I stopped writing this blog in May 2015
I stopped because it was time to be less evangelical about Prince2. It was time to start facing up to the truth.My blogs were "explaining" Best Practice, as defined by Prince2. They were broadly uncritical. I assumed that Prince2 was "Best Practice", and explained how to get it to work.
For example, I explained how to analyse risk. I knew that, until you simplify the Prince2 risk approach, it's not usable. I knew that no-one uses the Prince2 "Best Practice".
Same with communications. I wrote a blog on communications. Prince2 has an unusable "Communications Strategy". No-one uses the four strategies in Prince2. Again, I was blogging to explain how to convert so-called "Best Practice" into real workable practice.
This incessant need for simplification told me that Prince2 is not "Best Practice"... It was time to wake up.
In 2015, I faced up to the facts: the term "Best Practice" is now meaningless. So I stopped writing this blog.
Since then, things have got worse
Prince2-Agile was a car crash
In June 2015, Axelos launched Prince2-Agile, a new companion guide to Prince2. This guide purports to explain how to combine Prince2 with Agile.
But it was a car crash. All of Prince2 meets all of Agile in a mammoth mash-up. The premise of the book is to use Prince2 in its entirety (all 7 processes and all 7 themes), then to add Agile. The resulting behemoth (P2 + P2A = 700 pages and 2kg of paper) is hard to explain, let alone to defend.
Even the most evangelical supporters of Prince2 struggle with this. This is not "Best Practice". No one introduces Agile into projects like this. I know how people blend Prince2 and Agile, and it's not like this.
Prince2 needed a diet, got a sugar rush
In 2017, Axelos updated Prince2. Prince2 was aging. It was fat and bloated, full of junk that no-one uses. Put instead of sending Prince2 to a health farm, to lose weight, Axelos added more fat. More bloat. Prince2 grew to over 400 pages.
The new book now wants the Project Manager to become a methods expert, and to tailor Prince2 for each project. That's not Best Practice. In most well-organised companies using Prince2, the corporate PMO downsizes Prince2 massively. Once.
I'm starting blogging again
I'm starting to blog again. I'm starting to blog about Lean3, a new approach to Project Management.I've not given up on Prince2. It's a tool we can still use, but it's fossilised and we need to plan for the future. Prince2 is our past.
Lean3 rejects the idea of frozen "Best Practice", written by a guru and published in an expensive book. Lean3 will have strong feedback from the community, using social media techniques.
Lean3 argues that each community of practice should define its own good practice. Good practice which is used and proven in practice.
Read more about Lean3 at www.lean3.com
