managing a stage boundary

Managing And Controlling A PRINCE2 Delivery Stage

Probably 90% of the project budget is spent within the Managing Product Delivery (MP) process, since this is where the specialist products are created.  The ‘execute a work package’ activity is where the specialist products are created and their quality checks carried out, followed by their approval by the appropriate authority or individual.

The team manager or the team themselves will produce regular Checkpoint Reports providing information on the status and future forecast of the creation of specialist products.  These are sent to the project manager, and may be in the form of a report or a meeting.  The project manager will use the activity of Review Work Package Status to determine the progress or otherwise of the creation and the approval of these specialist products.

Since the Stage Plan has been approved by the Project Board, then the project manager must look at progress within the stage itself. If the project manager determines that the stage is forecast to remain within tolerance bounds, then he or she may take some form of corrective action to minimize any such deviations within tolerance.  This may entail giving out new or modified Work Packages to the specialist team. 

In addition to this the project manager will need to review the stage status and use the activity of report highlights, which will generate a Highlight Report to be given to the project board so that they understand the current status and forecast future of progress within the stage.  The project manager will update the Stage Plan with actual progress, and modifying future actions to ensure that the stage plan is forecast to complete within tolerance.

As each Work Package is completed, then the team manager or the specialist team themselves needs to inform the project manager that the Work Package is indeed complete.  The project manager, as part of the activity review work package status will need to agree that all the products have been completed, met their quality criteria, and have been approved by the appropriate authority. 

This may trigger the authorization of a new/revised Work Package, or that the stage end is approaching, in which case the project manager would use the Managing a Stage Boundary (SB) process to prepare for an end stage assessment.

If at any time during the stage, either issues or risks should arise, then the project manager should use the activity of capture and examine issues and risks to carry out an impact analysis of these on both the stage and project.  The appropriate Issue or Risk Register should be updated with such information.

If the project manager determines that some corrective action can be taken via the issue of new or modified Work Packages to resolve the situation then such actions would need to be taken.  If after impact analysis and the review of this within the status of the stage or the project would show that forecast of tolerances would be exceeded, then the project manager must create an Exception Report and bring this to the attention of the project board. If a Work Package is forecast to exceed tolerance levels, the Team Manager would raise this as an issue to bring it to the attention of the project manager.

Using the activity escalate issues and risks, the project manager would bring this Exception Report to the attention of the project board.  Put simply this Exception Report should contain information on the reasons for this forecast of exceeding tolerances, the impact in terms of the appropriate tolerance, and a set of options, which if implemented would return the stage of project within tolerance bounds, and a recommendation of which option should be chosen, and why it is the best option.

This is sent to the project board who now need to make a decision on what to do next.  One option they have is to prematurely close the project, in which case the project manager would use the Closing a Project (CP) process to carry this out.  For the moment we shall assume that they prefer another option, either recommended by the project manager, or one which they have determined. This would trigger the project manager to use the Managing a Stage Boundary (SB) process.

The project board would request the preparation of an Exception Plan using the Managing a Stage Boundary process.

At this point it would be helpful to state that the Managing a Stage Boundary process has only TWO uses.

The first is to prepare for an end stage assessment (ESA) by creating the next Stage Plan.

The second is to prepare for an exception assessment (EXA). In the former the objective is to approve or otherwise, the next Stage Plan, and in the latter it is to approve or otherwise the Exception Plan.

Whichever of the above, this process would follow the following steps and activities:

1.   Create either a next Stage Plan or an Exception Plan

2.   Update the Project Plan to show actual progress and if necessary, a modified future forecast

3.   As part of updating the Project Plan and the next Stage Plan/Exception Plan, it may be necessary to update some aspects of the PID (possibly in terms of the strategies, the plan, and the controls, or the Business Case and related Benefits Review Plan.

4.   As a result of the above, new or modified Product Descriptions will need to be created, new or modified risks and issues entered on to the appropriate registers including any lessons that have been learned during the stage.

5.   The Benefits Review Plan needs to be updated to reflect any products that may have already being released into the operational (business as usual – BAU) areas.

6.   The project manager will produce an End Stage Report and if appropriate create a Lessons Report.

All of the above will be brought before the project board at either an end stage assessment or an exception assessment. 

The project board will need to make a decision to either approve the next Stage Plan, or approve the Exception Plan, or request more information, or to order a premature close of the project.

For each delivery stage these four processes will continue in the same manner as described above.  The Managing a Stage Boundary process will be used either to prepare a next Stage Plan or an Exception Plan and is brought before the project board using the Directing a Project process to either approve or otherwise the next Stage Plan or an Exception Plan.

Once this has been authorized, the project manager will give out the work contained within that Stage Plan and the specialist team will create the specialist products via each Work Package.  This is done via the execute a work package activity. When the last Work Package has been completed (each specialist product has been approved), then this will trigger the project manager to acknowledge that the project end is approaching, and will then trigger the Closing a Project process

Managing a Stage Boundary.

This process is only ever used for one of two purposes, one is to prepare for an End Stage Assessment, and the second is to prepare for an Exception Assessment.  Whichever purpose is required, Managing a Stage Boundary is there to produce sufficient evidence to enable the project board to make an informed choice about whether to proceed with the project or not.

 

One of the seven principles of PRINCE2 is continued business justification, as the main objective of any project is to ensure that the products it creates will deliver the expected benefits.  This continuing focus should be confirmed at the end of each stage to make sure that the project is still providing value for money.

 

Projects can go wrong either due to internal factors or external factors, and it is important to ensure that sufficient information is made available in a timely manner so that can be made.  It is important to remember that a positive decision not to proceed with a project should be seen as a positive outcome rather than continuing on throwing good money after bad.

 

The five activities within Managing a Stage Boundary, are there either to create the next Stage Plan and update other documents, or to create an Exception Plan and update other documents.  

 

This process will normally be used as a natural stage end approaches, or it will be used at some point during a stage after a request by the project board for the project manager to create an Exception Plan.

 

When preparing for a natural end to the current stage, then the objective is to assure the project board that all products contained within the current stage plan have been completed and approved, and to prepare the Stage Plan for the next stage.

 

As part of preparing for an End Stage Assessment, then after the next Stage Plan has been created, key documents within the Project Initiation Documentation should be reviewed and if required, updated.  

 

Such documents must include the Project Plan, Business Case, project approach, the four management strategy documents, and the project management team structure along with their associated role descriptions.

 

The objective here is to provide the relevant information for the project board to assess the continued viability of the project and ensure that the risk situation remains acceptable.  Also, any lessons that have been learned during the current stage should be added to the Lessons Log, and optionally a Lessons Report can be created and used at the end stage assessment.