stage. Outputs, outcomes and benefits. These definitions are very important. An output, especially product that is handed over to the user or users. Note that management products are not outputs because they are created solely for the purpose of managing the project. Outcome Results to change normally affecting real world behavior and or circumstances, outcomes are desired when a change is conceived, they are achieved as a result of the activities undertaken to affect the change at a benefit. The measurable improvement resulting from an outcome perceived as an advantage by one or more stakeholders.

3. Prince 2 Learn from experience V2

Often these risks come from a lack of knowledge or experience on the team. Because projects are temporary and used to involve staff in doing different duties from what they're normally doing. As projects are managed by an organization, the lessons learned should be recorded routinely by everyone on the project. Notice the project manager. And so when a new project has started, this collection of knowledge from previous projects should be examined. The process is called capturing lessons learned. And that one used to confuse mesa listen carefully. Capturing lessons learned doesn't mean recording new lessons, it means looking at the old lessons from previous projects and seeing how you can help this project. So let's capture lessons learned. These lessons exist only because people made an effort to record them. And so on your project, make sure that everyone records important lessons right throughout the project and make sure that they're filed securely and are easily retrievable, otherwise it will be no benefit to yours at all. Otherwise, to learn from experience or by external resources such as including subject matter experts on the team, and by sending staff and training courses. These can be particularly useful if the project involves products that are new to the organization. And so there would be few lessons learned. Even if the project fails, and this is very important, the lessons must be recorded. In fact, they may even have valuable clues as to why the project failed. In fact, this is so important. I will end with an actual example of what happened to me. Some years ago I was called in to take over a project in Australia and the project was failing. I asked the team for the lessons learned, but they didn't have any. I asked him why they thought the project was feeling they couldn't tell mean I asked questions like have you got a feeling for something that might have influenced a project to fill? And they were telling me things like the customer's project team or unfriendly. They complain about everything we do and they complain about everything we send them. Then someone told me that the project had field before. The project manager had left a couple of sometime ago, but I was able to get his contact details and give him a phone call. He didn't know why the project had failed when he managed i.e. asked him a number of details about the project, bathe didn't seem to understand what I was talking about. I asked him if he had any feelings as to why it might fail and they said well, the customer's team were very unfriendly. That didn't help. And they complained about everything that he did and everything that he sent them, which is remarkably similar to what I was hearing from the current project. Then he dropped the bombshell. He told me that the project had failed once before he had managed it’s that means this is actually the third attempt at the same project, not the second. There is a very appropriate old saying if we do not learn from history, then we are doomed to repeat it. However, the project manager said that he actually used to keep handwritten notes of problems he faced on the project. Thank you. He certainly had left the book in the storeroom when he left the company. So to cut a long story short, I had search to the storeroom, and I found notebook inside a box of Christmas decorations. And I read it, and that gave me some clues. Then I had a meeting with the customer's project team just to check if I was right. And it was because I realized that the previous two so called project managers were not actually trained in project management, but the customer's project manager was trained. So they were, in effect, speaking two different languages. The customer was asking for standard project reports and information, but the project managers from my company had no idea what was being asked for, and they were sending them bullet point lists of what they’re doing and emails and a couple of what they thought were useful diagrams. And they didn't even have a project schedule for checking where the project was at. So with these basic lessons learned from a field project, from a notebook and a box of Christmas decorations, I was able to see the way to make a plan to rescue the project. And I quickly gained the respect of the customers project team because we were not speaking the same language. Language. And I'm very pleased to say that the project was put back on track and was completed successfully.

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