The Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model for Software describes the principles and practices underlying software process maturity and is intended to help software organizations improve software development processes.
PRINCE was developed as a UK Government standard for IT project management. Since its launch, PRINCE has become widely used in both the public and private sectors and is now the UK's de facto standard for project management. Although PRINCE was originally developed for the needs of IT projects, the method has also been adopted on many non-IT projects. The PRINCE Standard design and development work was undertaken by a consortium who co-ordinated a review panel consisting of over 150 public and private sector organisations providing input and feedback to the team.
Prince 2 is a non-proprietary method of managing projects, developed by CCTA in the UK. Prince is an acronym for PRojects IN a Controlled Environment and CCTA is the Central Computing and Telecommunications Agency of the UK Government.
Prince 2 is supported by a detailed manual (in paper and electronic form), which says what needs to be done, but is not specific on how it should be done; 18 Accredited Training Organisations currently operate in the UK, US, Australia and the Netherlands; an efficiency tool developed by IBM - The Prince Environment; and a Register of Consultants able to advise organisations on the implementation and customisation of Prince 2 for their business.
PRINCE2 has become a UK national standard for project management professionals.One of the great advantages of PRINCE2 is it's thoroughness but ironically, this can also hinder its users as they struggle to remember all the aspects of the methodology.
The website http://www.noggon.com/p2 has been designed to help new PRINCE2 users to see relationships between the concepts and get a better grasp of the methodology. At the same time it serves as a useful reminder and reference tool for more experienced practitioners. Whatever a users level they are encouraged to contribute to the newly established forum where they can ask questions, provide answers and discuss PRINCE 2 issues in general.
The Crazy Colour PRINCE2 Process Map provides a complete overview of all processes including their relationships with other PRINCE2 processes, roles and documents. Both the website and PDF documents are free for non-commercial use.
PRINCE2 Study and Reference Resource
The Prince2 web site is an independent source of information for anything to do with the Prince2 project management method. You will find information on the Prince2 processes, the approach and the techniques and components that make up the Prince2 method.
There are downloadable samples and templates, plus links to other Prince2 web sites. Prince2 is a public domain method, and is the fastest growing project management method in Europe. Many US companies also use variants of Prince2 including Sun(UK), Sequent, GE, and PhillipMorris.
The Prince2 Project Management Forum is an interactive open resource to support Prince2, and project management in general. It includes an FAQ, directory and download areas.
The prime focus of the site is to encourage peer to peer support for all Prince2 related issues, via a fully functional message forum. Access and membership are free of charge and will remain so.
The IEEE Computer Society and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) have developed a set of generally accepted best practices that are applicable to most projects most of the time The Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) is a useful guide for personal education or to refresh corporate memory before undertaking a new software project.
The SWEBOK is based on Knowledge Areas of:
The SWEBOK provides a consistent definition for the practice of software engineering; a definition of the scope of software engineering and its relationship to project management and computer science. Included are references to generally accepted practices which includes knowledge areas that lead to IEEE and ACM material and support for software engineering.