The refresh of PRINCE2, the internationally used project management methodology, is now complete. The updated PRINCE2 was launched this Wednesday, the 16th of June. The event was streamed live from the Best Management Practice website, and the slides from the presentation are still available. (That page also says you can watch the footage of the event, but I’m getting nothing. Maybe later?)

It may be a bit geeky to be excited about the launch of an update to a project management methodology, but I am. I’ve always liked PRINCE2, no doubt because it was how I learned project management in the first place. But as I’ve moved from big, technical projects in a bureaucratic organisation to smaller, people-based projects in more relaxed organisations, I’ve seen a lot of people feel exasperated that PRINCE2 is too prescriptive, and obsessed with the paperwork rather than the project.

Now, I’ve always thought that was the sign of a poor project manager, not the fault of the methodology, which has always seemed to me to be a toolkit you can dip into as and when it is needed, not a mould you have to try and force every project to fit into. The great thing about this update is that it is much less prescriptive, and much more about the quality of what we produce, and lessons we can learn through the project.

In other words, the flexibility I thought was always there in PRINCE2 has been made much more obvious, and brought to the forefront of the methodology!

You can get more information on the latest version of PRINCE2 from Andy Murray, who was the lead author of the refresh. There’s a great post by Elizabeth Harrin on PM Tips about the launch of PRINCE2:2009, and she also has a video she made at the launch event (which includes the all-important look at the goodie bag!) on her own site, A Girl’s Guide to Project Management.

(Image courtesy of Port of San Diego. Some rights reserved.)