What are ITIL, PMP, and PRINCE 2 basically all about and where does SLA fit in?

[morland]

Hi,

Can someone please share just a brief essence of what ITIL, PMP, and PRINCE 2 all about AND where/how the SLA aspect fits in. I know these (ITIL, PMP, and PRINCE 2) are project management related certification but what else? Is there really a difference between these or it is another one of those "buzz-words" gimmick?

If you can please help me understand the essence and the difference, I think I'll be able to take it from there onwards by doing some reading etc.

Thank you.

[tutor]

Hi

These are all different views on the same process of project managment.

Prince 2 is sponsored by the UK Office of Government Commerce, its roots are in IT project management and it has a very procedural approach to project management. Prince is a method which defines what to do and when in quite alot to detail.

PMI PMP is much wider, sponsoered but the project management institute in the USA it draws on a much wider body of knowlege. It provides a broard background to project management but leave the method to you.

ITIL is simmilar but more focused on IT issues such as requierments capture and acceptance of IT systems.

Sorry but I am not sure what you refer to as SLA aspects. They are not explicitly covered in any of the approaches.

Post a bit more detail and I will try to help you.

on-line APMP Project Management Training

[rhastie]

I have encountered the accronym SLA in two places: Service Level Agreement and Software Lifecycle Architecture.

As pertaining to the first SLA might mean that a certain level of performance might be necessary in order for the software to be accepted by the user as feature complete/ready for deployment - also SLA might define how soon defects are dealt with and the process of documenting them. Generally Service Level Agreement provide the "what" while methodologies such as ITEL might provide the "how".

Software Lifecycle architecture just defines "what" needs to be done in the development/support process and who does it while the methodology provides 'how" it is to be done.

[JoeP]

I know the original post was 14 months ago and the poster probably still isn't around ... but I think I should correct some of the points.

PMP (PMBOK) and PRINCE2 are project management methodologies, but ITIL is about service management - ie it covers strategy, architecture and ongoing operations of IT services. It does cover design and introduction of changes, and there's a strong overlap with project methods here.

All have certification. (PRINCE2 and ITIL both come from the UK Office of Government Commerce - OGC.)

I would bet that "Service Level Agreement" is the most common meaning of SLA. And this is very definitely covered by ITIL! - Together with a full process (Service Level Management) for negotiating, defining and reporting on SLAs. An SLA basically is the agreement between the provider and the customer as to what the service will deliver and what the customer can expect. As such it's not really a very important concept for projects. ... But a PMO (Proj Mgt Office) could offer an SLA for its services to the organisation - an SLA doesn't have to be for an IT service specifically.