New Open Source Framework
Praxis, a new free framework for the management of projects, programmes and portfolios (P3), has launched today 1st May 2014.
According to their website “Praxis is entirely free to use under the terms of the Creative Commons licence. You may adapt and use the Praxis Framework for your own purposes as long as you acknowledge its source. You must also make your work available to others free of royalties. Ideally, your contribution will be incorporated into this web site for the benefit of others”.
The site further explains that “Praxis brings together a body of knowledge, methodology, competence framework and capability maturity model in a single integrated framework with a single structure and terminology. No more need for mapping and translation between different guides”. The Framework encourages a practical application of the elements relevant to the environment.
Community Driven
There is an interesting angle to this new approach. The Framework is community driven, Praxis stating “Most project, programme and portfolio management guides are updated by panels of experts every few years. Our aim with Praxis is to update and extend the framework and library on a continuous basis. As our users provide adaptations and lessons learned, we will incorporate these into the framework.”
So what (or who) is behind Praxis. Paul Naybour over at Project Accelerator News reports that “The framework has been created by Adrian Dooley, an Honorary Fellow of the Association for Project Management who has ensured that the framework is compatible with widely known guides such as the APM Body of Knowledge, PRINCE2® and ISO21500.
Adrian said “I think it is time that the basic principles of project, programme and portfolio management were available to the ‘wikipedia generation’. I hope that experienced practitioners will tailor the framework and offer their adapted material for inclusion in the framework, thus helping the next generation of P3 managers.””
Non-Profit?
We’re intrigued by the Wikipedia (non-profit) suggestion. Mr. Dooley has an impressive track record in commercialising P3 management. He founded and sold TPG (The Projects Group), helped author Pertmaster, was a founder member of Project Manager Today, and is a non-executive director of APM Group Ltd which made a lucrative industry from managing qualifications for OGC (now the Cabinet Office) amongst others. It will be interesting to see how Mr Dooley and Praxis Framework Limited plan to monetise Praxis, or whether indeed this is a non-profit enterprise for the benefit of the profession.
