Project Management Methodologies for Financial & IT Organizations

This report examines the application of project management methodologies within three distinct organizational contexts: a financial services firm, a residential building society, and an international IT organization. The report focuses on comparing and contrasting the PMBOK and PRINCE2 methodologies, analyzing their suitability for each organization based on their existing methodologies and structures. It provides detailed insights into the implementation processes, including the selection of appropriate knowledge areas and the need for tailored approaches. The report also identifies potential challenges that each organization may encounter during implementation, such as resistance to change, the need for cultural transformation, and the complexities of integrating new methodologies with existing frameworks. Furthermore, it provides recommendations for addressing these difficulties, emphasizing the importance of project management consultants, training programs, and tailored implementation strategies. Ultimately, the report offers a comprehensive overview of project management methodology selection, implementation, and the associated challenges and benefits, providing valuable insights for organizations seeking to improve their project management practices.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
METHODOLOGY
[Name]

Table of Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
Methodology.............................................................................................................................3
Organization A......................................................................................................................3
Organization B......................................................................................................................3
Organization C......................................................................................................................4
Implementation........................................................................................................................5
Organization A......................................................................................................................5
Organization B......................................................................................................................5
Organization C......................................................................................................................5
Issues in Implementation.........................................................................................................6
Organization A......................................................................................................................6
Organization B......................................................................................................................7
Organization C......................................................................................................................7
Addressing Difficulties.............................................................................................................8
Organization A......................................................................................................................8
Organization B......................................................................................................................8
Organization C......................................................................................................................8
Benefits......................................................................................................................................9
Organization A......................................................................................................................9
Organization B......................................................................................................................9
Organization C......................................................................................................................9
Conclusion...............................................................................................................................10
References...............................................................................................................................10

Introduction
If a business wants to create a niche in the market, it needs to be innovative such that is able
to survive in the competitive business world. One possibility is adoption of a project
management methodology for planning, organizing, managing and controlling work such that
the productivity of team is improved and performance of the organization is enhanced.
However, one project management methodology may not always fit all companies and thus,
decisions are required to be made after studying the organizational structure. Two standard
methodologies that are used by organizations worldwide are PMBOK and PRINCE2. In this
report, there are 3 organizations including a financial organization, a residential society, and
an international IT organization that are in the process of deciding a project management
methodology out of the two. This report would explore the three cases from the perspective
of project management methodology implementation to understand the likely problems that
companies can face such that an appropriate choice can be made.
Methodology
Organization A
Existing Methodology: It is a Financial Services organization that is operating with 80
employees in Australia and New Zealand. The company uses Australian Prudential
Regulation Authority – Regulator Performance Framework for managing its business
operations. The project manager can have a direct influence on the senior manager in the
company. The management was fast in deciding the project management methodology.
Proposed Methodology: The company needs project management methodology for
managing its financial projects that are specialized. PRINCE2 is a methodology that is most
suitable for general projects and thus, a PMBOK methodology may be more suitable for the
Organization A. Moreover, PMBOK is more focused on the work of project managers as they
are given the authority of decision making, the methodology would fit the organizational
structure in which project managers are already given priority (Karaman & Kurt, 2015).
Organization B
Existing Methodology: It is a Building Society that houses 600 people. The society uses
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority – Regulator Performance Framework for
managing its operations. The company is using a project management methodology that was
developed by the company internally.
Proposed Methodology: However, the methodology has not been efficient which is why the
company want to adapt to a new and more organized methodology. As PMBOK guide
provides a very detailed view of projects management processes, it can be chosen for the
Organization B (PMI, 2010).
Organization C

Existing Methodology: It is an international technological services organization operating
with 1200 people worldwide. The company uses Capability Maturity Model Integration
(CMMI) for managing its operations and is certified with CMMI.
Figure 1: PRINCE 2 Methodology for Organization C (Turley, 2012)
Proposed Methodology: As the company is already using a standardized methodology for IT
project management, what is now needs is a methodology that helps the company explore
best practices of the industry. It does not need very detailed process guidance but something
that is flexible and can be tailored based on the projects being managed. Thus, PRINCE2
would an appropriate project management methodology which is also popular with IT
projects worldwide. The project would be divided into 4 major stages including pre-project,
initiation, execution, and closure. In the pre-project stage, all the information that is required
to initiate the project is collected and an initial plan is made. During initiation, project is
authorized to start and an initiation document called PID is approved. During the stage of
execution, project deliveries are managed as per the identified work packages. At this stage,
the control measures would be established to manage the stage boundaries and deliverables as
per the project plan. The last stage of a project is closure which involves development of the
end project report.
The IT projects taken by the company would be carried out in four stages including pre-
project, initiation, execution and project closure. First the information needed for respective
project would be gathered and an initial plan would be made which would be approved by the
management for project initiation. The project would then be executed as per the project plan
in a controlled environment that ensures taking care of the project boundaries. Once, the
entire project activities are finished, project closure report is prepared along with lessons
recorded for final sign off.

Implementation
Organization A
For the implementation of PMBOK for the company, certain knowledge areas would be
chosen that would be most appropriate for the processes that are already being handled by the
company. The top management along with the project manager and the PMBOK consultants
can take a decision on what knowledge areas and what processes must be adopted by the
company staff. Once that is decided, the next step would be to plan and conductive extensive
trainings on chosen subjects to uses of the company.
Organization B
PMBOK is not process that can be implemented directly but a guide that can be used to put
its ideas into practice on specific projects. The global library of PMBOK would be used as a
reference material for determining what is best for project. This would include ideas, terms,
principles, and best practices. These would only be used as guides and the processes would
be customized for the organization B for actual use of PMBOK practices on the real estate
management project.
Figure 2: PMBOK Processes
PMBOK inventory is divided into five stages including initiation, planning, executing,
controlling, and closing. In each of these stages, certain processes would be included that can
be divided into 10 knowledge areas that include Integration, scope, time, cost, quality, HR,
communications, risk, procurement and stakeholder management.
Organization C
For implementing PRINCE2 in the Organization C, first the top management of the company
including CEO, COO, CFO and Vice President, who would be approached to get the buy-in
from them for its implementation. Once, this is done, the employees of the finance company

including credit controller, accounts manager, and IT manager would be trained on the
PRINCE 2 practices as per their role requirements in the implementation of PRINCE 2 and
management of activities accordingly. Once the training of employees is completed, the new
processes would be implemented for the management of new projects. As the company is
already using CMMI certified processes, the implementation approach would also include
deployment of improvement professionals from Project Management consultant to create
technological links between the two methodologies as well as bridge any communication gap
between the two (Kirwan, et al., 2008).
The implementation of PRINCE 2 in the financial services organization would require
embracing of all the principles of the methodology by the company including:
 Creation of a business case that justifies the project such that only if the project is
financially and strategically justified can the decision be taken on moving ahead with
the project
 Company can learn from experiences of other IT organizations implementing
PRINCE 2 such that best practices can be identified and implemented for the
company. To carry forward the idea of learning, every project management process
would also involve recording of the lessons learnt from the current project.
 The implementation of the project would be divided into manageable stages using
logical structure that would allow for periodic reassessment of plans. These stages
would include negotiation, search for funds, IT system or software development,
testing of developed system, IT training, and the final stage of project closure or go
live.
 The IT projects would also be managed by exceptions such that there would be a
definite organizational structure with defined responsibilities. The accountability in
the project team for aspects of cost, time, quality, benefits and risks is also required.
 Implementation of any IT product using PRINCE 2 methodology would have the
focus on the product
 Use of tailoring would always be required as the projects would vary in deliverables
Issues in Implementation
Organization A
There are certain challenges that can be faced while implementing PMBOK in the financial
organization as it would be the first time that the company would be using an organized and
highly dedicated project methodology like PMBOK and these would include:
 As the methodology is very extensive, it would be challenging for the organization to
adopt it especially when it does not have an experience of using PM methodologies as
it would require buy-in and cooperation from the employees who may show resistance
to learning new methodology because of complications involved
 For implementation of PMBOK methodology, a complete cultural transformation
would be required as it would need the people working in the company follow new
principles of working which could be time consuming and difficult

 The company would have to make a huge number of templates, processes and
documents to be able to adopt the methodology which can be overwhelming for the
staff.
Organization B
There are certain challenges that can be faced while implementing PMBOK in the real estate
management project such as:
 Not all the business processes need PMBOK guidance and thus, it becomes difficult
for the management to decide on where to use PMBOK practices and where to keep
using tradition al methods on the project.
 When implementing PMBOK, managers may have the tendency to make attempts to
use the guide for every process which can make it difficult for the team to implement
the guide in practice all of a sudden when the same has not been used earlier and the
staff would lack the familiarity with the processes and templates.
Organization C
There are certain challenges that can be faced while implementing PRINCE 2 in the IT
company such as:
 PRINCE 2 needs to be tailored for every project for which the company employees
must know how it works in detail such that unless they are trained appropriately, the
methodology could not be used in parts.
 As PRINCE 2 practice is driven by a specific management style, the company that has
not been using any professional methodology would find it difficult to learn and
implement as it would need the entire culture of the company to change
 Without the adequate knowledge of PRINCE 2 , the implementation would not
deliver required benefits to the financial organization and thus, the implementation
has to be done only after the teams are appropriately trained in practice
 The methodology requires professional certification to be taken by the project team
which could be time consuming for the company and unless that is done, the projects
cannot be started using PRINCE 2
 PRINCE 2 is not an extensive process and thus, does not included certain processes
such as procurement and knowledge management in which case, the staff would face
difficulties if planning to avoid PRINCE 2 or tailor it (Saad, et al., 2012).
There are certain additional challenges that can be faced while implementing PRINCE 2 in
the IT Company as it already has CMMI implemented so the addition of PRINCE 2 would
create a multimodal environment which would pose following challenges:
 With CMMI and PRINCE 2 added in the same organization, a coordinated
infrastructure would have to be created for process improvement which would need
integration of training and coordination of roles and responsibilities which would not
be easy

 The measurement systems used in the organization would have to be aligned between
CMMI and PRINCE 2 such that PRINCE 2 brings additional benefits for the
company such as better governance which would be another challenging task
Addressing Difficulties
Organization A
The challenges faced by the Organization A in adopting PMBOK guide is majorly due to the
lack of experience with professional methodologies which can be overcome in following
ways:
 The company can use services of a project management consultant who would guide
the company staff in adopting the methodology
 An extensive training would be required for the company staff enabling them to learn
all PMBOK processes and best practices
 The financial organization may begin with only one knowledge area of PMBOK in
the iitail implementation and multiple stages of adoption can be used.
Organization B
The challenges of adopting PMBOK in the real estate society would face two major
challenges including inability to take decisions on what processes would follow PMBOK and
this challenge can be overcome by following certain methods for adoption such as:
 Taking advise from project management consults to guide the implementation of the
PM methodology in an appropriate manner
 Providing training to all the key project team members and take a mutual decision
between the team leader and the top management on what PMBOK practices to adopt
 The company may not start using all the PMBOK processes in one instant but can do
the same phase wise starting with some processes followed by other
Organization C
To address the challenges of adoption of PRINCE 2 in the company would need the learning
of methods and principles by the company staff from professionals to ensure that every aspect
of the methodology is sufficiently understood. Moreover, the company must understand that
it is a methodology that provides selective guidelines such that if additional business
processes have to be managed using PRINCE 2 then a tailoring would be required.
As the company needs to create a process improvement infrastructure to be able to make the
best use of the PRINCE 2 methodology in the presence of already adopted CMMI
certification, the first step would be to identify the common roles between two methodologies
that in this case would include:
 Senior management that provides budget and strategic direction to the organization C
helping company bring improvements
 Personnel who would act as facilitators and bring coordination in processes so as to
bring improvement of the IT products and solutions

 The company would deploy a temporary staff for implementation of the methodology
for the organizational improvement. A Project management consultant can be
approached for this and a team can be guided by the temporary staff provided by this
consultant.
Besides the personnel alignment, the consolidated infrastructure may be improved through
optimization of structures across multiple technologies and systematic distribution of these
technologies for brining strategic, domain related or tactical benefits (Valek, 2014).
Benefits
Organization A
Benefits of using PMBOK guidelines for the project management in the organization A
include:
 The methodology will formalize and organize the project processes of the
organization thereby making the team more productive and projects more effective.
 The use of guide would allow extensive planning such that the project deliverables
can be clearly defined, monitored as well as assessed.
 Use of PMBOK would bring the strategic benefits to the organization by making
processes fast and transparent
Organization B
Benefits of using PMBOK guidelines for the project management in the organization
B include:
 The methodology will help company formalize its processes thereby making its
services more productive
 The process documentation provides a detailed guidance on each knowledge area of
PMBOK which would help company adopt the methodology with effectiveness.
 The processes of the company would become transparent and accessible to all team
members which will make their system more transparent and shareable.
Organization C
Benefits of using PRINCE 2 guidelines for the project management in the organization A
include:
 It is a highly flexible methodology which gives the IT company to tailor the
approaches for individual practices to get best results
 As the methodology works on learning systems, the best practice lessons could be
made available and put to use
 PRINCE 2 in addition to CMMI would help refine the IT project management
practices by adopting the best practices and methodologies as per PRINCE 2 which
would support the CMMI works also.

Conclusion
This report was prepared to explore the project methodologies including PRINCE 2 and
PMBOK guide with an aim to understand how choices are made between project
management methodologies by people, what challenges are faced in implementation and how
they can be overcome. There were three organizations of different sizes including a financial
organization, housing society and an international IT company. The organizational structures
of each of these were studied based on which the recommendations for the use of appropriate
project management methodology were proposed. The banking company was advised to use
PMBOK. Also, the housing society being a non-specialised product can be transformed
through the use of social media. Certain challenges were found in the paper such as
challenges of adoption by users, lack of experiential knowledge in the suers. Most of the
challenges could be overcome with the involveent of the PM consultant and through traiing
of employees on either of the methodology that is used in the organization.

References
Karaman, E. & Kurt, M., 2015. Comparison of project management methodologies: prince 2
versus PMBOK for it projects. Int. Journal of Applied Sciences and Engineering Research,
4(4), pp. 572-574.
Kirwan, P., Siviy, J., Marino, L. & Morley, J., 2008. Implementation Challenges in a
Multimodel Environment, s.l.: Carnegie Mellon University. .
PMI, 2010. The Value of Project Management , s.l.: PMI.
Saad, S. et al., 2012. A Case Study on Implementation of Prince2 Methodology in
Automotive Industry in Malaysia (A Preliminary Study). International Journal of Scientific
& Engineering Research, 3(4), pp. 1-24.
Turley, F., 2012. The PRINCE2 Foundation Training Manual. s.l.:MPlaza.
Valek, L., 2014. The Time Bank implementation and governance: Is PRINCE 2 suitable?, s.l.:
University of Hradec Kralove.