Project Management gives control

The answer to the IT juggler who drops balls or who throws them so hard they get stuck up the tree? With Change the only certainty in managing IT we need a method of managing all the activities and that has to be project management. More and more companies, certainly in the UK, are becoming project driven and training their people in project management methodologies. In particular the Prince2 methodology is probably the UK de facto standard. Some people get concerned or worried when you mention something like Prince2 and think that it will wrap everything up in 'red tape' (Definition from Wikipedia: a derisive term for excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making) but that is down to you as all these methodologies are adaptable as long as you maintain the framework or core elements which after all are the reason you are doing it. Project management gives a number of benefits. It ensures the project is properly defined and understood, the Stakeholders are known and catered for, the tasks within the project are identified and managed, it is broken down into manageable phases, resources are assigned and progress can be monitored and communicated. Common sense really and when you think about it, no magic art, only a process and some tools.It can be adapted for small or large projects and although it is better known for Large projects a number of people like Colin Bentley and organisations like Spoce - with their mini method have come up with advice on how to use it for small projects.
When you have a number of projects then you can put these all together and run them as a programme.
Lets talk about that next.