The 7 Fundamentals of Great Project Management

What makes a great Project Manager? 

This area has been well covered by just about every Project Management blog out there. But the fact that it is still a frequent topic proves how interested we all are in improving our game. In an industry that is driven by results, continually assessing, reviewing, and improving your own practice is vital. 

Project Management is a profession predicated on system and structure. For a project to be successful, a Project Manager needs to be in control of every aspect, from the initial planning to mitigating project scope to ensuring the project is completed on time and under budget.

As projects grow, they evolve into living entities, and outside circumstances can force them to develop in new and unforeseen directions. A crucial feature of strong and profitable Project Management is the ability to adapt and implement a new plan while mitigating scope creep and keeping the project path as close to the original specifications as possible. But is this really at the core of what makes a great PM?

Arguably, there’s no singular answer but essential hard and soft skills. Some are obvious, such as communication and time management expertise, and can be perfected in any job role. However, to gain insight into the specific building blocks necessary for a strong career in Project Management, you need to look slightly closer at one of the most vital aspects of the Project Management industry - the methodologies.

We’ve discussed Project Management methodologies before, including a guide on choosing the right methodology to suit your project requirements. However, their importance in the Project Management industry's macro and micro aspects cannot be overstated.

Besides guiding the most effective ways to run many different project types, Project Management methodologies offer valuable insight into the skills necessary to be an outstanding PM. Although each methodology is suited to a specific type of project, Agile for instance is better suited to smaller, adaptive projects than Waterfall. A few methodologies give an excellent general profile that will work across the entire spectrum of Project Management. 

Primary among them is PRINCE2. PRINCE2, paradoxically, manages to be one of the least focused but most precise Project Management methodologies. Its focus on a structured approach directed by several self-established principles, themes and processes, rather than on the parameters of a specific project type, means that it has a diverse range of applications. Due to that, alongside its status as the de facto industry standard, we can use the requirements of PRINCE2 to draw up a set of actionable strategies to diversify and improve our everyday practice.

What We Can Learn From PRINCE2 

While each of PRINCE2’s seven aspects, principles, themes, and processes works symbiotically, and much can be learned from each of the three tiers, we will focus exclusively on the seven principles.

We will explain what each of the seven principles means and how they can inform your daily operations.

The 7 Fundamentals of Great Project Management 

1. Continued Business Justification 

Like most Project Management methodologies, PRINCE2 is result-driven. A core aspect of PRINCE2 is ensuring a project makes and maintains an appropriate level of business and financial sense and that all use of time and resources is justified in accordance with that goal.

Creeping project scope and a consistently realigning project timeline are issues that persistently crop up across the Project Management industry. Mismanagement of time and resources is a critical factor in project failure, and, unfortunately, when looking at the rate of project failure across the board, it is far too familiar.

These issues essentially occur when project objectives are unclear from the outset. As such, both the project and project team are confused as to the overarching goal and end point of the project.This can lead your team to work towards different priorities, make conflicting decisions, and ultimately set the completion of your project back.

As the first principle of PRINCE2 suggests, one way to mitigate this is to continually assess the project's direction from the outset to its completion, ensuring that all of your team, stakeholders and the client are unified in their expectations of the project. Moreover, it emphasises the importance of creating a clearly defined project plan and the vital groundwork before building your project. Planning, although mundane, is the key to successful Project Management.

2. Learn from Prior Experience 

It is part of the PRINCE2 practice to keep a log of lessons learned from previous projects for future reference. Although this may seem somewhat like writing lines as punishment in school, this log acts as a valuable reference point to learn from and refrain from making past mistakes. Or, if you do, it offers a valuable foundation to construct a reactive strategy to mitigate damage.

It is standard Project Management procedure to risk assess a project before and throughout its run, but PRINCE2 takes that practice a step further. By continuing risk assessment and reduction strategies past the endpoint of projects, PRINCE2 encourages you to operate on a level of consistent analysis, spotting emerging patterns and acting preemptively to reduce risk.

3. Clearly Define Roles and Responsibilities 

PRINCE2 advocates implementing a strong universal structure throughout your project team, from scope change request procedure to ensuring everyone knows who the shot callers are. Also, defining roles and responsibilities early on within the project plan promotes more efficient utilisation of project resources.

Constructing a clear definition early on in the project stages reduces the risk of members of your project team missing out on vital tasks or prioritising the wrong issues. Similarly, having a clear hierarchical path and reporting procedures means that information always gets to the right people through measurable channels.

4. Manage in Stages 

Like most methodologies, PRINCE2 advocates breaking your project into separate stages for respective team members or project teams. By splitting up your project into manageable chunks, you can more accurately plot the potential duration, priority, and requirements of each task and use that information to better inform the allocation of your resources.

Focusing on your project's micro and macro aspects dramatically reduces the risk of general mismanagement.

5. Manage by Exception 

Each project has a management hierarchy, from the Project Manager to the project board and the clients. The PRINCE2 principle of manage by exception means that if a project is running well, it shouldn’t need a lot of intervention from higher management, such as the board or stakeholders.

However, this principle fits equally well within your general Project Management practice. If you’ve done your job right, correctly unified your team under your project objective and created a comprehensive and workable project plan, your team shouldn’t need much interference from you, leaving you to focus your energy on leading rather than managing.

6. Focus on the Products 

Ultimately, PRINCE2 is a product-focused methodology. The PRINCE2 manual states the following: “A PRINCE2 project focuses on the definition and delivery of products, in particular, their quality requirements.” By focusing on the product's requirements and the project's business value and translating these into the expected outcome, you can work backwards from there to determine the work activity.

When a product is not correctly described, it can lead to many unnecessary meetings, time delays, unnecessary new requirements, misunderstandings of the quality required, additional costs, and even a product that is of no use to anybody.

Essentially, PRINCE2 advocates for proactively managing expectations. The product or a detailed project plan should be created and articulated to stakeholders, and all involved as soon as possible.

Equally, as a good Product Description provides clarity and defines the product’s purpose, composition, derivation, format, quality criteria, and quality method, your project plan should define procedures, processes, and objectives and, ultimately, direct and shape the project, making it easier to determine resource requirements, dependencies, and activities.

7. Tailor to Your Environment

Unlike some methodologies that endorse a static application to each project, PRINCE2 is malleable to each project’s requirements and more successful when liberally tailored to suit a particular project shape.

This is worth applying to every project you manage. Just because a specific methodology or process has worked previously doesn’t necessarily mean it will be successful this time, too. Each project is unique, and so should your project plan and strategies.

As one of the industry's most highly and widely regarded Project Management methodologies, even when you are not directly applying PRINCE2 to your project, there is still much you can learn to incorporate to better your practice and performance. Even if you have little knowledge of traditional Project Management structures, or if you are currently working within the industry and would like to learn more, the PRINCE2 Foundation and PRINCE2 Practitioner courses offer a far more in-depth dissection of how PRINCE2 can benefit your working practice.