Adaptation of PRINCE2 into JIRA

[Leonid Paust]

Hello Dear Community,

I am relatively new to my company, and there are plans to introduce PRINCE2 as our project management methodology. I would like to ask for your advice.

The situation: We are an IT department responsible for various applications. The business units submit requirements, either for existing applications or new ones, which need to be implemented in projects.

Currently, every requirement is considered a project, regardless of its size. In JIRA, each project is represented within a single JIRA project: Epic = Project to be implemented.

Now, we want to introduce PRINCE2, which poses challenges for implementation in JIRA + Confluence (these are the only tools available).

Here is my approach: For actual projects, a separate JIRA project is created. For change requests (which have previously been considered projects), a JIRA project is created for each application.

And now it gets more complicated. How can I effectively adapt PRINCE2 to JIRA and Confluence?

For projects, I have the following in mind:

• Overarching Issue Types (Phases):
  • I have created the different PRINCE2 phases (e.g., "Start-Up Phase," "Initiation Phase," "Delivery Phase," "Closing Phase") as overarching Issue Types.
  • PRINCE2 Phase -> Epic -> Story -> Sub-Task
• Workflow steps for each phase:

  • For each of these phases, I have defined specific workflows that represent the individual steps within the phases. Here is an example for the "Initiation Phase":

    1. Open
    2. Draft Business Case
    3. Create Project Plan
    4. Define Risk Management Strategy
    5. Develop Quality Management Strategy
    6. Create Communication Plan
    7. Submit for Approval
    8. Approved
    9. Completed

This creates, in my opinion, a meaningful hierarchy for the Advanced Roadmap. The documentation for each step of the workflow is done in Confluence. This way, I avoid having many custom fields in JIRA and keep it relatively simple.

1. Is this structure sensible?

   • Are overarching Issue Types for the PRINCE2 phases and the associated specific workflows for the phase steps a good method?

2. Are there any suggestions for improvement?

   • Do you have recommendations or best practices on how to implement PRINCE2 more effectively in Jira and Confluence?

The other challenge is how to represent PRINCE2 for change requests to existing applications in JIRA. These might not require as many workflow steps.

What do you think? I hope I have explained it clearly and would appreciate reading your opinions and/or finding a better way to implement this.

Thank you all very much for your input.

Best, Leo

[Nils Westrich · Accepted solution]

@Leonid Paust

Hi Leo,

nicht sicher, wie aktuell das Thema noch ist, aber vllt. kann ich dir weiterhelfen.

Ich habe erst vor Kurzem in Kooperation mit Oliver Buhr von Copargo wieder einem größeren Kunden geholfen PRINCE2 effizient in Jira und Confluence zum Leben zu erwecken.

Ein essentielles Prinzip von PRINCE2 ist die Anpassung an die Projektumgebung. Viele Organisationen, versuchen erst einmal alles möglichst genau nach Lehrbuch abzubilden. Häufig genug entsteht dabei ein kaum handlebares und wenig zweckmäßiges Bürokratiemonstrum 🧌

Die Kunst besteht darin, die Methode auf eine radikal verschlankte Form für euren individuellen Use Case herunterzubrechen und dann langsam weitere Praktiken aus dem PRINCE2-Fundus hinzuzufügen, wenn der Basisprozess erprobt, verstanden und akzeptiert ist - und echten Mehrwert generiert.

Um dir inhaltlich noch 2-3 Hinweise zu geben: 

- Der Workflow sollte allgemeiner gehalten sein (z.B. To-Do | In Arbeit | In Review | Abgeschlossen) und über alle PRINCE2-Prozesse, respektive Managementphasen, aufrechterhalten werden.

- Die zwei wesentlichen Jira-Vorgangstypen (nach offizieller PRINCE2-Nomenklatur) sind: 1. Produkte und 2. Issues

- Die Initiations-Aktivitäten, die du als Workflow-Schritte vorgesehen hast, sind größtenteils Vorarbeiten, die abgeschlossen sein sollten, bevor man typischerweise überhaupt erst ein Projekt in Jira erstellen würde.

Wenn du Lust hast, kann ich dir gerne mal ein mögliches Informationsmodell für P2 in Jira aus der Praxis zeigen. Bin am besten per Mail oder LinkedIn zu erreichen.

Lieben Gruß

Nils

[Kit Friend · Accepted solution]

@Leonid Paust  I'd recommend not modelling the Prince2 phases as issue types - issues are inherently meant to work as 'chunks of stuff' whereas (for better or worse depending on your opinion of Prince2 😂) the phases you've described are essentially meta workflow steps a project will move through.

I'd suggest:

- Model an issue type for whatever you call the projects/initiatives you're attempting to govern via Prince2

- Contain these within an overarching Portfolio project, and model the workflow in that project to reflect your Prince2 phases

- If they are consistent, you might want to try using templated subtasks to represent the action items to complete at each workflow phase step

Inevitably this will all get pretty heavy - but that is one of the core problems with methodologies like Prince2.