A quick look at the difference between Prince2 vs PMBOK? Product Descriptions are a topic in the Prince2 literature that would be beneficial for PMOs and enterprise customers.

Imagine if a new PM coming into an organization was handed a guide that showed him or her a deliverable list and the following information per deliverable:

1. 1. Who is usually the audience of this deliverable in this organization?
   2. How long does it take in this organization to typically build this deliverable?

1. What groups usually speak into the content of the deliverable?
2. What groups can veto the content after creation?
3. Who normally signs off on this deliverable?
4. Is this deliverable always included (depending on the size of this project).
5. Is there an example template filled out

This goes beyond the scope of a lot of  PMOs that would have templates and policies and procedures and helps a new PM understand a typical duration and effort in this organization.  Imagine how much easier it would be to have the above information to build a project schedule from?

This becomes increasingly valuable if this project manager is transitioning from a projectized to a functional environment.  Public and Private industry would also have some bearing on the speed of a deliverable.

Prince2 also suggests not writing out each task in the schedule… like this:

• create deliverable
• save deliverable to CM
• walk through deliverable
• update deliverable with findings
• baseline deliverable
• send out deliverable…

Instead they take the approach that a PM can have a task of Produce Deliverable and this will encapsulate the steps that need to happen and this can be assigned to a member of the team to push it through the steps as outlined in the Product Description.

Coming from a PM who was raised in the PMBOK world I find this approach refreshing and know it would greatly increase ramp up time for any PM coming into the organization.

Use the comment section below to share your your experiences with Prince2.

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Ron is a Project Manager and occasional blogger with Chalder Consulting Inc. www.chalder.ca

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rondsmith

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