Lesson 15: Organization, Part 5

This is the last lesson about the Organization theme.

Based on AXELOS PRINCE2^® material. Reproduced under licence from AXELOS. All rights reserved.
Note: PRINCE2 2017 edition is now called PRINCE2 6th edition.

00:05 – Our next scenario is we have a communications department and they really enjoy their work and they are very good and they are playing a part in this project.
00:15 – They have decided that they would like to take care of all communication for the project.
00:21 – Thus, it will make life much easier for the Project Manager.
00:25 – Is this a good idea? And why?
00:31 – One of the most important things that the Project Manager should do is communications.
00:36 – So that’s not something you can delegate to someone else. You may Even if it’s a good idea?
00:43 – You can say that you can still spend enough of your time on communication and still say that, “Well, this type of project needs more communication, so let’s bring three or four people who are also expert in communication to help me with it,” but not as a replacement, just to add to that. That’s how I think about it.
01:05 – Yes. Okay. What do you think?
01:09 – Well, I use the word “all” communication. So whenever you see the word “all” in the question, automatically just sit back because I’m catching you out.
01:19 – So, the communication department can help out, of course, but they are responsible for external communication for the project and, as you said, internal communication should be done by the Project Manager.
01:31 – So the communications department can help with newsletters, updating the corporate website or dealing with the press, that’s not a problem. Alright.
01:41 – Also, bring some of them maybe as Project Support to add more value to the existing communications in the project.
01:49 – Yes, yeah. That would be good as well, yeah. Yeah? I think that’s a good idea, but anyway, when the Project Manager is delegating communication, it’s one of the last things you want to delegate as Project Manager.
02:01 – Okay, so the next one is, let’s look at when things go wrong because we need to have someone to blame if things go wrong.
02:08 – So let’s say our scenario now, we have a project of about six months, the project has been running for six months, and we’re using an external Project Manager.
02:16 – Now the project is in deep trouble and we know it’s in deep trouble because the products are not working as expected.
02:23 – So the organization CEO, he holds the Change Authority responsible because of this.
02:29 – Is it correct for the CEO in this case?
02:33 – Why the Change Authority? Well, that’s a good answer.
02:39 – What did he do?
02:43 – He holds them responsible. Is he correct to do that? Well And if not, which role should he be holding responsible?
02:53 – Well, the main question is, should we blame people inside the project?
02:59 – Alright, hold responsible, I should have said. Okay.
03:04 – Because we have accountability in PRINCE2 projects.
03:08 – Okay. In that sense, the Project Manager is mainly accountable for what happens inside the stages and the Project Board for the project as a whole. So the problem was with which one?
03:20 – The problem was It was quality, right?
03:24 – Yeah. The problem was the products were failing. They were not working as users expected.
03:29 – So they find out they’re going to have to recreate, let’s say, 50% of the products, and the CEO probably doesn’t understand the PRINCE2 roles very well, so they blame Change Authority.
03:43 – Well, I would say that that’s complicated.
03:45 – It can be because of the poor specification in the beginning or during the project.
03:50 – It can be because of poor quality management during the project or bad communication.
03:58 – Well, that goes back to the specific. Even two of them actually.
04:01 – Even still that should be picked up earlier. There’s another role which I’m aiming at.
04:06 – Are you talking about Project Assurance? Yes. Yes. Correct, yeah.
04:13 – Why would you say so?
04:16 – Because it’s their role for once a month or once every two months to go around and just check to see that everything that the Project Manager was saying is actually okay.
04:25 – So going around to see if the products were handed over correctly or if users had seen them and don’t take everything that the Project Manager says as 100%, and the CEO … or the Executive or the CEO just got confused between the different roles of the project, so he just blamed Change Authority. Well, it’s Project Assurance. Yeah.
04:48 – Of course, I’m trying to catch you out. If I ask you questions that are always too easy, then of course No, a question like this is always difficult. Well, first of all, because some of us out there don’t believe in blaming.
05:00 – I know you’ve been asking about ultimate accountability or something like that?
05:04 – Yeah. Who’s held accountable?
05:06 – But, for example, if it’s about a quality problem, isn’t the Project Manager primarily responsible for quality?
05:13 – Correct, yeah, but maybe they what PRINCE2 tries to get across is that if the Project Manager has not been truthful, let’s say, and he’s hiding bits of information or not really honest with the truth, this can happen for quite a long time before it’s actually seen by somebody else that, “Hold on, this project is in really deep trouble,” and that’s the opening phrase that I’ve used.
05:37 – So PRINCE2 wants to get across, “Okay, if the project fails in a year’s time, the Project Manager is not the accountable person, it’s the Executive and the Project Board.
05:46 – They’re accountable because they’re responsible for Project Assurance role.
05:50 – So that’s what I’m trying to focus on here and I wanted to give a scenario based on that as well.
05:58 – Okay. And just a reminder, there are three parts to Project Assurance - business, user and supplier. So each role in the Project Board then has to take on one of these and make sure that things are happening in line with what the Project Manager says.
06:15 – The Project Manager is over-worked, I’m getting back to being over-worked again, and they ask the Team Manager to take responsibility for configuration management as this takes a lot of time to update all the documents and check the location they’re in and making sure everybody has the latest version of those documents.
06:32 – So it’s also very important for the project.
06:35 – So, is it okay for the Project Manager to ask a team member to help out with this?
06:41 – I would say yes. It means that we are asking the same person to take the role of Project Support and I think that should be fine because I don’t see a conflict here unless we go back to the thing we had before.
06:56 – We have multiple teams and it creates discrimination if you bring one of them and give them the Project Support.
07:03 – Okay. Yeah. Maybe you are correct.
07:07 – Maybe there’s a situation that this might be possible, but what I’m trying to get across here is that configuration management is a role for Project Support.
07:19 – So if that person is appointed in a Project Support role, of course, and they have time to do it, then they can do it, but we cannot just ask a team member to help out.
07:28 – They have to either understand the Project Support role and that’s what I want to get across here.
07:35 – So all we have to do is talk to that Team Manager and tell them, “Okay, are you ready to take this new responsibility, become responsible Team member, sorry, yeah.
07:43 – or team member to become responsible for communication management in the project?” and if they say yes, then we practically agree for that person to also be Project Support.
07:54 – In this case, so there could be a conflict of interest because if I’m working for a team and Project Support can update the Quality Register and the Team Manager should not be allowed to touch it, so in this case, it should not be possible. Yeah. You should be careful with that.
08:07 – It should be from a team separate to the project, not involved with the project. Yeah.
08:11 – Okay. Good. If you don’t mind, for configuration management system, one good practice nowadays is to distribute it among all people.
08:24 – For which? For what? Updating the configuration management system. Oh, okay.
08:28 – There can be work for us to make sure that everything is correct there, but it doesn’t mean that we need to have a librarian as many systems used to have before.
08:39 – One person to keep updating that. Yeah. I see what you mean.
08:45 – Okay, our next scenario is we have a project and in the Starting Up a Project process, the Project Manager already sees a Senior User as a really micro-manager.
08:56 – So they’re showing great interest in the project, they wish to attend every meeting and they’re really focused on the success of the project.
09:03 – My question is, is this appropriate use of their time to do this?
09:11 – Well, we have a principle of Manage by Exception. Okay, and how does that apply?
09:17 – And that’s the opposite of micro-managing.
09:21 – So if someone tries to micro-manage, then it’s not appropriate.
09:25 – In PRINCE2, we need to have tolerances set for each level of management and each manager should be focused on the things that are more sensitive than a certain level, and for the rest, let people on the lower levels decide. Correct. Yeah.
09:39 – That’s our principle. That’s serious. Yes. Good.
09:42 – So the Project Board actually should know that they have to give enough space to the Project Managers to do their stuff and that’s where this Manage by Exception principle comes in very, very well.
09:52 – The Senior User is there to provide resources, to provide the detail and they don’t have to come and do everything themselves.
09:59 – They can remind, of course, to focus on the requirements, but they’re not there to run the project, the Project Manager is there to do that.
10:08 – I remember something. When a while back, AXELOS initiated something to create PRINCE2 Agile, which is a manual, a guidance on how to use PRINCE2 in Agile environments, and I remember that some people were against it, some people used to say that PRINCE2 is not suitable for Agile environments, and one of the things that I used to see in many different places was that people used to say that in Agile, we need to have empowered people but PRINCE2 is not like that. PRINCE2 is based on Manage by Exception, and that’s really strange because Manage by Exception is mainly about empowering people. Yeah.
10:55 – But people take it for granted. They don’t understand it properly.
11:00 – That’s the right way of seeing it. It’s about empowering people, letting people decide about things unless they are more important than a certain level.
11:09 – Yeah. Maybe there should be more examples in the manual to help people understand it because it’s something that’s very natural now.
11:14 – You delegate authority to somebody and they take on a certain task.
11:18 – As soon as they have an issue, it goes to the level above and a level above and so on.
11:21 – So everybody can get on with their work. And it’s become management practice. Yeah.
11:26 – The only thing is that when people talk about Agile, many people are thinking about Scrum, and in Scrum, we have only one flat layer and no exceptions, nowhere else to escalate to.
11:39 – So empowerment in Scrum is absolute, unless you want to have a scale the Scrum, which is a difficult discussion, but even in DSDM which supports multiple teams by default, then we have exceptions, we have escalations and Manage by Exception, the same way we have in PRINCE2.
11:58 – I’m saying that it doesn’t have anything against empowering.
12:02 – Okay, our next scenario is we have a Senior Supplier that has a number of projects and they’re working on our project, but they have no real time for this project.
12:11 – Now, our project has just completed its first delivery stage and there are just three delivery stages remaining.
12:19 – So, what should the Project Manager do, if anything, or should they just go along with it and hope for the best?
12:27 – Project Manager? Yeah, Project Manager. What should the Project Manager do?
12:31 – So the Senior Supplier doesn’t have enough time to spend on the project?
12:35 – They seem to have very little time because they’ve been pulled in on other projects and there’s a good number of projects going on and you can see that they are, yeah, when they’re at a meeting, they’re looking at their phone or they’re being called about something else, and so on.
12:50 – They’re busy people. Yeah. Maybe the Project Manager can go and talk to the Executive about it, because the final decision belongs to the Executive, and discuss if it’s a good idea to think about someone else maybe?
13:03 – When is a good time for that to happen? To do that?
13:07 – I would say between the two stages. Yeah.
13:12 – Because otherwise we may disrupt things. Yeah, correct, yeah.
13:17 – That’s one of the things that a Project Manager can do is to look at the job descriptions, and see if everyone is living up to them and if not, make a suggestion to the Project Board that something should be changed because it’s not always the case where the Senior Supplier doesn’t want to do it, they may just be too busy. So in that case, it’s up to the Executive to decide to take another person to fill this role.
13:42 – So what you’re saying is that at the end of each stage, one of the things that we need to do is to revise all the roles and make sure that everything is fine, and make changes if needed.
13:51 – Yeah. The Project Manager should check to see that everybody has time to do their roles and everything is done properly and maybe someone didn’t, maybe someone forgot that they had a certain responsibility, so you talk to them and you remind them is that possible, and if they say no, this is not possible, then of course, we try to find another solution, which is maybe to get somebody else to take their place to do it.
14:12 – Of course, we can be as nice as possible when doing that.
14:16 – The next scenario. The Change Authority wish to reduce their workload.
14:21 – Everybody wants to reduce their workload here, and they allow the Project Manager to make some decisions, now not everything.
14:27 – So what they’ve said is say while the Project Manager can make certain decisions, provided it’s over, let’s say, or under 200 Euro and only one product is affected, let’s say. Maybe …
14:40 – I can’t think of anything quick, but it’s something small, it’s some application and it’ll only affect one product and it will take about two hours to fix.
14:49 – So is it possible for the Project Manager to take on some Change Authority role, that’s what I’m really asking.
14:55 – I think it is, but only 200?
15:02 – They have tight budgets. Come on! Okay, 500.
15:07 – Frank, 500! It’s about a project. You need to empower people.
15:14 – Well, the Change Authority will take every decision between 500, let’s say, and 5000, and then if it’s over 5000, that goes to the Project Board. So there are three levels.
15:23 – Well, it depends on the scale of the project. For example, if it’s a 20,000 Euro project, then yes, maybe it’s something like this, but well, first of all, it is okay, it’s a good practice to do it like this. Yes. But 200?
15:38 – Okay, 500. I’ll ask the question again. Just pretend I asked it again and I said 500.
15:43 – Even 500. If you want to have a proper project that goes fast, you should let the Project Manager decide.
15:53 – They need to have power, enough tolerance. This is a decision Decide? So if they say 4000 then? Yeah, that’s fine.
16:02 – Even 3000 is fine. Well, you can have two numbers.
16:07 – One, the ceiling for each decision and the other for the total decisions, each stage or something like that.
16:16 – Maybe that’s a good question. If ever you’ve got to hire somebody to be a Project Manager and ask them how much budget they should get, if they say about 500, it’s a good answer.
16:25 – If they say above that, it’s not a good answer.
16:28 – If they said 500, that’s not a proper Project Manager.
16:31 – No, really. A good Project Manager should be ready to take responsibility and fight for that responsibility.
16:39 – Okay, alright. So it’s just the idea of the question, the whole idea behind this question was to make sure that you know that the Project Manager can take on some Change Authority role there.
16:52 – Our next scenario is a project that’s gone to stage 2 and the Project Board decides to change the Change Authority rules, so because up to now, they did all the Change Authority themselves.
17:05 – So they decide to set one up and they decide that there’s a limit of 5000 Euro, so the Change Authority can make decisions below 5000 Euro.
17:15 – Is that appropriate for them to do that during the project or should that be decided like at the beginning of the project?
17:24 – I would say it’s fine to do during the project, especially if it’s between the two stages. Yeah.
17:31 – Because we learn during the project and we adapt. Correct. That’s a good point.
17:37 – So, for example, maybe we can see from the first stage that the Project Board had to come together maybe two or three times for a meeting just to discuss things and this can be delegated out to a team and that’s one of the reasons why they would do these kinds of things.
17:51 – So in that case then, it’s a good one.
17:56 – Okay, next question. The Project Board, there’s a project and the Project Board is too big, all because of the Senior Supplier role.
18:06 – So there are six Senior Suppliers and they all have two people each, and therefore that’s twelve people just taking up the Senior Supplier role on a Project Board.
18:17 – So it’s not very efficient. So the Executive doesn’t know really what to do and as Project Manager, what would you advise the Executive to do?
18:28 – Using fewer people. Yeah, but how would that work?
18:32 – You said that there are six suppliers? How will that work?
18:35 – Still six, even six may be too many.
18:40 – So, one way is to bring internal people who understand all suppliers or many of the suppliers instead of the actual suppliers or tricks like that.
18:52 – What would you say? Okay. Well, yeah, that’s a good example you’ve given.
18:58 – So, what could be dangerous is to say, “Okay, we’ll take the four top suppliers,” because then the other two will not be very, very happy with this.
19:07 – The most obvious thing to do, I think we’ve discussed it before in another question, is to appoint maybe just one person who’s used to dealing with suppliers like a purchasing manager or an internal account manager who’s working the other way, and they will represent them, and then they have another meeting outside the Project Board meeting where they discuss all their issues, so we keep that communication channel open between all the suppliers and the project because it’s important that they feel that they have to have a voice in the project.
19:36 – If they don’t, then it would cause a problem with communication.
19:40 – So, there are ways to do it, but the important thing is to keep the Project Board as small as possible, so that it’s efficient and we don’t waste much time going around the table getting everyone’s opinion on the colour of something.
19:54 – We don’t want that to happen. Okay, our next scenario, a supplier receives a big work package from a Project Manager and this work package is four months, okay, it’s very big.
20:07 – The supplier sets up their own internal PRINCE2 project for this work package and the local Team Manager becomes the Project Manager for this internal project.
20:18 – So is that okay for the supplier to do that and what about conflict of interest?
20:24 – What conflict of interest? Well, any conflict of interest.
20:29 – Okay. So, you’ve given a work package to the To the supplier.
20:34 – To the supplier. Take them about four months to do it. Yeah.
20:38 – A number of people working on it. And they want to see it as a project for themselves.
20:44 – And set up their own internal PRINCE2 project and the Team Manager will become the Project Manager.
20:50 – That’s very common to have the Team Manager in that perspective becoming the Project Manager on the lower perspective.
20:58 – I think it’s fine, but it may not be efficient if there are too many dependencies between that work package and other work packages inside the real project.
21:08 – That’s good. I didn’t even think of that. That’s good. Yeah. If there are many of them, then it’s very inefficient to think of that as a project.
21:16 – It’s best if the supplier thinks of all the work packages that they’re going to have as one project instead of each of them, but if there are not many of them, then yeah, why not.
21:27 – Yeah. That’s a perfectly good idea. Okay, so that’s possible and if often happens and they don’t even have to use PRINCE2.
21:33 – They can use Scrum or Agile or even that thing in the US, the PMBOK, if they wish as well.
21:38 – I don’t know why they would do that.
21:40 – So the supplier then can create their own project and their own Business Case and the Team Manager can become the internal Project Manager.
21:48 – Good. That’s it for the questions.
21:52 – So now we’ve just covered basically all the questions we had for the Organization Theme.
21:57 – We’ve gone through many different scenarios, so we’ve covered actually each section in the manual.
22:02 – It’s important for you to read over the main documents and one of these documents is the Communications Management Approach.
22:09 – Make sure that you understand each section in that document.
22:14 – Okay? Alright. Alright. Now we can have coffee. Alright.

Well done! You’ve finished the second theme. The next theme we’re going to discuss is quality.

Scenarios/questions we’ve discussed in this lesson

Scenario: The communications department of an organization wish to do communication tasks for a project, such as creating a communication management approach and all communication activities, as this can make life much easier for the PM. Is this a good idea, and if so, why?
Scenario: It is discovered after 6 months that a project that is using an external PM is in deep trouble as the majority of delivered products are not working as expected. The CEO of the organization holds the change authority role responsible for this situation. Is it correct for the CEO to blame the change authority role?
Scenario: The PM of a project is overworked so they ask one of the team members to take responsibility for configuration management, as this takes time and is also very important for the project. Is this appropriate?
Scenario: A project has just started (SU process) and the PM sees the senior user as a micromanager. The senior user has a great interest in the project; they wish to attend each project meeting and they are interested in the success of the project. Is it an appropriate use of their time to attend each meeting?
Scenario: A senior supplier has a number of projects and has little or no time for this current project, which has just finished the first delivery stage and has only three stages left. What should the PM do, if anything?
Scenario: The change authority role of a project wishes to reduce their workload and so decide to allow the PM to make some decisions (if cost < €200 and if only one product description is affected). Is it appropriate for the change authority to do this?
Scenario: During a project, the project board becomes aware that they do not have time to deal with issues and so decide to appoint a change authority person to deal with the majority of the change request, which has a cost of <€5,000. Is this appropriate?
Scenario: In an infrastructure project, the project board has become too big due to the many partners represented by the senior supplier role. There are six suppliers with two persons each, which makes project board meetings very efficient. What advice would you give the executive to deal with this?
Scenario: A team manager from a supplier receives a big work package from a PM, which will take about 4 months to deliver. The team managers set up their own PRINCE2 project to deliver this work package and become the project manager. Is this appropriate, or a conflict of interest?

Lesson 15: Organization, Part 5

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