APMP for PRINCE2 Practitioners

SWOT Analysis is one of a number of different techniques used by professional project managers to help with decision-making. It is most useful in the planning and risk elements of large, complex projects.

SWOT is an acronym of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and as these titles suggest it is not purely a method used for controlling areas of planning and risk but it is also used to highlight areas of the project that could be maximised to the benefit of the whole project or individual areas where some competitive advantage may be gained. It is used to evaluate particular activities of the project in order to optimise their potential as well as to evaluate risks in order to determine the most appropriate way of mitigating those risks.

SWOT analysis is normally performed during the initial project start-up phase so that the elements of the analysis can form the basis of the project plan, but it can also be used later in the project if the project is running into difficulties with scheduling, deliverables or budget and needs to be brought back on track.

For example, if a certain key activity in the project requires new software, a SWOT Analysis can be used to assess the risks and the opportunities of purchasing the software and training staff in its use in order to help with the resource planning.

Performing a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis session should always have a clear objective and it is the Project Manager’s responsibility to communicate that objective to all those present at the session. A typical session will include all stakeholders, where possible, and key members of the project team. If the analysis is being performed at the start of a project, the objective is likely to be fully identifying all required activities and potential risks so that a proper plan can be put in place. However, if it is being conducted during an ongoing project, the objective may be to re-assess the budget or schedule.

Because the objectives of a SWOT Analysis can vary so too can the questions used to elicit the required information. For this reason there is not a standard set of pre-defined questions that will meet every situation but every session must have a set of questions written down before the session to ensure the attendees remained focussed. This, again, is the project manager’s responsibility. Depending on the urgency of completing the analysis and starting the project planning phase, it may be necessary to send out the questions in advance to allow attendees the opportunity of gathering any relevant information in advance.

Typical questions for each part of the SWOT Analysis are listed below:

Strengths

• Does the company have the necessary skills in-house?
• Has a budget been assigned to the project?
• What are the business benefits of completing the project?
• Will the project require new technology or equipment?
• How experienced is the project team on similar projects?

Weakness

• Is there a reliable estimate of costs available?
• Does the company have the budget to provide contingency funding?
• What are the drawbacks of the project?
• Will parts of the project need to be outsourced?
• Is the proposed schedule realistic?

Opportunities

• Can a local project be leveraged nationally or internationally?
• Do the competitors have any weaknesses?
• What are the latest industry trends?
• Are there any new, or imminent, technology developments?

Threats

• Is there well-established competition already in the marketplace?
• Are experienced staff difficult to replace?
• Has new technology been fully tested?
• Could national or global economic conditions affect the project?

The list of questions to use in a SWOT analysis should, obviously, be much longer than the basic questions listed above, but these will provide a good starting point. Most professional project management courses will cover this technique in more detail and give guidance on establishing a more comprehensive set of questions for your own particular project. A SWOT analysis can be used with any of the recognised project management methodologies such as APMP, PRINCE2 or PMP as it is independent of any particular method. Performing a SWOT analysis will provide you with detailed information to help you in the planning and decision-making processes of any project and is one of the essential project management skills that every project manager should have.

Project Management is the planning and management of a range of tasks, particularly where there are complexities either within the tasks or within the teams working on the project, in order to achieve a deliverable at the end of the project. A deliverable can be many things; it may be a physical thing such as a new product, it may be an intangible thing such as a new process within an organisation or it may be a new software system.

Whatever the end result of the project, it will involve some type of change within a business. The change could be a modification to the existing status quo or it could be introducing something completely new, so change management is also an element of project management.

A project that is going to be formally managed within an organisation could be in any area of the business, but the most common areas in which project management tools and techniques will be useful are:

• IT
• customer services
• product manufacture
• new business development
• premises
• administrative tasks and processes
• financial, legal and professional procedures
• health and safety requirements
• research and development

If the desired final outcome cannot be accurately predicted with certainty, then project management techniques will be required to plan and organise tasks, assess the risks and ensure the resources are available to deliver a successful outcome.

So what exactly are the stages of managing a project? Listed below are the fundamental stages of managing any project; each of these may contain many sub-stages, particularly for more complex projects:

Document the Business Requirements

The business requirements document should accurately, and in detail, describe the purpose of the project. It states what is needed to achieve that goal i.e. what is in-scope, what is out-of-scope, any assumptions that have been made, any constraints that have been imposed and expected timescales. The document will form the definitive description of the aims of the project and, as such, can be used to manage the expectations of the stakeholders. It will also include acceptance criteria that will ultimately be used to judge whether the project was a success.

The production and agreement of the business requirements is a substantial part of the overall project schedule and may take many iterations before it is finally approved.

The project manager usually works with other departments or teams to put the document together. They will probably use Brainstorming and Interviewing techniques to help with this process and may even build a prototype.

Document the Functional Specification

The business requirements state what is required but do not specify how the deliverable will actually work. So in many projects with a tangible and technically sophisticated deliverable, it is very common to produce additional documentation about the look and feel of the end product. The functional specification describes not only how the end product will look but also how an end-user will actually use it and what the user-experience will be like.

This document should contain sections that specifically relate to each of the requirements in the business requirements document so that every functional item can be tracked back to an original business need.

Create the Project Plan

The project plan will include details about the various tasks required to complete the project, the people and equipment involved, time estimates, dependencies, milestones and the overall timescales

The tasks need to be scheduled in the correct order and dependencies between tasks factored in. In complex projects several tasks will be performed in parallel to maximise the total project time. The plan will also take account of the project budget.

There are many project management techniques and tools available, some of the most common being Critical Path Analysis Flow Diagrams and Gantt Charts.

A Critical Path Analysis diagram uses a linear timeline to identify dependent tasks and is particularly used on large, complex projects which may have hundreds of dependent activities. These diagrams highlight dependent tasks that overlap and, therefore, require adjustments to the schedule.

A Gantt Chart is an excellent project management tool for the scheduling, budgeting and reporting of a project. The easiest, but perhaps not the most useful, tool for creating Gantt Charts is MSProject. Each task is listed on the left-hand side of the chart with a timeline shown on the right. Milestones can be easily marked and the schedule and costs can be easily updated where necessary.

Every project should have a contingency allowance for both time and budget as there is always a tendency to under-estimate tasks, particularly when under pressure to deliver as soon as possible. Indeed, in practise, many project managers are not given the luxury of estimating the total time required but are likely to be given a fixed end date and the project tasks have to be fitted into the time available.

Project management also includes identifying and managing potential risks as well as managing the change associated with most projects.

Assign Project Tasks

All of the tasks listed on the project plan need to be assigned to an individual or team. The person or persons responsible for a task will need to know in detail what the task involves and also the dependencies and timescales, which can be clearly communicated to them using the Gantt Chart.  The timescales must be realistic and, in practise, the project manager will probably have discussed timescales with the team before the schedule was finalised. They will also need to understand the criteria by which each task is determined as complete.

People Management

The role of a project manager is very diverse and one of the most vital skills is good people management. The most carefully planned projects will go awry if the team is not motivated, encouraged and kept informed. Regular scheduled meetings provide a formal way of doing this but do not overlook the casual conversations that are often more informative for the project manager and easier opportunities to encourage individuals at a more personal level.

Review Progress

Regularly review estimates, deadlines and milestones to check they are still on schedule. If necessary, update the plan with new estimates and tasks and ensure that remaining tasks are necessary and estimates are still valid. Circumstances can change during a project but question every change and always refer back to the original business requirement as a cross-reference.

Notify stakeholders of project progress at regular intervals and gain their approval for any changes that substantially impact the deadline, budget or deliverables.

Project Acceptance, Implementation and Follow-Up

Once the final product has been fully tested, staff have been trained (where necessary) and the stakeholders have signed-off the project then it can be implemented in the working environment. It is probably a rare project that is 100% successful but whatever the final outcome of the project always aim to find some element that was a success and make sure you reflect positively on the successful parts.

All of the recognised project management methodologies such as APMP, PRINCE2 and PMP advise end-of-project reviews to learn from both successes and mistakes. The best ways of handling these reviews are covered on professional project management courses but the realities of a business environment often mean that they do not always take place.

No project is ever without risks, but it is the nature and complexity of the project that are likely to determine the impact of the risks on the overall success of the project. But whether the project is small or large, simple or complex, an effective risk management strategy will minimise the impact if, and when, the risks occur. In order to manage the risks it is necessary to identify and analyse them both before the project starts and throughout the lifecycle of the project.

The main tasks involved in Risk Management are:

• Creating a Risk Management Plan which will assist in identifying and analysing the risks, monitoring the risks and responding to them.
• Establishing and maintaining a Risk Log listing the risks and their severity. This is a useful document not only for monitoring the risks but also for communicating the risks to all the stakeholders.
• Analysing the probability of each risk occurring and its impact at task level and on the overall project in terms of deliverables and scheduling
• Developing a strategy for responding to risks that occur
• Including contingency funds and building time contingency into the Project Schedule

Risk Management is not only the responsibility of the Project Manager but also of the stakeholders as they have a vested interest in the project being successfully completed. So the stakeholders should also be aware of all the risks identified and the plan that is put in place to manage and mitigate them.

There are common causes of risk that are easily identifiable in many projects, such as:

• Skilled members of the project team leave during the project
• Equipment Failure
• Business decisions and agreements not reached in good time
• Poorly managed customer expectations
• A lack of clarity in the business requirements document
• Inaccurate estimates
• Technology limitations such as performance or capacity issues
• Poor communication between customer and provider

But the Risk Management Plan must also be flexible enough to deal with those risks that could not have been predicted and so were not identified before they occurred. It is very often the strategy that is used to deal with these unexpected risks that determines the ultimate success of a project.
For all the risks that have been identified either prior to the project starting or during the project the project manager would typically have determined a solution. These risks can potentially cause delays to the schedule and prevent the delivery of a task but are relatively easily managed by an experienced project manager with good management and communication skills.

There are various ways to respond to a risk that has occurred but the most common ways are:

Accept – the risk can be accepted, in which case the project manager will have to persuade the customer that the schedule, budget or deliverables will not be met. The customer will have to accept such deviations if the project is to be deemed a success.

Transfer – if the risk that has occurred is such that a particular task, feature or function cannot be delivered then it could be transferred to a future project thereby deferring the need to deal with it in the present. This response would require handling through a formal change management process.

Mitigate – it may be possible to provide an acceptable workaround that will minimise or eliminate the issue.

It is worth noting that risks can occasionally have a positive effect and can actually lead to improvements or enhancements to the project that had not been considered at the outset.

The Risk Management Plan will also include prioritisation of the project risks and ranking them in relation to the budget, the project schedule and the deliverables. The ranking will recognise that some project risks could be acceptable while some are unacceptable and would require a feasible solution.

Risks will never be eliminated from a project but it is possible to lessen the impact of risks by learning from the experiences of both your own projects and others. It is extremely valuable to document the lessons learned from a project to improve the process of risk management on future projects.

Managing risks within a project is necessary to keep the project on track and these are essential skills for every project manager. The ability to accurately identify and measure risks in a project and how to respond to predicted and unknown risks can be learnt on professional project management courses in recognised methodologies such as APMP, PRINCE2 and PMP. Risk Management is covered in detail on various project management courses to obtain qualifications such as the APM Risk Management Certificate.

What is the APMP for PRINCE2?

The APMP for PRINCE2 practitioners is a new qualification from the association for project management. It recognised the value of the prior learning in the PRINCE2 covers many of the gaps in the PRINCE2 method to develop a more complete and pragmatic project manager. Key areas included in the APMP for PRINCE2 qualification which are missing from PRINCE2 because it is a method not a body of knowledge. Some of these are fairly essential areas for most project managers. These most critically include: 

Procurement of goods and services required to complete the project. This includes forms of contract, the main procurement options and typical forms of payment. 

Resource and cost planning are recognised as vital areas for the completion of successful projects. Although not covered as part of PRINCE2 these are key areas that any project manager needs to fully understand to stand any chance of delivering a successful project. 

Safety Management is critical to many projects. The APMP give PRINCE2 practitioners an understanding of the requirements for a systematic approach to understanding and managing health and safety risks. 

Estimating including how confident the project manager can be with the estimates produced at the various stages of a project 

Leadership and team development are critical areas covers by this new qualification but excluded from PRINCE2 

Negotiation Skill are also a key requirements of project management which are not part of PRINCE2 development. 

These topics are covered in the new qualification which leads to a more effective project manager. 

Why do APMP for PRINCE2

PRINCE2 is recognised as being a best in class project management method. However there is increasing recognition that it does not fully equip project managers to deliver successful projects. Some critical skills are needed to complement PRINCE2 in order to have a fully rounded project manager. This new qualification which is a collaboration between the APM and OGC has been widely welcomed as a way of bringing the two approaches to project management development together in to a complete framework. 

For a PRINCE2 Practitioner this new qualifications can give you the complementary skills you need to deliver successful projects within a PRINCE2 framework. 

Many people are hoping that this is the first step in the road to more collaboration between the APM and OGC. 

When will PRINCE2 for APMP be available?

The new qualification will be available from September 2010 from Parallel Project Training amongst other training providers.