Prince2 2009 – What a pleasant surprise!

Though I got my Prince2 certification in 2002, I was more involved with PMI in the last few years. I wanted to refresh my Prince2 knowledge lately, so I bought the Prince2 2009 PDF guide (in German). Thanks Andreas for the link! (See for all available languages here). And what should I say… I was really really surprised. Positively!

There is only one little downer: The DRM (digital rights management) on the PDF document is pretty tight. For close to 90 EUR it is not exactly a bargain, but you can only read it in Adobe Digital Editions with your personal ID, and you’re allowed to print it ONCE. Fingers crossed the printer has a good day when you try it. Mac users be aware – doing ‘Print Preview’ counts as printing already. Ummm.

Now back to the guide and methodology: From my ‘first contact’ with Prince2 at the beginning of the 2000’s, I remembered it as being a really academic read, very bureaucratic process,… The new guide is really easy to digest – nicely structured, modern layout, linked, etc. The content feels much closer now to real project life.

I also like the new method construction with the ‘principles’ and the ‘themes’ and that the authors made very explicit that it is more important to live the principles rather than mechanically following some documented process in brain switched-off mode. What is also nice are things like specific guidance on tailoring / scaling the methodology based on certain project types (more than 20 pages).

So much for my first impressions. Good job, OGC folks! And b.t.w. there is a nice vodcast from Andy Murray here (plus others).