Prince 2 what a load of XXXX

[vetran]

Talk about complexity by obscurity. Simple ideas wrapped up rubbish Acronyms. Got the course next week and not looking forward to it.

[minestrone]

They are all a pile of pish, prince, agile, RUP etc etc

What is so hard about saying "ok we have been asked to do X and Y, Jim can you do X? and Bob can you do Y?"? Without chart after chart after chart.

[Grinder]

They are all a pile of pish, prince, agile, RUP etc etc

What is so hard about saying "ok we have been asked to do X and Y, Jim can you do X? and Bob can you do Y?"? Without chart after chart after chart.

PRINCE2 doesn't even help with that. It defines a set of documents and gateways. None of the frameworks do the managing for you - it just means if you take over mid project, you can pick it up quicker, and of course the stakeholders will know what they're getting.

There are some good guidelines in PRINCE2 about the projet board, which if followed should prevent thins getting more complicated than necessary.

[PM-Junkie]

They are all a pile of pish, prince, agile, RUP etc etc

What is so hard about saying "ok we have been asked to do X and Y, Jim can you do X? and Bob can you do Y?"? Without chart after chart after chart.

There speaks someone who, for example, has never had to deal with people who pay the bills. I agree that all the so called "standards" are basically common sense and crutches for the incompetent, but proper project management is far more than what you suggest.

There are lots of incompetent developers and testers too, but I wouldn't be so foolish as to suggest that that makes developers and testers unnecessary. When you get someone who knows what they are doing you realise how valuable those skills are.

Your post did make me smile though.

[WetBehindTheEars]

I'm doing my TOGAF 9 certification. It's a load of old bollox. I'm only doing it to beef up the CV.

[Mich the Tester]

There are lots of incompetent developers and testers too, but I wouldn't be so foolish as to suggest that that makes developers and tests unnecessary. When you get someone who knows what they are doing you realise how valuable those skills are.

Methodologies can be useful in the hands of a skilled person. What I've noticed though is that in an absence of knowledge to select skilled people, clients will choose the person who has the certificate for a particular methodology, without reckoning on the fact that crap people can pass exams too. If I'm selecting testers I know what kind of questions to ask to find out if they have the right mindset and critical thinking skills to test, so I don't need to worry about the pieces of paper. But a personel manager or purchasing manager or for that matter an agent who knows nothing about testing has no other means for judging competence than asking if someone's got a particular certificate.

[TykeMerc]

Methodologies can be useful in the hands of a skilled person. What I've noticed though is that in an absence of knowledge to select skilled people, clients will choose the person who has the certificate for a particular methodology, without reckoning on the fact that crap people can pass exams too. If I'm selecting testers I know what kind of questions to ask to find out if they have the right mindset and critical thinking skills to test, so I don't need to worry about the pieces of paper. But a personel manager or purchasing manager or for that matter an agent who knows nothing about testing has no other means for judging competence than asking if someone's got a particular certificate.

That's the blessing and curse of professional qualifications, when they become "industry standard" then every bloke and his dog gets them with the benefit of hothouse courses, before they're widely recognised the only holders are the actual experts in the field.
MCSE is a prime example, in the NT3.51 and early NT4 days the only people that had an MCSE were real Systems Engineers, these days you can practically get one from a cornflakes packet.
Prince2 methodology is actually useful to a real PM as you can use a commonly understood framework and get the job done. However a Prince2 Practitioner cert is no indication that the holder has the foggiest idea how to manage any or all parts of a project.

As Mitch said certs are what recruitment people look for in their bin filtering operations, it's a bit sad really, but quite understandable.

[chris79]

It's just a standard which helps people talk the same language on a project, it's not there to teach you how to be a project manager.. that's more an individual skill perhaps combined with a bit of experience.

I've done P2 and found it quite useful (even though I'm not a project manager) and having had dealings with projects at various stages and it's nice to understand what I'm being asked, how I can input into it, and why certain things are done, etc.

It's only really a load of crap if you don't care much for it, which you should be then asking yourself why you are doing it in the first place?

[swamp]

Agile methodologies are good but you need senior developers. You can't refactor everything so people have to take an intelligent punt on the design in the early code base. Not many people can do this very well.

That said Agile projects I've been on have been obsessed with estimating and micro managing tasks to try and measure the 'velocity' of the team. Also burn down charts etc. Big waste of time.

[Mich the Tester]

That said Agile projects I've been on have been obsessed with estimating and micro managing tasks to try and measure the 'velocity' of the team. Also burn down charts etc. Big waste of time.

That rather defeats the object of Agile.