CHAPTER 10: FURTHER EXPANSION OF PRINCE2 AGILE

All of the PRINCE2 Agile descriptions throughout this book refer specifically to project work, i.e. project delivery, project teams, project stages. This is based on the understanding that the work in an organization can generally be divided into two categories:

1. The business-as-usual (BAU) activities that are the ongoing operational tasks for the organization, such as manufacturing, customer support, sales, human resources.
2. The project activities that are temporary groupings of staff to deliver specific business outcomes, generally within a fixed timeframe and budget.

The PRINCE2 Agile framework in the AXELOS official guide is intended for project work, where there is an official starting point (i.e. project initiation), review opportunities as the project is progressing (i.e. iterations, releases, and stages), and an official point of completion (i.e. project closure), with the project outputs, as appropriate, transitioning to BAU activities.

There is, however, potential for organizations to structure their BAU activities to function as project work,⁴¹ for example:

• Treat the start of each financial year as the start of a year-long BAU project with the project objectives being the delivery of agreed metrics, such as increased sales, reduced operational costs, higher employee retention rates, greater levels of customer satisfaction.
• Subdivide the BAU work over the course of the year into time-based stages, e.g. monthly, quarterly.
• Manage the ongoing BAU work within each stage using Kanban, Lean, Scrumban or equivalent Agile methods intended to optimize production activities.
• Treat the end of the financial year as the project closure, with confirmation of intended objectives, documentation of outcomes, and preparation for the next year-long BAU project in the upcoming financial year.

With this approach, organizations can leverage PRINCE2 Agile to achieve integrated governance and delivery efficiencies in their BAU work at an equivalent value to what PRINCE2 Agile provides for project work.

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⁴¹ Where senior management should determine whether the overheads required to manage this work in the PRINCE2 Agile framework justify the business value achieved.