PRINCE2 2009 Corporate Briefing

Yesterday we held our PRINCE2 2009 Corporate Briefing at the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum. We wanted to hold the event somewhere different, and we were not disappointed. The Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum is a fantastic meeting venue. We had three reasons for choosing it:

• It's in the basement of the HM Treasury, the department that the owners of PRINCE2 (OGC) belongs to. In fact they occupy parts of the 6th floor
• My grandfather worked their during WWII as an electrician
• We liked it!

24 people attended our briefing representing the following organisations: APM London Branch Chairman, Bid2Win, BT, Cambridge University Press, Cancer Research, Change Director, Cheshire ICT Services, Computacenter, Creative Inn, FujiFilm, Lloyds Registers, Lingo, London Underground, Meat Hygiene Services, Nicholls Group, Oxfam, PearceMayfield, PM4NGO and Sun Microsystems.

The event focused on what organisations need to do to 'upgrade' to PRINCE2 2009 to get the most value from the revised method. We had some interesting discussions over the excellent lunch provided by our hosts at the war rooms - they even gave everyone a ration book as place settings!

The upgrade discussions included:

• Understanding current PRINCE2 assets in the organisation
• Understanding current levels of maturity and any underlying issues
• Developing the business case for upgrading
• Briefing Project Board members using the new directing guide (including training by stealth!)
• Retraining of PM with existing PRINCE2 certification
• Updating templates
• Updating processes and tools
• Deciding when to switch over projects to the revised method
• What aspects of the revised method can be immediately deployed (e.g. the principles)

There was a lot of discussion around learning lessons - so I've decided that the 'learning from experience' principle will be the subject of my next blog!

Life after the launch!

It's been a busy couple of weeks since the PRINCE2 launch:

• 16th June - PRINCE2 2009 Launch in London - see footage of the launch
• 18th June - presented an overview of PRINCE2 2009 at the Dutch User Group in Utrecht - see details
• 20th June - Q&A on PRINCE2 2009 via twitter - see transcript of questions and answers
• 22nd June - interviewed by Craig Kilford the author of the OGC's Portfolio Management Guide - listen to this interview on www.hearbestpractice.com
• 23rd June - gave various presentations at the Best Practice Showcase in London - see copy of my presentation
• 24th June - presented an overview of PRINCE2 2009 at the French PRINCE2 User Group in Paris
• 27th June - continued to learn to ride the unicycle!

So what's next?

I'm in process of finalising Outperform's supporting products: PRINCE2 2009 mind-maps, PRINCE2 2009 templates and checklists, Project Board survival kit a PRINCE2 wiki (sharepoint compatible).

The mind-maps, templates and survival kit will be launched at our PRINCE2 2009 Corporate Briefing on 9th July. The PRINCE2 2009 Corporate Briefing is designed for those senior managers with a responsibility for Project Management within their organisation (Head of Projects, PMO Manager, Programme Managers, etc). It covers the PRINCE2 update from an organisation perspective rather than the individual project manager's perspective and answers the question, "What does my organisation need to do to 'upgrade' and get full value from the improvements to PRINCE2?" The event is taking place at the prestigious Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum (in the basement of HM Treasury - hence OGC!) and includes free copies of the templates etc and signed copies of the new PRINCE2 books. There are a few places left. See here for more details.

In addition to finishing off Outperform's supporting products and preparing for the corporate briefing I will also be:

• participating in another 'twitter hour' where I will be answering your questions regarding PRINCE2. The next one will take place on Friday 3rd July at 11am. The event will be facilitated by Lindsay Scott of Arras People and captured on their excellent 'how to manage a camel' blog.
• Appearing in more Vodcasts on www.best-management-practice.tv as part of a PRINCE2 global alignment series. Each Vodcast will be accompanied by a white paper exploring the topic in a bit more detail.
• Writing a series of articles "PRINCE2 2009 revealed" on this blog. These will explore different aspects of the method in more detail. The first one will be posted next week

My work with PRINCE2 2009 concluded with the launch on 16th June, but for many organisations and people who want to apply the new and improved method to their projects it has just started for them. In some ways, my real work starts now too!

The Dutch PRINCE2 User Group

On Thursday 18th June I had the privilege to present at the Dutch PRINCE2 User Group in Utrecht. It was an excellent event with:

• around 250 people attending
• more than 20 exhibitors
• 6 parallel streams of seminars and tutorials
• a networking event into the evening

The event demonstrated good planning in action as it was no coincidence that it was scheduled for 2 days after the official launch of PRINCE2 2009 in London. In addition to presenting an overview of the changes to PRINCE2 2009 I was also given the task on behalf of APMG-Benelux (the accreditation body) to hand over the first copies of the new publications to the user group's chairman, Hans Schneider. Ian Fik from TSO (the publisher) was also at the event having dropped in on his way back from the IPMA international congress in Helsinki.

While I was there I was well looked after by members of the user group committee and in particular Ruud Peltzer (from Fortes), Joost Nuyten (from Rabobank) and Robert Garskamp (from Everett). Being a football fan I couldn't resist a look round the stadium to get a photo to add to my collection.

The day concluded with a stand-up comedian kicking-off the evening networking event. It was clear from talking to people at the networking event that the Dutch PUG is a highly active of community that hold regular events throughout the year and continues to grow its membership. It is groups like this that help to advance best practices such as PRINCE2, and indeed the public consultation included a thorough report from the Dutch PUG back in October 2006. Once again well done to the Dutch PUG.