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ITIL Service Value Chain and contribution from PRINCE2
1. Plan “The purpose of the plan value chain activity is to ensure a shared understanding of the vision, current status, and improvement direction for all four dimensions and all products and services across the organization”. PRINCE2 can contribute to this activity by supporting strategic and tactical planning with the Product Based Planning approach: The products to be delivered must be identified before deciding what activities, dependencies, and resources are required to deliver products.” 2. Improve “The purpose of the improve value chain activity is to ensure continual improvement of products, services, and practices across all value chain activities and the four dimensions of service management”. You may need to improve your services, prioritize among several large and complex initiatives and you may need to evaluate the validity of each improvement initiative ongoing. PRINCE2 can drive you through the Continued business justification (the justifiable reason for starting a project that remains valid along with the project). This principle keeps the improvements projects focused on the goal. 3. Engage “The purpose of the engage value chain activity is to provide a good understanding of stakeholders needs, transparency, and continual engagement and good relationship with all stakeholders”. The organization theme helps to define an effective project management team structure, with agreed roles and responsibilities. Once you have defined the structure you can define an approach for the communication to engage the stakeholders, the business, the user and supplier.
4. Design and transition
“The purpose of the design and transition value chain activity is to ensure that products and services continually meet stakeholder expectations for quality, costs, and time to market”.
Design of a practice or service can be managed as a PRINCE2 project, PRINCE2 can contribute through its emphasis on the learning from experience. Lessons Learned can help avoid common pitfalls in designing, for example, a new service desk service.
5. Obtain/build
“The purpose of the obtain/build value chain activity is to ensure that service components are available when and where they are needed and meet agreed specifications”.
“Obtaining new resources as well as development and integration is usually performed as a project. Various project management techniques are applicable to this activity”
6. Deliver and support
“The purpose of the delivery and support value chain activity is to ensure that services are delivered and supported according to agreed specifications and stakeholders’ expectations”.
The design, transition, and handover to internal or external service consumers for operational management needs to be well planned and executed to ensure that business, as usual, is not compromised. The PRINCE2 project management practice to ensure the handover of the service for operations management needs is well planned and executed happens through the Benefits Management Approach, that defines not only how the project’s outcome will be achieved, but also how the project’s benefits will be realized, so that services are not only delivered but are also delivered according to the requirements and needs of the stakeholders.
With an understanding of both guidance, ITIL 4 and PRINCE2 together deliver a competitive advantage for an organization.
Source: ITIL Foundation, ITIL 4 Edition
Within a PRINCE2 context, the project manager is responsible for running the project on a daily basis on behalf of the Project Board.
“The project manager’s prime responsibility is to ensure that the project produces the required products within the specified tolerances of time, cost, quality, scope, benefits, and risk.*”
According to the PRINCE2, the PM should ensure that the project delivers not only a working product(s) but a product(s) capable of achieving the benefits identified in the key document of a PRINCE2 managed project: the Business Case (the justification for undertaking a project).
The role of the project manager in PRINCE2
The project manager’s first activity is to Plan. This role has to define the sequences of activities to achieve the defined product(s). By planning these sequences the PRINCE2 PM can get control on the project.
Following the Planning, the PM has to Delegate to other project team members some works. We live in a fast-paced environment where everything is pervaded by a constant transformation and PM needs the support and involvement of specialistic members in a project environment.
Once s/he has delegated some activities, he/she can not leave things going and wait for the work done by the other members of the project. The project manager is entitled to Monitor progress and make sure that works are in line with plans.
It is his/her responsibility to execute a form of Control when things are not proceeding according to the plan or to take opportunities to speed up the sequences or reduce costs.
The project manager is responsible for Planning, Delegating, Monitoring and Controlling so to take corrective actions or implement measures to improve performances (re-planning).
The Responsibilities of the Project Manager in PRINCE2
The responsibilities of a project manager can vary from project to project. PM may also play the roles of team manager for example if this role is not appointed to others. The project manager’s main (for the complete list refer to the Appendix C5.1 of the official manual) responsibilities are:
- Prepare the following baseline management products and agree with them with the project board
- Project brief
- Benefits management approach
- Project Initiation Document
- Stage/exception plans
- Work packages
- Prepare the following Reports
- Highlight reports
- Issue reports
- End-stage reports
- Exception reports
- End project report
- Maintain the following records:
- Issue register
- Risk register
- Daily log
- Lessons log
- Tailor the PRINCE2 method.
- Liaise with corporate, external suppliers.
- Leads and motivate the project management team.
- Manage the information flows.
- Manage the production of the required products.
- Establish and manage the project’s procedures and controls.
- Authorize work packages.
- Advise the project board of any deviations from the plan.
Need a basic understanding of PRINCE2? Check our PRINCE2 Foundation Course
Project Manager fundamental skills to deliver PRINCE2 projects
The competencies of a project manager can vary from business to business. Factors like industry, company size, company maturity, and company culture may affect the specific competencies but there are some standard skills required to PRINCE2 PMs both technical and management skills.
According to PRINCE2, "to be successful, the project manager must be able to balance to the different aspects of the project manager for a particular project".
The technical project management competencies are the core skills for a project manager and include:
- Time Management
- The time management ability helps the project manager to organize, plan and allocate his time between specific activities
Leadership skills can support longer-range strategic objectives
- People management
- Project managers should aim to optimize the efficient use of Human resources by managing people development, their work activities and their performance.
- Problem Solving
- The process of understanding what the underlying issues of the problem really are to reach a solution.
- Attention to detail
- The Attention to detail skills helps the project manager to manipulate small pieces of data with accuracy when accomplishing a task.
- Communication
- The PM has to Liaise with corporate, external suppliers, lead and motivate the project management team and Project managers with good verbal, non-verbal and written communication skills help facilitate the sharing of information between people within a project management team.
- Negotiation
- Negotiation is a skill required for the project manager in order to settle differences and, avoiding argument and dispute, aim to achieve the best possible outcome for the project.
- Conflict management
- This skill can be considered the sum-up of effective communication, problem-solving abilities and good negotiating skills, which make possible dealing with disputes in a rational, balanced and effective way.
* source managing successful projects with PRINCE2.
Already PMP or IPMA certified? Check our PRINCE2 Practitioner Course
A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. The project manager is accountable to the project board and has to run the project daily, by planning and executing the project. He/she is the professional (internal or external to the organization) assigned to lead the project team for achieving the project objectives.
The role of the Project manager
The project manager’s main responsibility is to accomplish the project objectives by ensuring the project deliver the product(s) according to the time, quality, cost agreed (within tolerance). The professional should manage the constraints of a typical project which are cost, time, scope and quality.
This person is the professional responsible for leading a project from its starting up to execution. This includes planning, delegating, monitoring and controlling. The PM has to focus on managing the people (communication and people management are key competencies) and managing resources.
The PM has full responsibility and authority to complete the assigned project.
The Responsibilities of the Project Manager
The responsibilities of a Project Manager can vary from business to business. Factors like industry, company size, company maturity, and company culture may affect the specific responsibilities but there are some standard responsibilities that most PMs handle.
The Project Manager’s common responsibilities are:
- Liaise with stakeholders, suppliers, customers, end-users
- Define and communicate the project objectives to the team
- Developing the project plans
- Control, monitoring, reporting
- Procurement of the project requirements - workforce, material, technologies
- Managing and leading the project team
- Establish the project’s procedures: risk management, issue management, change management, communication management
- Budgeting
The Competences of the Project Manager
Core competencies according to the PMBok guide are identifiable in three main skill sets:
- Technical Project management Competences
- Leadership Competencies
- Strategic and Business Management Competencies
The technical project management competencies are the core skills for a project manager and include
- Planning
- Time Management
- Execution
- Decision Making
- Critical Thinking
Leadership skills can support longer-range strategic objectives
- People management
- Communication
- Negotiation
- Team building
Strategic and Business Management skills mean being knowledgeable about the business, and being able to explain to the project team and stakeholders:
- Strategy
- Goals and Objectives
- Products and Services
- Priorities
The Trends in Project Management
We live in a fast-paced environment where everything is pervaded by a constant transformation and change is the only common value. The number of organizations which are using project management procedures is increasing together with the spreading of tools and methods developed to help project managers and their teams to accomplish successfully their projects.
The key trends in project management and their impact on the profession of the project manager are:
- Having a strategic vision is pivotal
- Change Management as an asset
- Acquisition of Agile Methodologies
Eurovision Song Contest as a Programme
Eurovision Song Contest is a huge event that is being screened live to nearly 200 million people across the world. It needs an intensive and structural plan of work. In other words, it's a project: more precisely, it's a programme! 41 countries compete and all of them have their own goals to achieve. In addition, there are also projects around hosting the event in Israel. All these factors make the Eurovision Song Contest a really complex program. Or at least this is the opinion of John Edmonds, PPM Portfolio Development Manager that published a very interesting article on the topic (The Eurovision Song Contest - How to make it work using MSP - AXELOS). Edmonds tries to see MSP principles at work in such a high-profile event as the Eurovision Song Contest.Applying MSP principles on Eurovision Song Contest
Edmonds writes that the use of three principles of MSP would have been able to contribute to the success of the Eurovision Song Contest. The MSP principles taken into consideration are: Learning from Experience, Envisioning and Communicating, Designing and delivering a coherent capability. Let's see one by one. MSP's principle: Learning from Experience Eurovision 2019 will be the 64th time the event has taken place and Israel has hosted the event twice before. So there are many years of lessons available to the team: it is crucial that the organizers have the ability to apply those lessons in an appropriate way. MSP's principle: Envisioning and Communicating Engagement is essential for Entertainment Business. Two ways in which we can encourage engagement on a large scale are: . Be pragmatic: do not enforce a ‘one size fits all’ approach. . Work in an engaging way that invites participation from as many stakeholders as possible. MSP's principle: Designing and delivering a coherent capability Coherency and a well-designed show are essential for the overall vision of the event. For this reason, the main stage at Eurovision 2019 is being designed by the same team from the five previous years. Want to know more about MSP or Best Practice management methods?Are you looking for a basic understanding of MSP?
Or do you need a Full MSP Course?
Otherwise, contact us! We're always happy to help you! Source: The Eurovision Song Contest – How to make it work using MSP by John Edmonds – AXELOS PPM Portfolio Development Manager
What about ‘PRINCE2 and Tailoring’?
“Tailoring is about getting the right balance between a laissez-faire approach and over-engineering your project management. It’s about using your skills and experience to adapt PRINCE2 to your project’s particular circumstances” (PRINCE2 2017 Update – tailoring gets better results, Axelos). Tailoring can be applied to processes, themes, roles, management products, and terminology: tailoring is concerned with the appropriate use of PRINCE2 in any given situation. This 30 minutes-webinar will show you how to apply PRINCE2 for very simple projects (“PRINCE2 on A4”) and for bigger projects that will require a more complex PRINCE2 tailoring.Do you need a basic understanding of PRINCE2?
Or do you need a Full PRINCE2 Course?
Why should you attend this webinar on PRINCE2?
After following this webinar you will understand what to look out for and how to adapt your approach to the scale and complexity of your project, without compromising your ability to manage it. This helps you to make a conscious choice of which project management elements to simplify and which elaborate, to be able to confront projects of different size and complexity.Do you want to have a practical insight into tailoring PRINCE2?
WHERE & WHEN?- Location: From your computer!
- Date: Registration always available
- Time: 12h00 – 12h30
- Language: German
- Trainer: Claudia Kary, PRINCE2 trainer, and consultant
- Attendance fee: FREE! Registration required
- Inscription: to enroll please fill in the form and click on “Register Now"
Just few days left for the launching of the new ITIL version, ITIL 4: the Foundation module of the new certification scheme will be available from the 28 of February.
The update involved more than 2000 professionals with the aim of developing a framework which is agile and easy to apply. The ITIL v4 framework provides a comprehensive, practical and proven guidance expanding itself to the wider context of customer experience, value streams and digital transformation, as well as embracing new ways of working as Lean, Agile and DevOps.
The framework has been developed to guarantee a flexible, coordinated and integrated system for the effective IT services governance and management.
New ITIL 4 Foundation Course
ITIL 4 Foundation will be the first module to be launched; the release of the further modules is scheduled for Q2 2019. Currently, the updated ITIL version is available only in English and as for the ITIL v3 scheme, the achievement of the ITIL Foundation module is a prerequisite to have access to the further modules.
From 28th of February all the ITIL Foundation trainings organized by QRP 2019 are updated to ITIL 4 version. The courses are available in the three languages (English, French and German) but course material and the exam are in English. Here the first dates of the ITIL 4 Foundation course in Zurich:
To know all the available dates and to discover the course objectives, click the link: ITIL 4 Foundation course.ITIL 4 Webinar
The update to the ITIL 4 version brings changes to the entire ITIL framework. In order to let you know all the news of ITIL 4 and the differences with the previous ITIL v3 version, we have prepared a webinar about the ITIL update. Our ITIL trainer, Kaïs Albassir, will explain how the update will impact the ITIL framework and will clarify all the likely doubts.
The free webinar From ITIL v3 to ITIL 4: everything you need to know about the update takes place on March, 12. At the end of the webinar there will be an Q&A session with the trainer but if you miss the event, you will receive an email with the link to watch the registration of the webinar.
ITIL v4 framework is built on established ITSM practices and expands itself to the wider context of customer experience, value streams and digital transformation, as well as embracing new ways of working. What changes from the old version? What to do with my ITIL credits? Subscribe to our free webinar and get all the information!