PRINCE2 and PMBoK: Towards a Hybrid Methodology for Managing Virtual Projects Master Thesis

Transcription

1 PRINCE2 and PMBoK: Towards a Hybrid Methodology for Managing Virtual Projects Master Thesis Supervisor: Per Svejvig, Associate Professor, PhD School of Business and Social Sciences Department of Business Administration IS Research Group Date: 03.Feb.2014 By: Ali Al Matari alialmatari1987@gmail.com Exam Number: Number of Characters (no spaces):131450

2 i Table of Contents Table of Contents... i Figures... iii Tables... iv Abbreviations... v Abstract... vi 1. Introduction Problem Problem Statement Terminology Project Project Management Project Management Methodology (PMM) Virtual Teams Virtual Projects Hybrid Methodology Thesis Scope Thesis Structure Methodology Philosophy of Science Overall Methodological Approach Delimitations General Delimitation Research Question Delimitation The Data Validity and Reliability Theory Virtual Projects Characterization Benefits Categories of Issues Dimensions of successful Virtual Projects Virtual Projects and Project Stages Practiced Practices Project Management Methodology Essentials: PRINCE2 and PMBoK Best Practices for Managing Virtual Projects The Role and Relevance of Best Practices in Project Management Context Grouping PRINCE2 and PMBoK... 22

3 ii Grouping Point of Departure Matching PRINCE2 with PMBoK PMBoK areas supporting the PRINCE2 processes Grouping Process Best Practices by Process Starting Up a Project Directing a Project Initiating a Project Controlling a Stage Managing Product Delivery Managing a Stage Boundary Closing a Project Discussion Conclusion References... 61

4 iii Figures Figure 1 - Current Relationship between PRINCE2, PMBoK, and Virtual Projects... 4 Figure 2 - To Be Relationship between PRINCE2, PMBoK, and Virtual Projects... 4 Figure 3 - Basic Structure of PRINCE2 (Verax, 2009) Figure 4 - Keys to the overviews of the proposed methodology's processes Figure 5 - Overview of Starting up a Project process in the proposed methodology Figure 6 - Overview of Directing a Project process in the proposed methodology Figure 7 - Overview of Initiating a Project process in the proposed methodology Figure 8 - Overview of Controlling a Stage process in the proposed methodology Figure 9 - Overview of Managing Product Delivery process in the proposed methodology Figure 10 - Overview of Managing a Stage Boundary process in the proposed methodology Figure 11 - Overview of Closing a Project process in the proposed methodology (OGC, 2009:205) Figure 12 - The process model of the proposed methodology... 59

5 iv Tables Table 1 - Tools for distance communication and information exchange (Thissen et al, 2007: 30) Table 2 - PMBoK Project Management Process Group and Knowledge Area Mapping (PMI 2013: 61) Table 3 - Mapping Knowledge Areas against Themes (Siegelaub, 2009:2) Table 4 - Mapping Knowledge Areas Against PRINCE2 Element (Yeong, 2012:9-10) Table 5 - Mapping PMBoK Process Groups Against PRINCE2 Processes (Yeong, 2012:11) Table 6 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Starting up a project process Table 7 - Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Starting up a Project Process Table 8 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Directing a project process Table 9 - Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Directing a Project Process Table 10 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Directing a project process Table 11- Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Initiating a Project Process Table 12 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Controlling a Stage process Table 13- Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Controlling a Stage Process Table 14 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Managing Product Delivery process Table 15- Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Managing Product Delivery Process Table 16 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Managing a Stage Boundary process Table 17- Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Managing a Stage Boundary Process Table 18 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Closing a project process Table 19 - Comparison between the proposed methodology and Yeong (2012) in matching PMBoK Process Groups against PRINCE2 Processes... 54

6 v Abbreviations AU... Aarhus University CP.... Closing a Project CS....Controlling a Stage DP.... Directing a Project IP... Initiating a Project MP... Managing Product Delivery OGC... Office of Government Commerce PMBoK... Project Management Body of Knowledge PMI... Project Management Institute PMM... Project Management Methodology PRINCE2... Projects IN Controlled Environments SB......Managing a Stage Boundary SU....Starting up a Project

7 vi Abstract Virtual Projects are increasingly relevant in today s business world. PRINCE2 and PMBoK are among the most popular project management methods. The challenges for running Virtual Projects increase due to the dispersion between project members whilst project management methods recommend best practices and guidelines that enhance the chances of project success. Several researchers suggest combining project management methods. This master thesis contributes in providing an approach for combining PRINCE2 and PMBoK in a single methodology. The thesis contributes as well in suggesting how the challenges can be addressed when Virtual Projects are run using this methodology. The finding is a proposed methodology that combines PRINCE2 and PMBoK. The steps for creating this methodology are presented and the final results are shown in a process model. To reach this process model, literature research was made to find the current issues and challenges of Virtual Projects that should be tackled. Also, the literature research was used to check the current suggested approaches for combing PRINCE2 and PMBoK. Then, the main components of a project management methodology were determined before comparing and matching PRINCE2 and PMBoK elements together. Next, the approach for combining the two methods is explained. This resulted in a methodology proposal that utilize the best of what PRINCE2 and PMBoK offer for managing Virtual Projects. Keywords: Project Management, Project Management Methodology (PMM), Virtual Projects, PRoject IN Controlled Environment (PRINCE2), Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK)

8 1 1. Introduction Geographically dispersed project teams are increasingly becoming relevant in the current successful organizations. The need of such teams is driven by many factors, which may be cited as global competition, reengineered product life cycles, mass customization; and the increased need to respond quickly to customers needs (Powell et al., 2004). The increased diversity of skills, knowledge, cultures, and geographical distance between team members are among the characteristics of Virtual Projects that gives additional load to the managerial process (Beise 2004). Hence, the Project Management Methodology (PMM) used for running such projects gains more prominence. 1.1 Problem Project management is an endeavor that copes with various uncertainty factors imposed by the environment surrounding the project in order to execute it in the best possible way. For this purpose, PMMs are structured in order to run the endeavor in a systematic and procedural manner. Obviously, Virtual Projects encompass additional challenges that encounter the management process. These challenges could be represented in the excess burden incurred by the management in running the project. For example, the uncertainty factors are intensified in the Virtual Projects as compared to typical projects. In fact, the foundation of virtual teams is, among other factors, stemmed by economic aspects that press the organizations to minimize the project s costs. This pressure is two-dimensional; to achieve the economical aims of using virtual teams, and to manage the virtual teams with the minimal cost for the process. However, additional costs are also incurred in Virtual Projects in order to establish communication and to monitor and control the work progress. Nevertheless, the major challenge in this form of projects is distances. The distance perspective of the Virtual Projects includes the geographical, cultural, and organizational discontinuities (Verburg et al., 2012). PRINCE2 and PMBoK are two of the most popular project management frameworks. While PMBoK takes into account some parts of the virtual concept, PRINCE2 is completely silent about it. In fact, the fifth edition of PMI (2013) discusses virtual meetings, Virtual Project teams, and virtual collaboration techniques. On the other hand, some project managers prefer to use a hybrid approach of methodologies in order to get the best of what they offer. Also, many scholars recommend following this approach to take advantage of the best of these methods such as: Project Plus Group (2008), Yeong (2012) etc 1.2 Problem Statement PRINCE2 and PMBoK offer different approaches to project management. Knowing that both have their advantages, (1) how can they be combined together to produce a methodology? (2) How can this combination get the most benefit of both in managing Virtual Projects?

9 2 1.3 Terminology Project Oxford English dictionary defines project as a collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim (Oxford Dictionary, 2013). Projects are characterized by being temporary and unique and are established with the aim of producing a product, service, or an outcome Project Management Project management could be defined as the application of knowledge, skills and techniques to execute projects effectively and efficiently (PMI 2013: 5). A broader definition could be: Project management is the planning, delegating, monitor, and control of all the aspects of the project and motivation of those involved to achieve the project objectives within the expected performance targets for time, cost, quality, scope, benefits, and risks (OGC 2009:4) Project Management Methodology (PMM) The difference between the definitions mentioned above is of a great significance, and is an area of concern in this thesis. However, the two definitions represent project management as a process that does not compose a part of the project nonetheless; it aims to achieve the objectives of the project efficiently and effectively. Meeting the aims is not a straightforward process as it is shown by the second definition. Project management is composed of compound process that includes tasks that can be as simple as prioritizing the critical activities of a project, and can range to complex tasks that are related to managing and controlling uncertainty. Thus, the more complex the project gets, and the more pressure from the environment is exhibited, the importance of the project management platform increases. This derived the evolution of some project management methodologies. These methodologies are created based on the accumulation of agreed practices, processes, methods, and experiences providing strategically, tactical, and organizational benefits. These methods are fundamental in determining the degree of success of projects as they provide consistency to the way the project is managed. Methodologies intend to acknowledge and accommodate the fact that projects operate within an organizational context with resource constraints and in response to multiple, often conflicting stakeholder demands (Beise 2004: 129). This is achieved through the tools that are provided by methodologies such as definitions, guidelines, templates, etc 1 1 More details about methodology are provided in sections 3.2

10 PRINCE2 PRINCE2 is an acronym for Projects IN Controlled Environments developed by the UK government agency Office of Government Commerce or better known as OGC. PRINCE2 is used in more than 150 countries, with more than 20,000 organizations benefiting from it (Murray, 2011) PMBoK PMBoK is an acronym for Project Management Body of Knowledge. It is a standard developed by the Project Management Institute (PMI), an organization for project managers that shares knowledge with nearly 500,000 members and credential holders in over 185 countries (PMI, 2010) Virtual Teams As a consequence of globalization, organizations are operating more and more over distances. The term distances in the context do not only include geographical dispersion, but it also includes culture, business units, and functions. Members of the virtual teams communicate usually through ICT, which has many advantages that range from reducing transportation costs, to optimizing team performance through drawing up on the talents of the best people regardless of their locations (Dubé & Robey, 2008) Virtual Projects In this thesis, Virtual Projects are defined as projects that are executed by virtual teams. In addition to global projects, Virtual Projects cover as well the local projects with dispersed teams at different locations. Currently, Virtual Projects are an expanding trend that is driven by the nature of business, cost pressure, global competition, market development, mergers and acquisition, outsourcing, offshoring, and the need to reduce costs (Svejvig & Commisso, 2012) Hybrid Methodology The expression X and Y hybrid methodology in this context is defined as the formation of a theory Z that is composed of: (1) the union between X and Y and (2) a crossbreed of components of the intersection between X and Y that is chosen according to a specified criteria; in a manner that when Z is applied, one can simultaneously say: (1) X is being used because Z is applied and (2) Y is being used because Z is applied. 1.4 Thesis Scope This master thesis answers the research question by finding the largest possible intersection between three components that are: PRINCE2, PMBoK, and Virtual Projects. Figure1 symbolizes the as-is relationship between the mentioned three components:

11 4 Figure 1 - Current Relationship between PRINCE2, PMBoK, and Virtual Projects The three ovals A, B, and C represent PRINCE2, PMBoK, and Virtual Projects respectively. One can notice the following: There is a spacious intersection between PRINCE2 and PMBoK The intersection between PMBoK and Virtual Projects is somehow larger than the intersection between PRINCE2 and Virtual Projects There is a significant area in the Virtual Projects that is out of the scope of both PRINCE2 and PMBoK Figure 2 symbolizes the to-be relationship between the mentioned three components: Figure 2 - To Be Relationship between PRINCE2, PMBoK, and Virtual Projects

12 5 The following are some notes about the above figure: The two ovals A and B are still represented in this figure however; oval C is twisted and is shown in the figure as the shapes E+F. Area F represents the Virtual Projects aspects that are out of the scope of PRINCE2 and PMBoK and hence, out of the scope of this master thesis. In figure 2 this area is narrower than in figure 1 The Area A+D+E+B represent the answer to the research question, and thus these are the focus of this master thesis The Area D represents the things in common between PRINCE2 and PMBoK that are outside the scope of Virtual Projects, while the area E represents the things in common between PRINCE2 and PMBoK that are within the scope of Virtual Projects Area D is larger than Area E and this implies that the focus on Grouping PRINCE2 and PMBoK in this master thesis is slightly more than the focus on the Virtual Projects. 2 The area of intersection between PRINCE2 and PMBoK in the figures 1 and 2, is the same because the author cannot make an assumption at this level of the research regarding which one of them (PRINCE2 or PMBoK) will have more components in the proposed theory 3. However, the author assumes at this level that the size of this area between the current situation 4 and the proposed theory will vary Thesis Structure After this introduction, the methodology used by the author in this master thesis is presented next. Chapter 3 is the theoretical part that includes information about Virtual Projects collected from the literature research, the description of methodologies, and a précis of PRINCE2 and PMBoK. Chapter 4 is the part were the hybrid mix of both PRINCE2 and PMBoK is made in order to extract the best practices out of both taking into consideration the virtual nature of the projects. Second to last, Chapter 5 includes discussion of the work done in Chapter 4. Lastly, the conclusion of this master thesis is presented in Chapter 6. 2 The reason behind the amount of focus decision is mentioned in section The clarification of why cannot the author make such an assumption at this level is pointed out to in section The authors view on the current situation is pointed out to in section The author assumes that the current size of intersection between PRINCE2 and PMBoK is out of the scope of this thesis however, the amount of intersection between PRINCE2 and PMBoK in the proposed methodology is deduced in Chapter 5

13 6 2. Methodology This section contains discussion about the choices that are made to produce this master thesis. The section starts first by presenting the author s understanding of social science then, the way the research question is addressed. Finally, other choices that took including the delimitations, description and sources of the data, and the validity and reliability of this master thesis are provided. 2.1 Philosophy of Science The author s view for the philosophy of science that should be followed when conducting a social science research swings between being positivistic and interpretive. The author tends to choose the interpretive stance when there is an intention to go deep into the specific details of the subject under study in order to find a personal explanation for it. On the other hand, the author tends to prefer the positivistic stance in other instances for it utilizes the accumulation of knowledge, in order to produce further knowledge. Based on this introduction, the opinions mentioned in this section are related only to this research and do not express the author s general opinion. The philosophical approach that is used in this master thesis is positivistic. The purpose of doing this research is to come out with a methodology that is replicable under the same research settings with the intention of generalizing the findings. Ontology: as far as the ontological debate is concerned, the author s understanding of the existence favors the Realism position over the Nominalist position in this research and thus, the objectivist approach to social science, which views that the world as made up of hard and tangible structures, is used. This position impacts this thesis mainly in chapters 4, 5, and 6. Since a PMM is proposed in this research by combining two existing theories taking into account that there is distance between project team members then, the aim is to try to find the truth(s) about the social world. Epistemology: it is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge (Haisler, 2011:43). The epistemological positivism is adopted in this master thesis when trying to explain how we do know what we know. Hence, the epistemological approach is also objectivist, leaving the same influence on the thesis as the ontological stance. The epistemological position that is called positivism, attempts to predict what will happen based on regularities and the causal relationships between its constituent elements. For example, the elements of the proposed PMM are chosen through verification of existing knowledge about PRINCE2 and PMBoK to generate a predicted hypothesis about which the Virtual Projects more. Based on this, the author is attempting to find the reality which exists out there. This leads to say that the author believes that the intersection between PRINCE2 and PMBoK is an existing fact regardless of the author s prior understanding of it. 2.2 Overall Methodological Approach The overall methodological approach is inductive or a knowledge-based method. In this master thesis, a PMM is proposed based on conceptual data. Therefore, the author is building a PMM rather than explaining an existing one. In this way, the progress would be moving from observations

14 7 of existing literature to broader generalizations. Therefore, the focus is on finding evidence that can lead to tentative hypotheses. The proposed PMM should be viewed as a group of tentative hypotheses. The proposed PMM is created by grouping the things that PRINCE2 and PMBoK have in common. Whereas the uncommon things, are evaluated and decisions are made based on existing theories. Therefore, the author cannot determine the amount of contribution of PRINCE2 or PMBoK in the proposed PMM until the mentioned decisions are made. The development of the thesis started with the ideas that lead to the forming the research problem mentioned in the introduction. Then the outline was created, and literature research was made. Afterwards, the writing process in this thesis started. Writing was made sequentially starting by Chapter 1 all the way till Chapter 6 while reviewing, when needed, what has been written before. 2.3 Delimitations This section is about the methodological choices that are made to produce this master thesis. Like in any research, one has to make the best choices based on the available resources. The discussion of the next two sections would be about the general factors that shapes the delimitation, then the research question-based factors respectively General Delimitation The most two typical factors that shapes the delimitations are time and space. This is a master thesis that was developed in three months, and with a limit of characters maximum. For this reason, there are no empirical data used an instead, only theories and literature research are used as sources of information. A proper way to get empirical data to be used in this master thesis would have been through conducting semi-structured interviews where the interviewer can ask clarifying questions and the interviewee can come up with personal experience. On the other hand, there was no possibility to test the outcome of this research. In addition, the time/space constraints affected the content of the proposed combined methodology. OGC(2009) contains a section that details the roles and responsibilities of all the activities that are recommended to be done in this process to 8 different roles. However, these managerial roles does not exist in this master thesis because despite being a time and space consuming activity to figure them out, such section would be very vulnerable if kept without any further empirical study Research Question Delimitation The first delimitation related to the research question is the choice of PRINCE2 and PMBoK. One can use other PMMs and even more than two of them in order to come up with a best practices guideline that is suitable for Virtual Projects. PRINCE2 was chosen because of its high popularity and the author s familiarity with through previous courses at the university. While PMBoK was chosen because of its popularity and because of the fact that it contains some guidelines regarding virtual teams. Both PRINCE2 and PMBoK are recognized internationally and available in many languages, and certifications of different levels of them can be obtained. Also, both are sound methods that have existed for a significant time. That is the reason for the availability of high

15 8 number of literature and studies about them and generally, there is a substantial interest by scholars in both methods. Studies about using PRINCE2 and PMBoK together are available with some of them showing the feasibility of combining them while others are recommending using both for running a single project. Examples of such studies are Chin & Spowage (2010 b), Yeong (2012), Project Plus Group (2008) etc 2.4 The Data The following books were extremely essential in developing this thesis: Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (2009) by OGC, and A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (2013) by PMI. The first step made by the author after determining the tentative research problem was reading both text books, and making personal summary out of it based on selection of different parts from the books in addition to notes made in the author s own language. This file is shown in Appendix 2 without the notes. The data in this master thesis are conceptual. The majority of the input is based on literature research, and therefore, a big time and effort were dedicated for the literature study. Three search engines were used in conducting the literature research: Aarhus University Library (library.au.dk) : the AU Library is the primary literature search engine is used, as it gives some access privileges for the university students Google Danmark: used as the secondary literature search engine in case specific literature were not found using AU Library Google Scholar: used once to get insight about the recent papers about PRINCE2, PMBoK, and Virtual projects taking advantage of filtering by year option available on scholar.google.dk The search keywords were specific and fixed thus, minimal time was spent on general literature browsing. There are two purposes for using the data. The first one is to collect knowledge that enables comparison between PRINCE2 and PMBoK to find out what fits Virtual Projects the most. The second purpose is to find existing literature about the combining process of PRINCE2 and PMBoK. Conducting the literature research spanned over almost 2/3 of the thesis s development time. As mentioned, the writing process is sequential and the literature research was made throughout all the stages of the master thesis from pre-writing until writing the discussion part. The evaluation of literature is a three-step process: 6 Skim through: any paper is obtained either through reference from another paper or due to the relevance of its title. The first process is skimming through it, to find out whether this paper could potentially be used in this master thesis. If there is a degree of relevancy then, 6 Appendix 1 contains a list of all the academic papers that were obtained

16 9 the paper is saved on a hard drive, and referenced in notepad. If on the other hand, the paper is judged not relevant then it is simply discarded. Abstract, Introduction and Summary analysis: in the second step, the abstracts, introductions, and summaries of the papers that are found to be relevant are deeply read and analyzed. Having done this then, the relevancy and the potential usage of the literature in the master thesis could be determined. The difference between the findings of this step and the previous one is that the degree of relevancy is determined more precisely, however, only few papers were found to be relevant in the first step and not relevant in the second step. In depth analysis: the writing for each section starts by looking first at the list of relevant literature that was determined in the previous step. These papers are deeply analyzed, and at this stage, then a decision whether each paper will be used in this master thesis or not is made. 2.5 Validity and Reliability Since the philosophical approach that is used in this master thesis is positivistic, then it is relevant to talk about the validity and reliability of the outcomes. This research lacks the internal validity since the outcomes are not tested as mentioned earlier. However, the author claims that the external validity of this master thesis is high. The external validity refers to the degree which conclusions can be generalized across social settings (Haisler, 2011:47). The latest version of PRINCE2 and the latest two versions of PMBoK were used in this paper, while no small cases were used. These two factors lead the author to claim a high degree of generalization of the findings of this master thesis. Reliability: the reliability of this master thesis is heightened by the fact that the author takes the positivistic stance. Other researches would reach similar, to a certain extent, results if the same research resources and settings were used. The major reason for saying this is that there is no empirical data. As a part of the positivistic epistemology, the outcome of this master thesis can be verified or falsified and may also form knowledge input to another research types.

17 10 3. Theory 3.1 Virtual Projects Characterization Defining virtualization in the project management field can be a complex task. Definitions of virtual teams and projects in literature lack depth (Ebrahim et al., 2009). In a study made by Raghuram et al. (2008), they came out with the result that the field of virtual work is still robust and dynamic in a manner that there is still a need to answer the question what is virtual. Answering this question becomes even harder in project management context since working under distributed circumstances is moderately a rule rather than being an exception (Raghuram et al. 2008). Moreover, answering this question requires forming a variance measure of virtualization. The degree of geographical dispersion within the virtual team can range from having only one member of the team located at a different location, to having a team in which every single member is located in a separate country (Ebrahim et al., 2009). Generally, the context of a virtual team differs among institutions and to understand the term virtual, one can try to find commonalities in the various literatures. The distinguishing property of a virtual team is the existence of some gaps between the team members. A common characteristic of virtual teams visibly is the existence of geographical or temporal separation (Ebrahim et al., 2009). The advance in communication technology and the continued globalization lead to the increase of virtual teams (Kirkman et al., 2002). To overcome the boundaries of space and time zones, virtual teams utilize IT technology (Ebrahim et al., 2009). However, geographic location and time zones are not the only genres of gaps in a virtual team. Other gaps are work settings, tasks, and relations with other workers or managers in addition to organizational (both intra- and inter-organizational), culture, work practice, and technology discontinuities (Verburg et al., 2012). After this overview, the definition from Lipnack & Stamps(2000) seems to be passable according to the thesis s delimitations. Virtual teams are groups of people who work interdependently with shared purpose across space, time, and organization boundaries using technology to communicate and collaborate (Lipnack & Stamps, 2000). Whilst the term Virtual Projects is defined in the introduction of this thesis as projects that are executed by virtual teams Benefits Overcoming the discontinuities of virtual teams provides opportunities to the organizations. It is clearly visible in literature that overcoming the location boundary enables the organizations to create cross functional teams that enables hiring and maintaining the best expertise (Ebrahim et al., 2009), (Kirkman et al., 2002). The following is the author s classification of the benefits of virtual teams provided by Kuruppuarachchi (2009: 22), Ebrahim et al (2009: ), and PMI (2013:271): Human resources level: More flexibility on working hours for employees

18 11 Creation of opportunities for employees in remote offices Facilitates knowledge capture Higher team efficiency and effectiveness Form teams of people from the same organization who live in widespread geographic areas; Add special expertise to a project team even though the expert is not in the same geographic area; Incorporate employees who work from home offices; Form teams of people who work different shifts, hours, or days; Include people with mobility limitations or disabilities Business process level: Improved business processes and cross-functional and cross-divisional interactions in the organizations Skilled, qualified, and talented workforce is possible regardless of the distance Availability of a pool of employees regardless of location, and possibility of easily expanding the workforce Enhanced information dissemination and knowledge sharing within the organization Stimulation of creativity and innovation most likely due to diversity of the workforce Flexibility in resource allocations and work scheduling Reducing relocation time and costs Move forward with projects that would have been ignored due to travel expenses. Output level: Financial gains through improved productivity, reduced cost, reduced travel time, etc. Increased competitive advantages and improved customer satisfaction Speed up product development and project management Reducing time-to-market Virtual projects can enhance the competitiveness of the small and medium enterprises Categories of Issues Before tackling the issues and challenges of Virtual Projects in the proposed methodology, it is essential to categorize the issues in a fashion that facilitates referring to them afterwards. Based on a compilation of best practices from literature, the best practices of Virtual Projects are divided by Svejvig & Commisso (2012) into five categories that are: communication, culture, technology, project process and management, and socialization. The author adapts these five categories in an attempt of categorizing the Virtual Projects issues via reverse inference. The five categories of issues are described below. Communication: One of the most frequent issues that literature points to in Virtual Projects is communication. The other 4 categories of issues can contribute in a way or another to creating communication problems.

19 12 Various literature regarded communication to be a challenge in a virtual environment ex. Kuruppuarachchi (2009), Ebrahim et al., (2009), Kirkman et al., (2002), Reed & Knight (2009), Oshri et al. (2011), Thissen et al, (2007), etc... However, the overlap between the communication issues of co-located teams and virtual teams is inevitable. For instance, the study of Reed & Knight (2009) reveals that the risk of inadequate communication is, contrary to the common believe, almost the same in both types of teams. Bearing in mind that established PMMs and guidelines are quite heavy on communication, the risk of communication-related issues is heavily mitigated in projects where a PMM or a guideline is used. Yet, there are other issues that vary in volume between virtual and co-located teams such as the insufficient transfer of implicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge is characterized by being very informal and involves methods such as storytelling, mentoring or coaching, and communities of practice (Reed & Knight, 2009). Culture Many issues can be raised due to cultural difference between team members. A common problem related to cultural differences is limiting them to national cultures (Svejvig & commisso, 2012). Cultural differences can be (1) organizational cultures with different management styles, company values etc., (2) professional cultures such as doctors and nurses, (3) functional cultures like sales and production, and finally (4) team cultures, where teams develop their own intra- and interorganizational subcultures (Carmel 1999: 57-79), cited in (Svejvig & Commisso 2012). Other differences can be related to language in case the team members do not share that same mother language. In such situations, a common language is agreed to be used and that can raise an issue in the way words are comprehended for instance, the word tomorrow can mean the next day, the near future, or the far future depending on the cultural background of the individuals. Technology The advance of technology is one of the major incentives for the viability of virtual teams and hence they are extremely dependent on technology. Any shortage in technology can isolate the members of the team which hinders the workflow of teams. Co-located teams are also very dependent on technology despite the absence of geographical dispersion. Reed & Knight (2009) concluded in there study that due to the advance in technology the same effect of technology related problems on communication are found in both co-located and virtual teams.. Project process and management Additional challenges are added to the project management process due to the discontinuities and distances between team members. A project manager leading a virtual team needs to accommodate differences in the culture, working hours, time zones, local conditions, and languages (PMI, 2013:38). This is the prominent category of issues in the thesis. Examples of issues in this category are: increased risk, more time needed for planning, additional documentation required etc Socialization These are the issues that are generated because of the lack of social interaction between group members such as problems of creating trust, feelings of isolation etc...

20 Dimensions of successful Virtual Projects Having the issues and challenges identified, it is necessary to determine the success factors of Virtual Projects, which is presented next based again on the five categories adopted from Svejvig & Commisso (2012). Communication Successful communication is a challenge in both co-located and Virtual Projects. Some communication technologies are even common between both types such as s, instant messaging and other communication tools. In Virtual Projects, it is extremely important to use the communication methods effectively (Verburg et al., 2012). The table below lists the common communication tools for geographically dispersed teams. Table 1 - Tools for distance communication and information exchange (Thissen et al, 2007: 30) A successful communication is characterized by selecting the proper tool for communication and utilizing the maximum out of its advantages. No matter what tools are used, they must be accompanied by clear communication rules (Verburg et al., 2012). The following principles are found in successful communication according to Haywood (1998; 18-19) 1. Standards for availability and acknowledgement are defined and respected 2. The team members replace lost context in their communication 3. The team members regularly use synchronous communication 4. Senders take responsibility for prioritizing communication

21 14 Moreover, the leader of communication in successful Virtual Projects, usually, provides continuous feedback, engages in regular and prompt communication, and clarifies tasks (Shachaf and Hara; 2005) cited in (Ebrahim et al., 2009:2660). Culture The variety of cultures is inevitable in Virtual Projects and can be both an asset and a liability for organizations. However, as far the organizational culture is concerned, the culture of the successful Virtual Projects organizations should value communication, learning, promote teamwork, and recognize the need for diversity (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009:25) Technology The organizations that execute Virtual Projects should recognize and document the value and role of technology. There is a positive correlation between the success of a project and the advance of technology used within the organization (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009). Technologically advanced organizations support their projects with tools, infrastructure, and training that guarantees the proper utilization of the tools for communication and information exchange shown in table 1(Verburg et al., 2012). Project Process and Management The organizational structure of successful Virtual Projects tends to be more flat rather than hierarchical (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009). On the human resource level, such organizations provide plans that support Virtual Projects in terms of policies, rewards, and incentive systems (Verburg et al., 2012). Furthermore, the leadership attitude of the Project Manager in Virtual Projects is recommended to be assertive yet not too bossy, caring, relates to members at their own levels, and maintains a consistent attitude over the life of the project (Shachaf and Hara; 2005) cited in (Ebrahim et al., 2009:2660). Socialization During the lifetime of a Virtual Project, the Project Manager should arrange both formal and informal socialization activities and face-to-face meetings. The availability of team members who possess good verbal and listening skills helps in achieving the goals of the socialization activities (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009) Virtual Projects and Project Stages Managing any type of project involves stages. Before proposing a methodology that fits Virtual Projects, it is timely to present the instructions obtained from the literature research about managing the stages of a Virtual Project. These instructions are taken into consideration when grouping PRINCE2 and PMBoK in the proposed methodology. The stages are grouped by the author into five generic stages that can be anywise matched to PRINCE2 and PMBoK stages. Pre-initiation

22 15 Noticeably, the literature about the early start of Virtual Projects revolves mostly around communication. It is recommended to establish communications in the beginning of projects (Anderson et al., 2007) including, preferably, face-to-face meetings (Svejvig & Commisso, 2012). Also, literature prescribes creating clear roles and responsibilities of all members (Shachaf and Hara; 2005) cited in (Ebrahim et al., 2009), and communicating them (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009). Finally, pre-initiation stages often involve establishing and communicating the mission, success criteria, and the framework of the project (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009). Initiation In this stage, it is important to account for the increased risks involved in Virtual Projects (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009). These risks require proper planning for resources requirements and availability. Also, it is equally important that the plans utilize the advantages of having a Virtual Projects when dividing the work. Therefore, the Project Manager should try, as much as possible, to apply the following strategies when dividing the work: (Oshri et al., 2011: ) - Product structure: when each product module or feature is developed at a separate site allowing sites to work on different modules in parallel - Product customization: where one site develops the product, and another site which is close to the customer does the customization - Phase/process Step: globally dispersed sites engage in different phases of the project in a sequential manner - Minimizing requirements for cross-site communication and synchronization, through performing activities that are tightly coupled at one single site. - Division of work across time zones: utilizing the maximum number of the day s 24 hours Monitoring and controlling The following paragraph is based on Kuruppuarachchi, (2009). Literature about monitoring and controlling Virtual Projects suggests various actions that are important in both Virtual and Colocated projects. The following factors should be controlled: communication, risk, quality, and the engagement of team members. In this stage, the Project Manager is advised to give continuous feedback to the members to keep them updated with the progress of the project. Moreover, the adherence to the code of conduct, mismatches between policies and procedures, and scope creep should be monitored is at this stage Wrap-up When the Virtual Project is closed, the lessons learned from it are extremely valuable and should be stored and used in any future project (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009) Practiced Practices As a final point about Virtual Projects, it is worthy to mention the practiced practices. These practices are used by the author to understand what might happen in reality when applying the prescribed practices of Virtual Projects. The practiced practices mentioned below are taken into consideration when developing the proposed methodology and can be traced, in a way or another,

23 16 within it. The practiced practices for Virtual Projects listed below are based on (Svejvig & Commisso, 2012:10-11) - Communication: o Since virtual communication takes longer time that face-to-face communication, some team individuals tend to compile their inquiries, try to solve the issues themselves, or to accept lower quality response from a co-located college. o In other teams, a formal communication plan might be found that includes who should be informed about what and when. This becomes extremely relevant for teams working across different time zones. o At the project startup of some projects, face-to-face workshops are made in order to emphasize the importance of continues communication and to overcome the challenge for establishing the communication and making the first contact o Usage of instant messaging directly after video conversations, to ensure that both communication partners have understood each others, which might not always be the case due to language and cultural differences. o Favoring video conferences and avoiding voice-based communication because video conferencing can be accompanied by the use of body language, figures, and drawings. This practice might occur in reality in an attempt to dilute the impact of the differences in both language skills and accents. - Culture o Cultural training and seminars to minimize the gap between the teams because of their cultural difference. However, this training can be very stereotypical, whereas learning about culture takes a long time and cannot be learned by a one-day seminar that takes place once per year o Team culture, which involves the bringing up the mentality of us against them when the team is facing any problem - Technology o Favoring video conferencing is a current trend o The existence of a gap between the availability and usability of technology i.e. not utilizing the full capabilities of the available communication technology o Whenever it is possible, people would definitely prepare to hold a face-to-face meeting instead of a video conference. - Project process and management: o Not acknowledging the difference between co-locational and virtual collaboration by the organization o Project managers can be notified too late about the project problems as it is more challenging to manage information across distance o Appointing a liaison officer (formally or informally) o Project managers may prioritize regular travel to meet other team members o Temporary relocation of both project managers and team members. - Socialization o Bringing team members in one location before project kick-off o Prioritizing informal activities so that the team members become acquainted with each other in informal settings

24 Project Management Methodology Essentials: The answer to the research question is a proposed methodology and therefore it is of supreme importance to identify the vital components of a methodology. The best practices can be viewed as the product of advanced project management standardization, and hence, a methodology builds on the accumulation of best practices learned over time (ITS Project Management Group, 2012) setting out what the organization regards as a good practice (Clarke, 2000), (Chin & Spowage, 2012). The ultimate goal of a PMM is to facilitate achieving the goals of the project efficiently and effectively. The PMM should clarify the goals and scope of the project (Chin & Spowage, 2012) and provide the Project Manager and Team Manager with advice and recommendations that guides towards achieving these goals (ITS Project Management Group, 2012). The guidance should facilitate the identification of risks and opportunities when planning prior to the start of the project (ITS Project Management Group, 2012), (Chin & Spowage, 2012). Having assisted in planning, the PMM should also provide means for tracking and evaluating current progress of work against the predefined plans (ITS Project Management Group, 2012) and expectedly, should also provide guidelines about taking corrective actions in case any issue is raised. Furthermore, a PMM should include a Project Board to oversee and monitor the project progression (Chin & Spowage, 2012). This leads to deduce that a PMM should recognize definite levels of management. Project Management is considered as one level of management whereas at least two other levels should exist in a methodology that are: Project Board and Team Management. Besides, a PMM should facilitate communication between project stakeholders through providing a common language between them. The term language in this context is used with both its literal meaning and a figurative meaning that symbolizes the project management language. Subsequently, a PMM should facilitate and improve communication by ensuring that everyone is talking the same language in terms of practices, documentation, responsibilities, etc (Clarke, 2000), (ITS Project Management Group, 2012). Second to last, a PMM should be characterized by being scalable, adaptable, flexible, and accessible (Chin & Spowage 2010 a), (Chin & Spowage 2012), (ITS Project Management Group, 2012). This is usually secured through guidelines for tailoring within the methodology such as the tailoring principle of PRINCE2. Lastly, a PMM should promote organizational learning process (Chin & Spowage, 2012) through guidelines that leverage on both the best practices and lessons learned from past experiences (Chin & Spowage 2010 a), (ITS Project Management Group, 2012) 3.3 PRINCE2 and PMBoK The guidelines, recommendations, and elements of PRINCE2 and PMBoK are discussed, evaluated and compared in the next chapter when proposing an approach to combine them. In this chapter, a broad overview of both methods is presented in order to introduce the main components that are studied in the next chapter.

25 18 Figure 3 - Basic Structure of PRINCE2 (Verax, 2009) Figure 3 represents the main structure of PRINCE2. PRINCE2 is a generic PMM that is composed of seven Principles, seven Themes, and seven Processes. The principles are aspects of the project that PRINCE2 stress on applying them, and if any is not applied then the project is not being run using PRINCE2 (OGC, 2009). On the other hand, Themes are linked aspects of the project that should be addressed continually. PRINCE2 prescribes that Themes should be tailored to fit the project (OGC, 2009). Finally, the Processes are a set of activities that are required to direct, manage and deliver a project (Murray, 2009:5) On the other hand, PMBoK is guideline, as the title of PMI (2013) indicates, that offers a set of generally accepted best practices. PMBoK is a guide rather than a specific methodology. One can use different methodologies and tools (e.g., agile, waterfall, PRINCE2) to implement the project

26 19 management framework (PMI, 2013:2). The step between the PMBOK guide and a methodology is determining what should be done by whom, when and how (Weaver, 2012) 7. PMBoK consists of three main elements that are: Project Management Process Groups, Knowledge Areas, and Project Management Processes. The relationship between these three elements is shown in table 2. 7 Weaver, Patrick is a member of PMI since 1986

27 20 Table 2 - PMBoK Project Management Process Group and Knowledge Area Mapping (PMI 2013: 61) In few words, PMBoK contains 47 Project Management Processes that are grouped into the five Project Management Process Groups. In same time, these 47 Project Management Processes are also grouped into the 10 Knowledge Areas of PMBoK. Table 2 shows the cross-intersection between the Process Groups and the Knowledge Areas. These three elements are investigated in the next chapter.

28 21 4. Best Practices for Managing Virtual Projects This chapter consists of three sections: 1. The role and relevance of best practices in project management context 2. Grouping PRINCE2 and PMBoK 3. Best Practices by process 4.1 The Role and Relevance of Best Practices in Project Management Context Project management field is receiving an increasing interest by the researchers which results in creating project management theories. These theories usually contain project-based practices that could be found in PMM and guidelines like PRINCE2 and PMBoK as well as in other academic papers that review these standards or investigate the behavior of project team members. The PMMs and bodies of knowledge are developed by professional teams of practitioners and that is the reason why the concept of practices has always been central to the field of project management (Thuesen et. al 2013). For example, PRINCE2 and PMBoK sets focus on generic tools and methods that represent a framework of best practices. Therefore, the view of project management in both PRINCE2 and PMBoK is a discipline that, among other things, guarantees the application of the best practices. While the view of project manager is the central driving force of the project who is the major target (but not the only target) for the best practices. PMI (2013) states that good practice means there is general agreement that the application of project management processes has been shown to enhance the chances of success over a wide range of projects (PMI, 2013:48). Even though PMBoK is not a methodology yet, the knowledge that this standard contains has immerged from the recognized good practices of project management. For example, the processes and tools and techniques of PMBoK are best practices (Thuesen et. al 2013). While best practices are extremely valuable input for the development of methodologies, PMBoK and PRINCE2 are considered to be two of the standards that were developed using best practices as source of information (Chin & Spowage 2010 a). PRINCE2 embodies established best practices in its components. For example, the 7 principles of PRINCE2 are actually good practices that determine whether the project is running using PRINCE2 or not (OGC, 2009). To wrap things up, project management standards are developed by practitioners that are familiar with project management practices which are presented in frameworks such as PMBoK and PRINCE2. In project management context, where the managers have to deal with uncertainties and ambiguities, not all the best practices should be used in all the projects. Both PMBoK and PRINCE2 point out that these best practices should be tailored for every project by evaluating what is needed without overlooking that a methodology, whether PRINCE2 or a customized one based on PMBoK guide, should provide guidelines which leverage on best practices (Chin & Spowage 2012).

29 Grouping PRINCE2 and PMBoK Grouping Point of Departure Grouping PMBoK and PRINCE2, starts by identifying the point of departure. In this master thesis, the combination of PRINCE2 and PMBoK takes PRINCE2 as a point of departure. OGC (2009) states that PRINCE2 is a generic method for effective project management. Generic in this context means that it is applicable to all types of projects regardless of their scale, location, nature, or complexity. The seventh principle of PRINCE2, tailoring, is needed due to the customizability of PRINCE2. This principle is about thinking how to apply the method and then using it with a lightness of touch (OGC, 2009:215). McHugh & Hogan (2010) made a study about the rationale of adopting PRINCE2 and PMBoK in Ireland. This study revealed based on a comparison between two organizations applying PMBoK and PRINCE2 respectively that the latter did not face problems in customizing the methodology to fit small projects while the first one did. The degree of generalizability of this finding can be questioned and the limitations of the study are already mentioned in the paper however, this finding can be used as an inspiration to use PRINCE2 as a starting point and tailoring it according to PMBoK guidelines since Virtual Projects are relevant to small and large projects. However, the fundamental difference between PRNICE2 and PMBoK that leads the author to start from PRINCE2 is that PRINCE2 is a PMM while PMBoK is not (section 3.3). There are various implications that can be drawn out from this difference. PMBoK provides general guidelines for managing a project and it has a better approach than PRINCE2 in explaining each of the knowledge areas (Wideman, 2002). This might explain the proclamation of the Project Plus Group (2008) that PMBoK becomes more relevant, compared to PRINCE2, as the level of maturity of the organization increases. The higher the level of project management maturity, the larger the span of benefits from learning and interpreting PMBoK becomes. Conversely, PRINCE2 is more effective than PMBoK in providing guidelines for managing a specific project (Wideman, 2002) as more detailed specifications are needed in projects running with lower maturity Project Management. The author does not agree 100% with this relationship between the maturity of project management and the PRINCE2 vs PMBoK relevance since PRINCE2 can be extremely relevant to projects running in highly mature organizations. However, the author assures that PRINCE2 is superior in putting the guidelines into context. This can be depicted right from the start of the project as PRINCE2 recommends a project Start Up process that details what should be done as soon as an idea or a need for a project is available (AIPM, 2002) while there is no counterpart for this process in PMBoK. Then with the progress of the project, the context of the activities of PRINCE2 is still stronger. According to the author, the context of all activities within a process and the context of the processes themselves are extremely precise in PRINCE2 which is reflected in a comprehensive and comprehendible process model. On the other hand no process model for PMBoK is provided by PMI (2013). The author even claims that the contexts of some activities in the PMBoK are peculiar ex. Planning Scope Management is done after approving the Project Charter or that acquiring project management team members takes place after the initiation of the project. A research by Chin & Spowage (2010 b) shows that the only missing element of PRINCE2 as compared to the leading best practices guidelines is a comprehensive discussion about knowledge areas. Since PRINCE2 is a tailoring-friendly pragmatic methodology that provides How To

30 23 approach (Siegelaub, 2009) (Project Plus Group, 2008) (Yeong, 2012), then it can be complemented by the knowledge areas of PMBoK that elaborates on the competencies of a successful project manager (Chin and Spowage, 2010 b) Matching PRINCE2 with PMBoK Having identified the point of departure for combining PRINCE2 and PMBoK, the next step is to relate and match their elements. These elements are mentioned in section 3.3. The following section aims to relate these elements together which will facilitate the decisions for combining them afterwards PMBoK Knowledge Areas with PRINCE2 Themes, Principles and Processes Siegelaub (2009) states that PRINCE2 Themes roughly map against the Knowledge Areas, this idea is supported by Yeong (2012) who mentions that even though they are not exactly matched yet, they are similar. According to PRINCE2, the Themes are the aspects of the project that should be addressed continuously through the project since they are central to the project success and are often under-addressed by the Project Managers (Siegelaub, 2009). The strength of the themes concept in PRINCE2 is that they link together chronologically. In addition to that, PRINCE2 assigns roles and responsibilities for each of the seven themes. On the contrary, the Knowledge Areas neither have assigned roles and responsibilities nor linked together in a clear process model. Yet, the Knowledge Areas are more comprehensive (Siegelaub, 2009:2) whether in the number of pages they occupy in OGC (2009) and PMI (2013), or in terms of their constituents. Table 3 shows how does each Knowledge Area maps against PRINCE2 Themes according to Siegelaub (2009). PMBOK GUIDE Knowledge Area Integration Scope, Time, Cost Quality Risk Communications Human Resources Procurement Table 3 - Mapping Knowledge Areas against Themes (Siegelaub, 2009:2) Comparable PRINCE2 Themes Combined Processes and Themes, Change Plans, Business Case, Progress Quality, Change (Configuration Management) Risk Progress Organization (limited) Not Covered Siegelaub (2009) used PMI (2008), the fourth version of PMBoK guide, which did not include the Stakeholder Knowledge Area. Stakeholder Knowledge Area is not covered by the Themes. The Knowledge Areas represent a complete set of concepts, terms, and activities that make up a professional field, project management field, or area of specialization (PMI, 2013:60). Based on this, the Knowledge Areas can be mapped against other PRINCE2 elements: PMBOK Knowledge Areas Project Integration PRINCE2: Principles / Themes / Processes [Principles]: 7 Principles

31 24 Management Project Scope Management Project Time Management Project Cost Management Project Quality Management Project Human Resource Management Project Communication Management Project Risk Management Project Procurement Management [Themes]: Organization, Plans, Change, Progress [Processes]: 7 Processes [Principles]: 7 Principles [Themes]: Business Case, Plans, Change [Processes]: 7 Processes [Principles]: Continued business justification, Learn from experience, Manage by stages, Tailor to suit the project environment [Themes]: Plans, Change, Progress [Processes]: 7 Processes [Principles]: Continued business justification, Learn from experience, Tailor to suit the Project environment [Themes]: Plans, Change, Progress [Processes]: 7 Processes [Principles]: Continued business justification, Learn from experience, Focus on products, Tailor to suit the Project environment [Themes]: Quality, Plans, Change [Processes]: 7 Processes [Principles]: Learn from experience, Defined roles and responsibilities, Tailor to suit the Project environment [Themes]: Organization, Plans [Processes]: 7 Processes [Principles]: Learn from experience, Tailor to suit Project environment [Themes]: Plans, Change, Progress [Processes]: 7 Processes [Principles]: Learn from experience, Manage by exception, Tailor to suit Project environment [Themes]: Risk, Change, Progress [Processes]: 7 Processes [Principles]: Continue business justification, Learn from experience, Focus on products, Tailor to suit Project environment [Themes]: Business case, Plans, Change, Progress [Processes]: Initiating up a Project, Managing Product Delivery Table 4 - Mapping Knowledge Areas against PRINCE2 Element (Yeong, 2012:9-10)

32 25 Table 4 shows another way for understanding the Knowledge Areas as compared to PRINCE2. Knowledge Areas receive the major focus in the PMBoK and this could be induced from its title Body of Knowledge PMBoK Process Groups with PRINCE2 Processes Both PRINCE2 and PMBoK talk about Processes which are consistent with one another (Chin & Spowage, 2010b). PRINCE2 focus on the complete life cycle of the projects represented through the processes that are viewed as critical areas for project success (Chin & Spowage, 2010b), (Yeong, 2012). The table below shows how these processes can be matched together. PMBOK Process Groups Initiating Process Group Planning Process Group Executing Process Group Monitoring & Controlling Process Group Closing Process Group PRINCE2 Processes Starting up a Project Directing a Project Initiating a Project Managing Product Delivery Managing a Stage Boundary Directing a Project Controlling a Stage Managing Product Delivery Managing a Stage Boundary Managing a Stage Boundary Closing a Project Table 5 - Mapping PMBoK Process Groups against PRINCE2 Processes (Yeong, 2012:11) This is one proposed approach of matching the Processes together by Yeong (2012) however; a different approach is used in the proposed methodology and is discussed in Chapter 5. Table 5 is used in this context to support the statement by Chin & Spowage (2010b) regarding the consistency of the processes. The following paragraph reflects on the findings in this section, The Themes concept in PRINCE2 is similar to the Knowledge Areas of PMBoK. Also, the processes of PRINCE2 and PMBoK are consistent despite the differences between them. The Knowledge Areas of PMBoK are composed of project management processes. On the other hand, the Process Groups are composed of project management processes as well. This leads to concluding that, using PRINCE2 s language, the themes in PMBoK are perfectly integrated within the processes. From a different perspective, each Process of PRINCE2 contains a list of activities, while each Process Group of PMBoK contains Project Management Processes and thus, the author claims that the PRINCE2 activities are equivalent to PMBoK Project Management Processes PMBoK areas supporting the PRINCE2 processes After deciding to use PRINCE2 as a base of the proposed methodology, it is essential to mention how PMBoK can complement the PRINCE2 processes. The suggestions in this section are not simple collection from the literature but rather a product of studying PRINCE2, PMBoK, in addition to the selected representative data.

33 26 PRINCE2 and PMBoK have different aims and areas of focus. PRINCE2 is a life-cycle based methodology that provides an overall framework for managing projects (Wideman, 2002; Bell, 2009). On the other hand, PMBoK has focus on teaching the skills and competencies in each of its Knowledge Areas (Wideman, 2002; Chin & Spowage 2010b). Due to this difference, PRINCE2 says what should be done but it does not cover detailed techniques of how those things can be done (OGC, 2009). This explains why PMBoK is more comprehensive than PRINCE2 (Yeong, 2012; Chin & Spowage 2010b). The largest two Knowledge Areas that are not covered by PRINCE2 are Procurements and Stakeholders. PRINCE2 considers the Procurements as Specialist Aspects that can be used together with PRINCE2. While PMBoK covers Procurement in its pre-assignment, negotiations, decisions, source solicitations, contracts, and administrative closure (AIPM, 2002; Chin & Spowage, 2010b; Yeong, 2012). As for Stakeholders, PRINCE2 regards that this activity is carried at the Program Level which is outside the scope of PRINCE2 8. Communication is a topic that is strongly addressed by both PRINCE2 and PMBoK due to its significance in Project Management context. However, it is essential to differentiate between the approaches of PRINCE2 and PMBoK before proposing the hybrid methodology because of the additional importance that communication gains in Virtual Projects. PRINCE2 covers communication in the Initiating a Project Process through preparing the communication management strategy which is a product that has an available template. The PMBoK covers Communication through a whole Knowledge Area that is composed of three Project Management Processes that are active over three different Process Groups (table 2). The Communications in PMBoK are planned, managed and controlled. Moreover, PMBoK provides more detailed tools and techniques than PRINCE2 (Bell, 2009). These details includes: Communication Requirements Analysis, Communication Technology, Communication Models, and Communication Methods (PMI, 2013: ). Another example of areas covered by both but PMBoK is obviously stronger is Human Resource Management. The author, Yeong (2012), Chin & Spowage (2010 b), Bell (2009), and AIPM (2002) all agree about this point. The reason for this mindset about PMBoK is that PRINCE2 do not provide guidelines about the detailed techniques of Human Resources Management that do not have a specific PRINCE2 approach whereas PMBoK is particularly strong in such areas. Examples of the detailed techniques elaborated by PMBoK: organizational charts, performance appraisal, conflict management, etc In the same vein, Quality is another area that is stronger in PMBoK. PMBoK has a stronger focus on delivering quality (Yeong, 2012) and this can be depicted in the PMBoK tools and techniques that are not covered by PRINCE2. 8 The OGC has a different publication called Managing Successful Programmes, referred to in OGC (2009) while discussing the Stakeholders Engagement as a part of the Organization Theme, which covers Stakeholders Engagement.

34 27 Cost is yet another area that PMBoK address in a more detailed manner. PRINCE2 discusses costs as a part of the Plans theme, while PMBoK allocates a complete Area of Knowledge for it. Within the Cost Area of Knowledge, PMBoK extensively provides tools and techniques in this domain to the extent that they form a prime selling point for PMI training (Bell; 2009). The two Knowledge Areas of Time and Risk are no different than Cost, Quality, Human Resources, and Communication Areas of Knowledge discussed above i.e. they are covered by PRINCE2 but PMBoK can complement PRINCE2 by providing detailed tools and techniques for carrying on Time and Risk Management. In conclusion, PMBoK areas that can support the PRINCE2 processes are divided into two categories. The first category is related to the parts covered by PMBoK where PRINCE2 considers them out of its scope such as Procurements. Whereas the second category, is related to the parts where PMBoK has a stronger focus than PRINCE2 such as communications Grouping Process Proposed Methodology: Processes The framework of PRINCE2 is used in the proposed methodology as discussed in section PRINCE2 offers a complete project life cycle based on processes. Six out of the seven processes runs in a life cycle based form while the remaining one, Directing a Project, is a continuous process supporting other processes. Turner (2000) defines in McHugh & Hogan (2010:638) a methodology as a structured approach for delivering a project, and consists of a set of processes, with each process having clearly defined resources and activities. Since PRINCE2 focus on Processes (Chin & Spowage, 2010b) and PRINCE2 processes are composed of clearly defined activities then, it is plausible to focus on processes in the proposed methodology. This approach is supported by the following results of sections and : PRINCE2 Processes and PMBoK Process Groups are consistent PMBoK Process Groups are composed of Project Management Processes Project Management Processes in PMBoK are similar to the Activities in PRINCE2 Even though the Processes of PRINCE2 and PMBoK are consistent yet, they are different in some aspects even in their number. Many scholars who tried create a PMM whether by combining existing methodologies or creating one that fits into a certain case have come up with a methodology that is based on five processes that are congruent, to a high degree, with PMBoK processes (Charvat, 2003; Pitagorsky, 2003, Wideman, 2006, Yeong, 2012, Chin & Spowage 2010a, Chin & Spowage 2010b, ITS Project Management Group 2012, Abbasi & Al-Maharmah 2000). Based on this it seems reasonable to use PMBoK Process Groups when attempting to combine PRINCE2 and PMBoK. However, the delimitations of this master thesis are the main reason for adopting PRINCE2 Processes and not PMBoK Process Groups. In PRINCE2, the names and number of processes cannot be tailored and if one of them is removed then, the project cannot be considered being managed using PRINCE2. PMBoK on the other hand, does not provide rules and restrictions for tailoring. And since the aim of this master thesis is to propose a PRINCE2/PMBoK hybrid methodology, and not to propose a new methodology based on both then, the PRINCE2 processes are adopted in the proposed methodology.

35 28 PRINCE2 processes are composed of 4 parts: aim, purpose, context, and activities. The aim, purpose, and most importantly the context are adopted the way they are in PRINCE2. Whereas the activities of the proposed methodology are discussed next: Proposed Methodology: Activities Based on all what is discussed earlier in Chapter 4, the approach of combining PRINCE2 and PMBoK is done through two steps: first, each PMBoK Project Management Process is viewed as an activity and compared against the seven processes of PRINCE2 to find out which process it belongs to taking into consideration first and foremost the Virtual nature of the Projects that the methodology is oriented to. Then, it takes into consideration both the Process Group and the Area of Knowledge that it belongs to. This step results in mapping the 47 Project Management Processes into the seven activities of PRINCE2. The outcome is shown in the seven tables: 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18. The second step is to compare the Project Management Processes with the Activities for each Process: any activity that does not have a similar Project Management Process is adopted in the proposed methodology and vice versa. Similar activities are then compared, and one of them is chosen according to: first, which one fits Virtual Projects more and second, which one is found to be stronger according to the literature research. The outcome is shown in the six tables: 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17. As for the products of the activities, the products and their roles that exist in PRINCE2 are adopted due to: their assigned responsibilities, the availability of templates, and that PRINCE2 is stronger than PMBoK in documentation (Chin & Spowage, 2010b) Proposed Methodology: Roles The four management levels of PRINCE2 are adopted, these levels are: Corporate Management, Project Board, Project Management, and Team (Delivery) Management. This hierarchy is favored by the author over the approach used in PMBoK. In PMBoK, various managerial levels and positions are defined however, it does not recognize the team manager when teaching the Areas of Knowledge and at the same time, it refers most of the time to the levels of management above the Project Management as Project Sponsor Proposed Methodology: Themes Despite the careful design of Themes in PRINCE2 yet, the approach used by PMBoK is preferred by the author. As shown earlier, PMBoK imbeds the Themes within its Processes. The proposed methodology contains an attempt to imbed what PRINCE2 regards as Themes within its processes. This attempt would still make the Project genuinely managed using PRINCE2 because all the seven Themes are applied and they are tailored up.

36 Proposed Methodology: Principles The final requirement of a PMM to be considered as PRINCE2 is the principles. The seven principles of PRINCE2 are adopted and should be applied. Any project being run while at least one of the seven principles is not applied is neither using PRINCE2 nor the proposed methodology. 4.3 Best Practices by Process The proposed methodology is, like PRINCE2, composed of processes where each contains activities. The PMBoK Project Management Processes are referred to as PMBoK activities in the following chapter, while the adopted ones are simply referred to as activities in the proposed methodology. Moreover, any adopted activity, whether from PRINCE2 or PMBoK, is used as-is and hence, there is no detailed description about the activities. As for the products of the PMBoK activities, a role is assigned to them by the author in order to show the major player of the activity. The aim of assigning a role is to give a general idea about the responsibility of the activity however; detailing the adopted activities from PMBoK in the same way activities are detailed in PRINCE2 is a difficult task that requires practitioners advice, which is outside the delimitations of this master thesis. The roles are based on the adopted classification of the authority level (section 4.2.4). The roles for PRINCE2 activities, on the other hand, are adopted without any modification. Section 4.3 contains 7 subsections with each representing a process bearing its name from PRINCE2. Each subsection starts with a very brief introduction about the purpose of the process, then 5 sub-subsections that are: 1. Overview: an image showing the overview of the process in the proposed methodology. The base for creating the overview depends slightly on the overview of each process in OGC (2009) and then modified to fit the proposed methodology. The overview contains all the activities corresponding to the process in the adopted methodology. The keys to the overviews are shown in figure 4 2. Incorporating PRINCE2 and PMBoK activities: it starts with a table showing the author s choice in matching PMBoK Project Management Processes (PMBoK Activities) to the PRINCE2 processes. Then, the activities that are adopted in the new methodology from both PRINCE2 and PMBoK are identified 3. Products and responsibilities: starts with a table showing each PMBoK adopted activity, the product(s) of each activity, and the responsible(s) for producing or updating each activity. 4. Tackled issues and challenges: contains issues and challenges of Virtual Projects that are found during literature research and are tackled in the process of the proposed methodology Figure 4 - Keys to the overviews of the proposed methodology's processes

37 30 Last but not least, all the information about PRINCE2 and PMBoK in this section are, unless otherwise mentioned, produced by the author who got the knowledge about them from OGC(2009) and PMI(2013). Therefore, the bibliography of the following section includes OGC(2009) and PMI(2013) Starting Up a Project This is the pre-initiation process that takes place whenever there is a trigger to start a project. The aim of this process is to decide whether the trigger to initiate the project is worthwhile Starting up a Project Overview The following figure represents an overview of the Starting up a Project (SU) process in the proposed methodology. Figure 5 - Overview of Starting up a Project process in the proposed methodology In the above figure: PMBoK Activities Plan Human Resource Management and Acquire Project Team replaces PRINCE2 Activity: Design and Appoint Project Management Team, while a third PMBoK Activity Identify Stakeholders is added to the SU process of the proposed methodology. The activities of the SU and their products are discussed in the next two sections Incorporating PRINCE2 and PMBoK Activities Table 6 shows the PMBoK Activities that can be matched with the SU process.

38 31 PRINCE2 Processes Starting Up a Project PMBoK Project Management Processes Develop Project Charter Identify Stakeholders Plan Human Resource Management Acquire Project Team Table 6 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Starting up a project process In PRINCE2, the life cycle of the project starts with grouping the prerequisites of a project into context in order to ensure that only viable projects are allowed to be initiated. Whereas PMBoK provides a generic project s life cycle that starts with a starting phase, followed by Organizing and Preparing phase while determining the number of phases and their naming convention is left to the management. The processes that are intended to define a new project are grouped in the process group: Initiating a Project which is composed of two sequential PMBoK Activities that are: Developing Project Charter then, Identifying Stakeholders. According to PMBoK, a project is officially started when the project charter is approved and that is the only prerequisite for starting a project. The PMBoK Activities that will be added to the SU process should be carefully selected since PRINCE2 aims with this process to do the minimum possible effort that enables the Project Board to take a decision whether to initiate the project or not. PMBoK s Project Charter overlaps with the Project Brief document in PRINCE2. In fact, it is mentioned in the OGC s manual that PMBoK s Project Charter is equivalent to Project Brief in PRINCE2 (OGC 2009: 231). PRINCE2 has a bigger focus on the pre-project initiation phase than PMBoK and as mentioned earlier, PRINCE2 is heavier in documentation. Hence, one would generally tend to outweigh PRINCE2 whenever there is antagonism between PRINCE2 and PMBoK regarding documentation. The similarity between these two documents is palpable as both contain information about the objective, scope, and the participants in the project. However, here are some differences that are worth mentioning: Project Brief includes project tolerances Project Brief identifies the interfaces that a project should maintain Project Brief incorporates the outline business case and project approach Project Charter includes summary milestone schedule Yet, a decision regarding which document to use cannot be made at this level because both are the basis for creating other managerial products later. The Project Brief is used in creating the Project Initiation Document in the Initiating stage, whereas the Project Charter is used in developing the Project Management Plan. The author favors Project Initiation Document over Project Management Plan (see section ) and therefore the Project Brief is a product of the SU process while Developing Project Charter is omitted. Identifying Stakeholders is, on the other hand, one of the Project Stakeholders Management Knowledge Area processes which is adopted in the proposed methodology. PMBoK recommends that Identifying Stakeholders should be done as early as possible in the project while the author

39 32 recommends that the output of this activity should be present with the Project Board when the request for initiation is sent. Moreover, PRINCE2 considers Appointing the Project Management Team as one of the Activities of the SU Process. Unpredictably, PMBoK regards this as one of the activities that should be done after the initiation of the project and even precedent by Plan Human Resource Management. In this regards, acquiring a Virtual Team may be problematic owing to any of the five categories of Virtual Project s issues (section 3.1.3) to the extent that the viability of the project may become under question. The author recommends thereupon, that acquiring the team members should be done in the SU process as dictated by PRINCE2. The recommended actions of this activity are very akin in PRINCE2 and PMBoK however; the data flow of the latter is adopted because of (1) the superiority of the Project Human Resource Management Area of Knowledge and (2) the fact that Virtual Teams are recognized at this level by PMBoK as a possible form of teams. To wrap up, the proposed SU process comprises all the PRINCE2 activities except Design and appoint the project management team in addition to the following PMBoK Activities: Identify Stakeholders, Plan Human Resource Management, and Acquire Project Team Products and Responsibilities Three PMBoK activities are added to SU process: Activity Product Responsibilities Identify Stakeholders Plan Human Resource Management Acquire Project Team Stakeholder Register (PMI 2013:398). Human Resource Management Plan PMI (2013:269) Project Management Team Role Descriptions Appointed Project Management Team Resource Calendars (PMI 2013:272) Project Board (P) Table 7 - Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Starting up a Project Process Project Manager (P) Project Manager (P) Project Board (A) Project Board (P) Project Manager (P) In the above table, assigning the responsibility of producing Stakeholder Register is done after the responsibilities for the whole Project Stakeholder Management Area of Knowledge are assigned (section ). Also, Appointed Project Management Team is an equivalent PRINCE2 product to PMBoK s Project Staff Assignment and that s why PRINCE2 product s name is shown in the above table Virtual Projects Issues and Challenges Tackled in the Process The interaction between this process and Virtual Projects is minimal because the project starts after this stage and the effect of the distances between the team members cannot be seen at this level. However, appointing the Project Manager and the Project Team are among the fundamental factors

40 33 in shaping the future of the project work. In this connection, PRINCE2 offers some general recommendations that are related to learning from previous lessons and creating Project Manager s role description. PMBoK on the other hand, can be used to start addressing the issues that might be raised in Virtual Projects right from this level where they recommend Identifying Stakeholders very early in the project. Having the stakeholders identified paves the way for identifying their needs, interests, expectations, influence on the project etc These information can be used as inputs for several activities recommended by both PMBoK and PRINCE2 that minimizes the potential issues of the Virtual Project especially the issues that are related to technology, culture, and socialization. Virtual Projects are heavily dependent on technology where any technological shortage hinders the work of the project. In the SU process, the Project Approach is selected and the Project Brief is assembled. In this activity, the technological requirements are set by the Project Manager and then approved by the Project Board before the project starts. This serves in minimizing the technological problems (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009) and shortages (Reed & Knight, 2009). This activity is preceded by Capturing Previous Lessons where both can be used to determine the complexity of the required technology. Determining the complexity of the needed technology is one of the challenges of Virtual Projects (Ebrahim et al., 2009). The recommendations of the PMBoK activity Plan Human Resource Management, determine the roles, skills, responsibilities, etc.., are used as an input to the Activity Acquire Project Team in order to overcome the difficulty of team selection and determining the proper number of members due to the geographical and organizational separation (Ebrahim et al., 2009) (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009). Communication is another issue of Virtual Projects that is addressed in the SU process. The PMBoK activity Identify Stakeholders involves having meetings between the stakeholders including the Project Team. Establishing the communication at a very early stage can help in detecting the members that are psychologically not fit for Virtual Projects (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009) and (Ebrahim et al., 2009). Finally, several activities in this process aims to determine the required amount, frequency, and level of documentation as some members might underestimate the importance of documentation in Virtual Projects (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009) Directing a Project In PRINCE2, Directing a Project (DP) is a process that starts after the end of SU process and extends through the whole life time of the project interacting with the majority of other processes. The span of this process covers the activities of the Project Board level of management knowing that the Project Board is, in PRINCE2, active only in the SU and DP processes (Siegelaub, 2009) Directing a Project - Overview The following figure represents an overview of the DP process in the proposed methodology.

41 34 Figure 6 - Overview of Directing a Project process in the proposed methodology Figure6 contains all the activities of its counterpart overview in PRINCE2 in addition to four activities adopted from PMBoK. The clarifications of these decisions are provided next Incorporating PRINCE2 and PMBoK (Activities) As displayed earlier, the DP process is not represented clearly in PMBoK s Process Groups because the Project Board level of management doesn t exist explicitly in PMBoK. This is an area of strength of PRINCE2 as compared to PMBoK (Chin &Spowage 2010b). Thus, one would not expect many commonalities or complementary activities between PRINCE2 and PMBoK at this process. Table 8 shows the author s suggestion of PMBoK Activities that can be matched with the DP process. PRINCE2 Processes Directing a Project PMBoK Project Management Processes Manage Stakeholder Engagement Control Stakeholder Engagement Manage Communications Control Communications

42 35 Table 8- PMBoK activities that belongs to Directing a project process The author believes that the five activities specified by PRINCE2 are very essential and should be performed within this process in the proposed methodology. Four of these activities happen at discrete instances while the fifth activity, giving ad hoc direction, is a continuous activity throughout the project. In order to complement this process, four PMBoK project management processes are added (table 9). The aim of Manage Stakeholder Engagement activity is to realize the needs and expectations of the stakeholders in order to ensure the proper level of their engagement through increasing their support and minimizing their resistance to the project. PMBoK generally do not define the roles and responsibilities, but for this particular process, it is mentioned in different parts of the PMI(2013) guide that the Project Manager is responsible for engaging the stakeholders (PMI, 2013:404). Correspondingly, the aim of Control Stakeholder Engagement is to adjust the strategies and plans for engaging stakeholders throughout the progress of the project. Also it ensures that the activities of engaging the stakeholders are run in effective and efficient way as the environment around the project might possibly change. However, the activities of (DP) process occur at the Project Board level of management. Manage Communications, on the other hand, is one of the PMBoK activities that belongs to the Project Communication Area of Knowledge. Although PRINCE2 and PMBoK have variance in the approach for communication yet, both cover communication in a sensible level. PRINCE2 does not assign communication activities at the DP process to the Project Board. The illustrations of these decisions are presented next Products and Responsibilities Activity Product Responsibilities Manage Stakeholder Engagement Control Stakeholder Engagement Manage Communications Control Communications Issue Register Stakeholder Register (PMI 2013:398) Stakeholder Management Plan Lessons Log Work performance information (PMI 2013:413) Stakeholder Management Plan Stakeholder register Issue Register Project Communications (PMI2013:301) Work performance information Issue Register Team Plan Table 9 - Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Directing a Project Process Project Board (U) Project Board (U) Project Board (U) Project Board (U) Project Board (U) Project Board (U) Project Board (U) Project Board (U) Project Board (U) Project Board(U) Project Manager(U) Project Board(A) Project Manager(U) Project Board(A)

43 36 As shown in the above table, the four added activities from PMBoK require updating documentation from the Project Board which is not common in PRINCE2. However, this is the consequence of assigning the Project Stakeholder Knowledge Area to the PRINCE2 DP process. When conducting Virtual Projects, the engagement of stakeholders gains even more importance. It would be of a great benefit for the Virtual Project if the engagement of the team members was an activity performed by an authority that is not into the day to day management of the project as they can see the whole picture from different perspectives and dimensions. Such activity would be needed all along the project s life. Based on this, the author suggests supplementing the DP process with Project Stakeholder Knowledge Area. In this process, the Project Board should exercise overall control upon the project thus; there is a need to control the issues that might face the Project Manager with his virtual team. Additionally, it is clearly mentioned in the PMBoK guide that the Project Manager can call up for project sponsors assist as needed to ensure the engagement of the stakeholders (PMI, 2013:406). One can argue that some of the tools and techniques of Manage Stakeholders Engagement activity are Project Manager oriented; namely interpersonal skills and management skills (PMI 2013:407-8). While the first is about problem solving and trust building, the latter aims towards illuminating the goals, encouraging goals achievement, and promoting for change. Indeed, these are skills of a Project Manager, and they are covered by other activities in PRINCE2 in the processes: Managing a Product Delivery and Controlling a Stage. Making the Project Board use such tools and techniques at this level is an attempt by the author to lessen as much challenges and issues of the Virtual Projects mentioned in section as possible by giving support to the Project Manager through the Board. This attempt finds its way through utilizing the following responsibilities of the Project Board as indicated by PRINCE2 (OGC, 2009: ) providing overall guidance and direction respond to requests for advice from the project manager ensure that risks are being tracked make decisions on escalated issues One can also argue that PRINCE2 deems stakeholder engagement as an activity that is done at the program level (OGC 2009:41). The answer for that is that PRINCE2 delineates stakeholders as individuals or groups that are not part of the Project Management Team while in PMBoK, the Project Team is considered among stakeholders (PMI 2013: 30). In any case, the disparity in the role of stakeholder engagement between PMBoK and PRINCE2 gives a room for examination to find out if this activity should be done at a level that is as high as corporate level, or as low as project management level. The author is hereby proposing a hypothesis that this activity should be delegated to the Project Board. The reason for placing the Manage Communications Activity in the DP process is that, Manage Communications is the activity that enables effective and efficient communications flow between the stakeholders of the project (PMI2013:297). In PRINCE2, the Project Board is responsible for managing the communication between the project management team and stakeholders external to the team (OGC 2009:269). Additionally, PRINCE2 prescribes that one of the roles of the Project Board is ensuring effective communication both within the project team and with external stakeholders (OGC 2009: 34). Thus, communicating with all stakeholders is within the scope of the Project Board.

44 37 The Control activities Control Stakeholder Engagement and Control Communication are assigned at the DP process for two reasons. First, the responsibilities of the Project Board in PRINCE2 are assigned only in the DP process (Siegelaub 2009). Second, the Project Board exercises overall control in the project at the DP process level (OGC 2009). Therefore, the author recommends in the proposed methodology that all the control activities that are assigned to the Project Board should be done at the DP process level, whereas those assigned to the Project Manager should be done at the Controlling a Stage process. All in all, the Project Board can assist the Project Manager of a Virtual Project by using the authority they have to provide their leadership and conflict resolution competencies for such projects that require special handling Virtual Projects Issues and Challenges Tackled in the Process In this process PRINCE2 supports Virtual Project through several areas. First, this process starts with project authorization request. To grant this authorization, PRINCE2 recommends confirming that the green light can be given to the initiation stage when, among other things, the board can confirm that the project team is appointed, the members understand their roles, and reporting and control mechanism are in place. Second, the authorization of the project, stage, or exception is provided by PRINCE2 with a set of best practices that, generally, intents to control the risks, set tolerances, and to make certain that the proper resources are committed to the project. Next, the ad hoc support given by the project board can be crucial in the Virtual Projects especially when the project board is providing guidance to the project manager. Finally, the activity authorize project closure guarantees the achievement of one of the principles of PRINCE2 which is learning from experience. Each of the mentioned PRINCE2 activities are provided with recommendations that help in overcoming some of the Virtual Projects challenges especially those related to project process and management. Furthermore, the activities adopted from PMBoK tackle more challenges of Virtual Projects that are related to technology, communication, and even socialization. The support of the Project Board is needed for implementation and resolving problems in Virtual Projects because they are subject to some factors that can cause invisible and complex problems such as mistrust, conflicts, and power struggles (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009), (Ebrahim et al., 2009). Virtual projects require managing across different time zones, cultures, and languages and hence, one of the huge issues of Virtual Projects is that it requires careful planning for team integration and communication (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009). These tasks are given to the Project Board in the proposed methodology. The problems caused by the resistance to the nature of the team, that is common in Virtual Projects (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009), can be decreased when managing the team s integration. In addition to that, managing communication at this level helps in developing conceptual understanding of the problems, which can be problematic in Virtual Projects (Ebrahim et al., 2009), through Managing and Controlling Communication PMBoK activities. These activities aim, among other things, to minimize the probability of having inadequate communication between the project stakeholders which is an issue for both Virtual and Co-located teams.

45 Initiating a Project The purpose of this process (IP) is to create a solid base for starting the actual project work that ensures that everything that should be done to start a potentially successful project is available and understood before committing to substantial time, budget, and effort spend (OGC, 2009). Therefore, the project manager in this process is required to deliver some products that will enable moving the project forward towards the next processes through arranging a contract between the Project Manager and the Project Board. This contract is called Project Initiation Document in PRINCE2, and is equivalent to PMBoK s Project Management Plan plus Project Scope Initiating a Project Overview Figure 7 shows an overview of the IP Process where all of its activities are done at the Project Level of Management. Figure 7 - Overview of Initiating a Project process in the proposed methodology

46 39 In the above figure, four activities are adopted from PRINCE2 while the rest are adopted from PMBoK. Among all the processes of the proposed methodology, the largest presence of PMBoK in one process is in the IP Incorporating PRINCE2 and PMBoK (Activities) The result of matching all PMBoK activities with PRINCE2 IP Process is shown in the below table. Noticeably, the number of activities is high because the Planning Process Group in PMBoK, which is comprised of more than half (24) of the PMBoK activities, is directly matched to the IP Processes. PRINCE2 Processes Initiating a Project PMBoK Project Management Processes Develop Project Management Plan Plan Scope Management Collect Requirements Define Scope Create WBS Plan Schedule Management Define Activities Sequence Activities Estimate Activity resources Estimate Activity Durations Develop Schedule Plan Cost Management Estimate Costs Determine Budget Plan Quality Management Plan Communications Management Plan Risk Management Identify Risks Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis Plan Risk Responses Plan Procurement Management Plan Stakeholder Management Table 10 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Directing a project process Table 10 shows the PMBoK activities that can be matched to Initiating a Project process of PRINCE2 that includes 8 activities. The comparison between the 8 PRINCE2 activities with the processes mentioned in the table reveals that 6 out of the 8 activities are covered by PMBoK. Therefore, the grouping approach for the IP process, for most of the activities, is comprised of differentiation between the PRINCE2 activities and the activities mentioned in the table 10, to choose one of them exclusively. As displayed earlier, literature comparing PRINCE2 and PMBoK indicates that PMBoK is stronger or more comprehensive when it comes to risk management, quality assurance, and communication

47 40 strategy (Bell 2009, Yeong 2012, Chin & Spowage 2010 b, Project Plus Group 2008, Siegelaub 2009). Whereas PRINCE2 offers broader perspective on the business aspects of the project especially business case - based decision making, configuration management and documentation (Bell 2009, Yeong 2012, Siegelaub 2009). Moreover, the knowledge areas are more comprehensive than the themes which are roughly matched with each other and thus, the Knowledge Areas are favored in the proposed methodology especially Cost and Time Management Areas of Knowledge versus the theme Plans. Based on the previous paragraph, the PRINCE2 Project Initiation Document product is favored over PMBoK s product Project Management Plan, and this was the reason for preferring project brief over project charter in the SU Process. Having said that, the PRINCE2 activities that are adopted in this proposed methodology are: Prepare Configuration Management Strategy, Set up Project Controls, Create the Project Plan, Refine Business Case, and Assemble PID. While the PMBoK activities that are offset by PRINCE2 activities are: Develop Project Management Plan, Plan Scope Management, and Define Scope. On the other hand, three of the PRINCE2 activities: Prepare Risk Management Strategy, Prepare Quality Management Strategy, and Prepare Communication Plan are replaced by the following PMBoK activities: Plan Quality Management, Plan Risk Management, Identify Risks, Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis, Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis, Plan Risk Responses, and Plan Communications Management. Going back to table 10, the activity Collect Requirement is a part of the Project Scope Management Area of Knowledge and according to both the rationale used in this thesis and to theory (Siegelaub 2009) should be omitted in the proposed methodology. Yet, a close look at this activity reveals that the requirements of all who are considered by PMBoK as Stakeholders are to be collected. Since PMBoK s view about stakeholders is adapted in the proposed methodology, then the Collect Requirements would be a relevant activity at the IP process that complements the stakeholders engagement procedure in the proposed methodology. In the same vein, Plan Stakeholder Management is also adopted and hereby, all the Project Stakeholder Management Area of Knowledge is discussed and adopted in the proposed methodology. Work Breakdown Structure, is a common between PRINCE2 and PMBoK which their aggregation is considered synergistic (Yeong 2012). For this particular activity, the author prefers combining the two activities from PRINCE2 and PMBoK rather than viewing them as mutually exclusive activities and thence adopting only one of them. The context of this activity is based on PRINCE2 as a part of creating the Project Plan activity whereas the tools and techniques are adopted as-is from the PMI (2013:128-31). Finally, the Plan Procurement Management activity is also adopted from PMBoK since procurement is not within the scope by PRINCE2 however, it is recommended by PRINCE2 that the procurement can be part of the initiation stage (OGC2009:226) Products and Responsibilities The following table shows the activities adopted from PMBoK in the IP process, their products, and the responsibilities of each:

48 41 Activity Product Responsibilities Collect Requirements Requirements Documentation (PMI 2013:117) Project Manager(P) Project Board(R) Requirements Traceability Matrix (PMI 2013:118) Project Manager(P) Project Board(R) Create WBS WBS + WBS Dictionary (PMI Project Manager(P) 2013:132) Plan Schedule Schedule Management Plan (PMI Project Manager(P) Management 2013:148) Define Activities Activity List (PMI 2013:152) Project Manager(P) Activity Attributes (PMI Project Manager(P) 2013:153) Sequence Activities Milestone List (PMI 2013:153) Project Manager(P) Project Board(A) Estimate Activity resources Activity Resource Requirements(PMI 2013:165) Project Manager(P) Project Board (R) Resource Breakdown Project Manager(P) Structure(PMI 2013:165) Estimate Activity Activity Duration Estimates(PMI Project Manager(P) Durations 2013:172) Develop Schedule Schedule Baseline(PMI 2013:181) Project Manager(P) Project Schedule(PMI 2013:182) Project Manager(P) Schedule Data(PMI 2013:184) Project Manager(P) Project Calendars (PMI 2013:184) Project Manager(P) Project Board(A) Plan Cost Management Cost Management Plan(PMI 2013:198) Project Manager(P) Project Board (A) Estimate Costs Activity Cost Estimates(PMI Project Manager(P) 2013:207) Basis of Estimates(PMI 2013:207) Project Manager(P) Determine Budget Cost Baseline (PMI 2013:212) Project Manager(P) Project Funding Project Manager(P) Requirements(PMI 2013:214) Plan Quality Management Quality Management Plan(PMI 2013:241) Project Manager(P) Project Board (A) Process Improvement Plan(PMI 2013:241) Project Manager(P) Project Board(A) Quality Metrics(PMI 2013:242) Project Manager(P) Quality Checklists(PMI Project Manager(P) 2013:242) Plan Communications Communications Management Project Board(P) Management Plan(PMI 2013:296) Plan Risk Risk Management Plan(PMI Project Manager(P) Management 2013:316) Identify Risks Risk Register (PMI 2013:327) Project Manager(P)

49 42 Project Board(R) Perform Qualitative Risk Register Project Manager(U) Risk Analysis Perform Quantitative Risk Register Project Manager(U) Risk Analysis Risk Management Plan Project Manager(U) Project Board(R) Plan Risk Responses Risk Register Project Manager(U) Risk Management Plan Project Manager(U) Project Board(R) Plan Procurement Management Procurement Management Plan(PMI 2013:366) Project Manager(P) Project Board(A) Procurement Statement of Project Manager(P) Work(PMI 2013:367) Procurement Documents(PMI 2013:368) Project Manager(P) Team Manager(R) Source Selection Criteria(PMI 2013:368) Project Manager(P) Project Board(A) Make-or-Buy Decisions(PMI Project Manager(P) 2013:370) Issue Register Project Manager(U) Plan Stakeholder Management Stakeholder Management Plan(PMI 2013:403) Project Board (P) Table 11- Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Initiating a Project Process In keeping with PRINCE2 guidelines, the major player in this process is the Project Manager. The Project Manager is responsible for creating or approving the prime products of each PRINCE2 activity as well as the proposed methodology activities except for Plan Stakeholder Management. In accordance to the classification made in the previous processes, the Project Board is held responsible to activities that are related to stakeholders management. Planning stakeholder management is the process of providing action plans for engaging the stakeholders effectively (PMI 2013). This is done through identifying how will they affect the project and how will the project affect them. Such identification seems to be very harmonious with the idea presented previously regarding the intervention of project board with the management of stakeholders. Additionally, Stakeholder management is about creation and maintenance of relationships between the project team and stakeholders (PMI, 2013:400). No room for doubt is left regarding the responsibility of plan Stakeholder Engagement as it is explicitly congruent to one of the roles of the project board in PRINCE2 as prescribed in (OGC, 2009:33, 34). The planning of stakeholder management takes data as input whether from the PID or Stakeholder Register. In this vein, the author recommends a that the output of Collect Requirements should be used as an input to planning stakeholder management in addition to the existing data flow available in PMI(2013:111). Using the same arguments about the management of stakeholders, the Project Board is responsible for developing the Communication Plan. According to PMBoK, the Communication Plan the process of developing an appropriate approach and plan for project communications based on stakeholder s information needs and requirements, and available organizational assets (PMI2013:289).

50 Virtual Projects Issues and Challenges Tackled in the Process The nature of the project affects directly the activities of the IP process. That is, initiating a Virtual Project is different than initiating a co-located project in many aspects. The guidelines offered by PRINCE2 at the IP Process support Virtual Projects in: first, preparing essential baseline products that gain additional importance in geographically dispersed projects such as Communication Management Strategy, Risk Plan, etc Second, PRINCE2 recommends best practices that focus on placing the plans within the business context through its business case approach. On the other hand, PMBoK provides detailed tools and techniques for development of plans. Many of these techniques are useful in Virtual Project context. Based on this, the IP Process in the proposed methodology supports the Virtual Projects through: first, providing detailed tools and techniques for planning and second, keeping these tools within the business scope of the organization. Communication Management Strategy is produced at this process that dilutes the effect of the following Communication-related Virtual Projects issues: ineffective communication, special communication skills (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009), and the additional challenge to the explicit transfer of knowledge (Reed & Knight, 2009). Technology related issues are also addressed at this process. These issues include additional costs of distant offices (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009) and challenges of determining the proper technology to be used (Ebrahim et al., 2009). Moreover, several issues related to the Project Process and Management are tackled in this process. During planning, the rewarding systems, the things to be reinforced in formal processes, and the sequence of activities are determined. Also, the negative effect of some Cultural issues is minimized and even reversed in this process through providing best practices for scheduling and for planning stakeholders engagement who belong to a diversity of cultures Controlling a Stage Controlling a Stage (CS) is the PRINCE2 process that implements and controls the PRINCE2 principle: Manage by Stage which is equivalent to PMBoK s concept of Managing by Phase. CS process is iterated for each Stage/Phase in order to allocate the tasks for the Project Team allowing the work to start. The work is monitored at this process in order to ensure that risks and issues are kept under control. Also, this process guides the Project Manager in keeping the flow of the project within the tolerances and upholding the principle of Continued Business Justification Controlling a Stage Overview Figure 8 shows an overview of the CS stage in the proposed methodology.

51 44 Figure 8 - Overview of Controlling a Stage process in the proposed methodology The CS process in the proposed methodology consists of five PMBoK activities and five PRINCE2 activities Incorporating PRINCE2 and PMBoK Activities The first stage in the CS process starts after the IP process is totally completed. In the IP process, the foundation for starting a project is established and therefore, the control approach is already tackled and therefore, all the activities of this process can be thought of as the implementation of the strategies that are set in the IP. PRINCE2 Processes Controlling a Stage PMBoK Project Management Processes Monitor and Control Project Work

52 45 Control Scope Control Schedule Control Costs Control Quality Control Risks Control Procurements Perform Integrated Change Table 12 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Controlling a Stage process Table 12 shows the PMBoK project management processes that are matched to CS process. Control is one of the common processes between PRINCE2 and PMBoK which makes matching the activities from both guidelines in this process relatively evident. The approach followed by the author in finding the activities for this process is different than the previous processes due to the type of relation between the activities of the CS and IS processes. Judging whether the PMBoK activities are adopted in the proposed methodology or not is based on the adopted activities in the IS process. Whilst the PRINCE2 activities in the proposed methodology are: all the existing activities which do not overlap with the selected PMBoK activities. Having identified the criteria for activity selection, it is obvious that Scope Control and Perform Integrated Change Control are not adopted in the proposed methodology since PRINCE2 approach for change and scope are favored over PMBoK s approach. Likewise, the approach of PMBoK in controlling the following is favored over PRINCE2: Schedule, Costs, Quality, Risks, and Procurement. The remaining Project Management Process/activity after these straight-forward deductions is Monitor and Control Project Work which corresponds to Review the Stage Status in PRINCE2. For this particular activity, the judgment is solely based on the author s opinion which forms the rest of this paragraph: in spite of the differences in the naming convention between PRINCE2 and PMBoK in these activities, both are highly detailed, extremely close to each other, and contain a set of good and best practices for Virtual Projects. The justification for these similarities is by claiming that monitoring and controlling the project work against the predefined plans is one of the axiomatic activities in any project management guideline and therefore, no further investigation for this activity is needed. A project manager should be aware of this activity as described by both PRINCE2 and PMBoK. Having adopted the activities for this process from PMBoK, the corresponding PRINCE2 activities that are replaced in the proposed methodology can be deduced. The activities that PRINCE2 classify as Issues are replaced by PMBoK. Therefore, the proposed methodology does not contain the following activities: Capture and examine issues and risks, escalate issues and risks, and take corrective action Products and Responsibilities Since the activities of the CS process are planned in advance in the IP process then, one can deduce that almost no new products are to be created in this process. Activity Product Responsibilities Control Schedule Work performance information Project Manager(U)

53 46 Issue Register Project Manager(U) Control Costs Work performance information Project Manager(U) Issue Register Project Manager(U) Control Quality Work performance information Project Manager(U) Issue Register Project Manager(U) Quality Register Project Manager(U) Control Risks Work performance information Project Manager(U) Issue Register Project Manager(U) Control Procurements Work performance information Project Manager(U) Issue Register Project Manager(U) Table 13- Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Controlling a Stage Process A closer look at each of the adopted controlling activity from PMBoK reveals similarity in the name of the outputs produced. Work performance information is a collection of documents produced during the project life intended to generate decisions, actions, or awareness (PMI 2013:93). PMBoK does not offer templates for these documents but rather a suggested list of items that these documents can contain. On the other hand, all the control activities can generate what PMBoK calls Change Request. The concept Issue is used in PRINCE2 and the proposed methodology instead of Change Request. Each control activity that results in a variation from the planned tolerances triggers issue rising. The issues are dealt with according to PRINCE2 classification i.e. request for change, off-specification, and problem/concern Virtual Projects Issues and Challenges Tackled in the Process In the CS process, the work of the team is allocated, received, monitored, and controlled. Therefore, this process is significantly affected when the nature of the project is Virtual. Virtual Projects can benefit from PRINCE2 in keeping the authorized worked package within the planned scope and ensuring that tolerances are not violated. Virtual Projects can also utilize the various controlling techniques provided by PMBoK. Communication might not be performed according to the plans set and this can be sometimes due to technology resource limitations (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009) or to variety of practices (Ebrahim et al., 2009). These Communication, Technology, and Culture related issues are discovered when monitoring and controlling the project work. However the main category of issues that is tackled by this process is the Project Process and Management. According to Kuruppuarachchi (2009), quality control, supervision, and monitoring become more difficult in Virtual Projects. The assessment and recognition of performance also becomes more difficult (Kirkman et al., 2002). These issues are within the scope of the CS process that provides several advices on how to avoid them.

54 Managing Product Delivery Managing Product Delivery (MP) process is the process in which the link between the Project Manager and Team Manager is controlled. In PRINCE2, this process interacts with CS process and is isolated from the rest of the stages Managing Product Delivery Overview The MP Process interacts only with the CS process in the proposed methodology as well as in PRINCE2 are shown in figure 9 Figure 9 - Overview of Managing Product Delivery process in the proposed methodology

55 48 The four activities from PMBoK that are adopted in the MP process do not interact with the CS process. The decisions that lead to this overview are discussed next Incorporating PRINCE2 and PMBoK Activities Matching the PMBoK Project Management Processes with the MP process would have been much easier if PMBoK assigns roles and responsibilities but anyhow, the table below shows the matching as suggested by the author. PRINCE2 Processes Managing Product Delivery PMBoK Project Management Processes Direct and Manage Project Work Perform Quality Assurance Develop Project Team Manage Project Team Conduct Procurements Table 14 - PMBoK activities that belongs to Managing Product Delivery process Based on the work done in matching the activities of PRINCE2 and PMBoK that are related to the IP process, Direct and Manage Project Work is not adopted in the proposed methodology. Also, since PMBoK s approach for managing quality is favored and since PRINCE2 do not cover procurements then Perform Quality Assurance, and Conduct Procurements are adopted. As for the two remaining PMBoK Project Management Processes, Developing and Managing Project Team, these are not covered by PRINCE2 yet the benefit of such activities especially in a Virtual environment is not arguable. However, the decision to place these activities under MP process is arguable. The author is aware that the aim and purpose of the MP process as prescribed by PRINCE2 do not cover the process of improving competences of the team members or appraising the performance of the team but at the same time both activities should be adopted. The approach used to find the proper process for these activities is comparing them against the purpose of each process and then choosing the most relevant. A first look reveals that both are totally irrelevant to all processes except the CS and MP. Both CS and MP processes are iterative however; CS is repeated for each stage while MP is repeated with each work package. This means that the frequency of MP is more than CS and that is desired in the Virtual Teams. Yet, this is not a decisive factor. CS views Managing Product Delivery views the project from the Team Manager's perspective, while the Controlling a Stage process views it from the Project Manager's perspective (OGC 2009:185). Therefore the choice for assigning any activity to the MP Process instead of CS process depends on who is responsible for executing them. PRINCE2 activities of the MP process do not overlap with the selected activities from PMBoK. Therefore, the following activities are also a part of the MP process: Accept a Work Package, Execute a Work Package, and "Deliver a Work Package Products and Responsibilities The author argues that since (1)PMBoK does not assign roles and responsibilities, and (2)PMBoK does not recognize the Team Manager level of management, and (3)uses Project Manager instead of it and since PRINCE2 and the proposed methodology, on the contrary, recognizes the Team

56 49 Manager level of management then assigning activities from PMBoK to PRINCE2 MP process is not straight forward. Consequently, the approach followed by the author is to compare the activities with the role of a Team Manager as identified earlier to see the relevance of these activities to his roles. Activity Product Responsibilities Perform Quality Issue Register Team Manager(U) Assurance Quality Register Team Manager(U) Develop Project Team Team Performance Assessments Team Manager(P) Issue Register Team Manager(U) Manage Project Team Lessons log Team Manager(U) Team Plan Team Manager(U) Conduct Procurements Selected Sellers Project Manager(P) Agreements Project Manager(P) Resource Calendars Project Manager(P) Issue Register Project Manager(U) Table 15- Responsibilities of the adopted PMBoK activities in the Managing Product Delivery Process The major player in this process is the Team Manager. Provided next, the characteristics of each activity which make it germane to the role of Team Manager: First, Perform Quality Assurance is an execution process that aims at implementing the planned quality plan. Ensuring quality of the products is one of the responsibilities of the Team Manager (see section 4.6.2). Second, the activities of Developing and Managing Project Team aim at increasing the competences of the team in order to enhance and optimize the project performance which is in the core of a Team Manager s responsibilities (OGC 2009) Virtual Projects Issues and Challenges Tackled in the Process The MP process is one of the most concerned processes with Virtual Projects since it controls the link between the Project Manager and the Project Team. Virtual Projects can use PRINCE2 to get recommendation of best practices for work packages that ensures proper cooperation between the Project and the Team Manager. The collaboration between these two levels of management is ensured by PRINCE2 through guidelines for proper communication between them which first, creates common understanding for the specifications and tolerances of the work packages and second, facilitates capturing and addressing possible issues. Virtual Projects can, on the other hand, use PMBoK to apply tools and techniques that deals with development of the project team. Based on this, the Communication Virtual Project issue declared by Reed & Knight (2009), i.e. insufficient knowledge transfer is tackled in this process. Moreover, the process helps in bypassing the following Cultural issues: self-motivation and self-judgment demand from team members (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009), balancing interpersonal skills of the members (Kirkman et al., 2002), and the variety of thought process among team members (Ebrahim et al., 2009). Furthermore, the recommendations in this process for managing the interaction between the Project and Team Managers help in overcoming the struggle with creating synergy (Kirkman et al., 2002). In addition to this Project Process and Management related issue, other issues belonging to this category are

57 50 also addressed at this process such as: recognizing the workload, measuring progress, and developing skills of team members (Kuruppuarachchi, 2009). Finally, the recommendations of this process that are picked from PRINCE2 and PMBoK resolve some socialization related problems such as feelings of detachment and isolation. (Kirkman et al., 2002) Managing a Stage Boundary Managing a Stage Boundary (SB) is the process through which the transition between the end of each management stage and the next stage is managed. The transition occurs after the Project Board is provided with sufficient information that enables them to ensure the success of the previous stage, confirm continued business justification, and to confirm plans of the next stage Managing a Stage Boundary Overview Figure 10 - Overview of Managing a Stage Boundary process in the proposed methodology Figure 10 shows an overview of the SB process in the proposed methodology. This overview is very similar to PRINCE2 s overview of its SB process.