Solid Harmony: mentions of PRINCE2 in ITIL V3

Further to my post about the invisibility of Project Management in ITIL V3, it is interesting to see that there is even less mention of PRINCE2 in particular, despite it being ITIL's stable-mate at OGC. Not much walking across the corridor here! Of course, the North Americans were in control of writing much of ITIL V3 and none of it is actually done at OGC any more.

Not counting the Glossaries and References in each book, according to Google Search, "PRINCE2" is only mentioned in Service Design, Service Transition, and Service Operation in the common text in the intro that refers to "Publicly available frameworks and standards such as ...".

According to the index, the Official Introduction never mentions PRINCE2, but it does. Once. A token nod on page 146 in a locked cupboard behind a sign saying "beware of the leopard".

Apparently ITIL and "many of these frameworks have a solid harmony". Oh that's alright then - no need to ever define the mappings, role divisions or interfaces in any detail eh? So long as PRINCE2 is one of the "many". It is definitely one of the list of "more commonly known frameworks and standards that have synergy with ITIL".

"Have synergy with" is such a delightfully meaningless term that it has been adopted by the Introduction to Real ITSM. I should have used "solid harmony" too. Solid Harmony is a framework mapping status that I was previously unaware of, but I think we will be using it extensively in future :-D

[Updated: I missed these:]
CSI does refer to PRINCE2 in 3.11.1 (p36) as one of a list of framerworks that "fully support the concepts embodied in CSI". Oh that's alright then. Appendix A is called Complementary Guidance and is an expanded description of the usual list of ISO0000, COBIT, Six Sigma and CMMI, where PRINCE2 gets a very glancing reference in the last paragraph on p177, which also makes the startling assertion that "Project Management is discussed in great detail in the ITIL Service Transition volume". Project and Portfolio Management tools get a paragraph on p149.

There is zero mention of Project Management, PMBOK or PRINCE2 in the index of Service Strategy, but Google finds PRINCE2 on pages 7 and 246, the standard intro and the glossary respectively, and p190 where it gets a glancing mention in the context of analytical modelling.

Comments

For accuracy's sake

"Not counting the Glossaries and References in each book, according to Google Search, 'PRINCE2' is only mentioned in Service Design, Service Transition, and Service Operation ..."

A pdf text search also shows it appearing several times in SS and CSI. CSI, for instance, refers to it in "3.11.1 Frameworks" and "Appendix A: Project Management."

I also found references to PMBOK and general project management throughout the books, including references for the PRINCE2 official website and ISBN number.

I guess Google Search has its limitations.

Did I miss any?

Sorry what i meant was i only searched those books. I went to them as the ones i would expect to describe the role delineations and interactions between PRINCE2 and ITIL. OK so let's look at the other two:

I have listed what I think is a pretty comprehensive list of references to PM here (without the benefit of the PDF search function) and it is bugger all. I think "throughout the books" is a bit strong, especially when you eliminate the glossary, references and the token list in the standard intro to the books.

CSI does indeed refer to PRINCE2 in 3.11.1 (p36) as one of a list of framerworks that "fully support the concepts embodied in CSI". Oh that's alright then. Appendix A is called Complementary Guidance and is an expanded description of the usual list of ISO0000, COBIT, Six Sigma and CMMI, where PRINCE2 gets a very glancing reference in the last paragraph on p177, which also makes the startling assertion that "Project Management is discussed in great detail in the ITIL Service Transition volume". Project and Portfolio Management tools get a paragraph on p149.

There is zero mention of Project Management, PMBOK or PRINCE2 in the index of Service Strategy, but Google finds PRINCE2 on pages 7 and 246, the standard intro and the glossary respectively, and p190 where it gets a glancing mention in the context of analytical modelling.

Did I miss any?

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