Why Your PRINCE2 Projects Should Be Part Of A Larger Scheme

As a project manager, you are really busy making those nice products for your company.

Ever wondered what place does your product occupy in the organization

Why in a particular position is your product slotted ?

When you understand and accept that there is a larger scheme in place that suits your company, it becomes easy to answer these questions.

You should understand the company's strategy, so that it becomes easy to know how to prepare the organization to deal with the products your teams develop When this is clear, it becomes easier to fit the pieces together

Key takeaways:

• How your products occupy a certain place and position in the organizational scheme of things.
• Why it is important to recognize that position. *How strategy binds everything together.
• How strategy supersedes any methodology your project may use, like Agile.
• What courses to choose if you are interested in studying how to prepare your product against an organizational strategy.

Positioning your products

As a project manager, you have the business.

You are creating products for the company, and your products have the unique stamp of your ideas.Your products are bearing a certain form, and that is solely because of your efforts.The forms and shapes your products take on are so meaningful, that they represent your ideas, to the business.

Your ideas then become part of the business's identity. The products that you create are thus absorbed into the core identity of the business.They are thus full of meaning for the company.The business responds to your products by incorporating them into a strategy. I'll explain with the help of an example.

Suppose you are the project manager. Your company has a project in place to create a product.

Now, the project has come to stage where delivery has started and the product has taken a particular shape and form.The executives and you attend meetings to decide what the product's digital identity will be.It is then decided that a third party will be responsible for depicting the product's visual attributes on online platforms.

So you see, the company sees the shape and form of your product and positions it accordingly.That is it decides to take a further course of action fit for your product.The product has secured a place within the organization's plans.

Let's recap what we saw thus far:

We started with the question:

• How do your products occupy a certain place in the organization's plans? *
• We saw that your ideas gave a shape and form to your product.
• We saw that those attributes of your product were of some importance to the business.
• In fact, that is what gave your product, a standing in the company.
• Not just that, the company sees the attributes of your product and decides what to do with it.
• In other words, the company has a strategy for your product.

You, as a project manager, take into account a lot of things to create your product. It is your efforts that help in giving a shape and form to your product.

Now, we just saw that those attributes are what helps your product find recognition in an organizational setup.

How do you know what place and position does your product hold within your company?

As your product is taking shape, you should communicate with people within the business.Those people whose decision making affects the future of the product.You should have a set of tools that makes communication easy.

In today's scenario, face to face communication has become difficult. However, do not let that affect your answer seeking journey.Be the one to ask questions. You should keep the focus on the attributes of the product. Ask and see the intensity of the answers.You will easily be able to gauge the position your product occupies from the intensity of those replies.PRINCE2 has always encouraged communication. It is through keeping lines of communication open, that you will know how the business responds to your signature ideas.The business's responses are tactics, and they are led by a strategy. One that has a place for your product.

Let's recap what we saw:

• We asked the questions:
• Why is it important to recognize the place and position your product has, in the company's scheme of things. 
• How to recognize that position. 
• We saw that the company does place your product. 
• This place is determined by the product's attributes.
• In recognizing the attributes of your product and rating them accordingly, the business is responding to your product with a strategy.
• In order to know this on a deeper level, it is important to communicate with relevant people within the business.

Strategy is the binding glue

As a project manager, you have your ideas.These ideas translate into a product as your project progresses.PRINCE2 lets you do that by tailoring the themes and principles to your project.Your product has distinct attributes that are formed with your ideas as the base.The organization has a distinct viewpoint to look at your product.Your product is now part of the organization.It is not just the product, but your ideas and plans that have influenced the organization and won a position for your product.The product with its attributes is now blended as a part of the organization's culture.

Your ideas, as an employee affect the organization's setup and form an integral part of the collective culture.In the example I gave you a couple of sections ago, a third party was called by the company to engage with the product's digital identity.So the organization had a viewpoint of its own, with which it looked at the product, and responded with the tactic of calling a third party.This was in turn, influenced by the nature and form of the product.These actions in turn influenced the culture of the company.

How? There was a collaboration between the product teams and the third party's staff. Ideas were tossed and exchanged.These influenced the way the product would be seen on various online platforms. This in turn influenced the brand identity of the company.Tactics are led by the way the organization views your products and forms a strategy.

Let's recap what we've seen so far:

• Your ideas give a shape and form to your product.
• Your product gains its attributes down to these.
• The organization recognizes the product and has a viewpoint on it.
• The product's attributes create a culture within the organization.
• Strategies and tactics are born out of culture.

PRINCE2 methodologies have been the driving force behind projects for a very long time. These have been adjusted to reflect changing project requirements, like shorter and quicker development spans, not very unlike those characteristic of Agile Software Development.However, whatever may be the case of a project, some things will never change.For example, we saw in the example, the product was being created, then the company decided to engage the help of a third party, and then that influenced the culture of the company.This would hold true if it were a PRINCE2 or a PRINCE2 Agile project. The projects should always be part of a larger organizational strategy.This hold true for both PRINCE2 and PRINCE2 Agile projects.Both kinds are after all projects.They would lead to the creation of products.These products would end up having attributes irrespective of what project methodology is used.These attributes would contribute towards a cultural viewpoint for the whole organization, without the project methodology making any significant difference.We are talking of the product and its attributes, which would exist either ways.That is, if the product was made using normal PRINCE2 techniques or even if the product was made using PRINCE2 Agile techniques, these attributes are what constitutes the product.They exist because of the product, and not because of the specific methodologies.

Let us recap:

• We looked at a primary difference between PRINCE2 and PRINCE2 Agile.
• The latter comes from new software development techniques.
• In the scope of our article, we have looked at product attributes and seen how the product affects cultural aspects of an organization. 
• The product attributes lends the organization a viewpoint to look at the product. That influences tactics. They influence culture. *
• The viewpoint comes from an innate strategy.
• None of this takes into consideration whether the project was guided by PRINCE2 or PRINCE2 Agile principles.
• *So, that strategy binds everything together holds in both cases of PRINCE2 and PRINCE2 Agile projects.

Knowlathon has been for long, a provider of PRINCE2 trainings.Not only do you attend a training, but also you can validate your skills by sitting a certification exam. You then get a PRINCE 2 certificate.

We have several options for you: the PRINCE2 Foundation, PRINCE2 Practitioner, and also a blended course:PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner. If you just want to know the basic tenets of PRINCE2, you may opt for the PRINCE2 Foundation.If you want to lead projects actively, you may take the PRINCE2 Practitioner course.Save yourself the time by doing a three day blended PRINCE2 course.Newer ways of software development led to Agile practices being widely popular. Given how immensely popular Agile is when resources are strained during times like these, PRINCE2 Agile was written for those who want to speed up development and creation of products.Now, for you, we have the PRINCE2 Agile route.Consisting of the same course types as PRINCE2, we must say our three day PRINCE2 Agile Foundation and Practitioner course is well sought after.