work packages

PRINCE2  - The Controlling a Stage Process.

Each PRINCE2 project has at least two stages, the initiation stage and a delivery stage.  For each delivery stage (so-called because this stage creates the specialist products), the controlling a stage process will be used by the project manager to monitor and control the stage plan.

Many projects will have several delivery stages, and any case the controlling a stage process will be used by the project manager.  The project manager gives up work packages to the team manager or the specialist team, and they use the managing product delivery process.

The purpose of the controlling a stage process is there for to assign the product creation work to be carried out, monitor the work, deal with issues and risks, take corrective action when and if needed to ensure that the stage remains within tolerance, and report progress to the project board at regular intervals.

The main objectives and hence value of the controlling a stage process is to reassure that there is continued focus on delivery of the stage’s products and hence avoid ‘scope creep’.  It is also important that changed or new risks are kept under control, along with any issues which may arise during the stage.

One of the principles of PRINCE2 is continued business justification, and hence the business case must be kept under constant review to ensure it still remains viable.

The specialist team are responsible for the creation of the specialist products.  The project manager must ensure that these are delivered to the stated quality standards, within costs, effort and time agreed, and ultimately in support of the achievement of the defined business benefits.  Therefore the project manager is focused on the project management team to ensure that the stage completes successfully within the tolerance is laid down.

The project manager, and hence the controlling a stage process, describes the day-to-day management of the work within the stage, and to this end this process drives the managing product delivery process on a regular basis.

Once a stage plan has been approved by the project board, then the project manager will issue work packages to the team manager or specialist team, and these define and control the work that needs to be done.

The first activity is to authorize a work package as it is important that work only commences and continues with the consent of the project manager.  A work package should cover the work needed to create one or more products.  The project manager will examine the stage plan to understand the products that need to be created, the cost and effort of the work, and the tolerances available.

Each work package must be agreed and accepted by the team manager, who may optionally produce a team plan which lays out in detail how the work package (or work packages), will be delivered.

The project manager must carry out a regular assessment of the status of each work package, and for this reason, the team manager will produce a checkpoint report to keep the project manager regularly informed.  The checkpoint report will contain information on time and cost, the current status of the quality management activities and a forecast for what will be achieved between now and the next checkpoint report.

An important responsibility for the project manager is to review the stage status by comparing what has actually happened with what was expected to happen and what might happen next.  The project manager will also want to the maintained an accurate and current picture of the progress on the work that is being carried out as well as confidence that sufficient resources are available.

The project manager may request a product status account from project support to clarify planned and actual progress.  Equally important is to check for any quality issues from the quality register, checking the risk register for any new or revised risks and their impact, and to checked the issue register to understand the impact on the business case, a stage plan or the project plan.

The project manager will be taking regular corrective actions and hence checking the status of these to ensure that they are having the desired effect.  The benefits review plan will need to be readily checked to see if any benefit reviews are due and if so, to execute them as required.

The project manager must provide the project board with regular progress information on the stage status, and this is done via the regular highlight report which is created within the report highlights activity.  A variety of information sources will be used including the checkpoint reports risk, issue, and quality registers, the lessons log and product status account.  The previous highlight report is also used as a basis for creating the current one.

Various issues may occur throughout the stage and the existing risks may change in some way, including the identification of new risks. PRINCE2 has a well documented set of steps for capturing and examining issues and risks, and for the former,  managing issues, including end ring them on the issue register, categorizing them, assessing the severity and priority of each issue, and implementing appropriate actions. There is a close relationship between configuration management and change control.

PRINCE2 uses the issue process to manage requests for change and of specifications, and these too, will needs to be managed in a logical fashion.  Risks will be entered into the risk register and kept updated.  Risks also have a structured set of steps to manage them.

The stage should not exceed that tolerances agreed that the project board as the project manager can only take corrective action as long as the stage or project is forecast to complete within the tolerance is laid down.  Whenever tolerance is forecast to be exceeded the project manager must escalate this to bring it to the project board of pension via an exception report.  This should be seen as best practice and not as a failure on behalf of the project manager.

Whenever the project manager can see that deviations from plan can be corrected within tolerance, then he or she should take corrective action to return the stage or the project within tolerance bounds.

When the project manager has received the last work package within a stage and is satisfied themselves that the products within it had been completed and authorised, then the project manager will want to trigger the PRINCE2 process managing a stage boundary to prepare for the end stage assessment.

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