Creating the Project Plan in PRINCE2

There are three possible levels of plans within PRINCE2, the Project Plan, Stage Plans, and optional Team Plans.  All of them use the product based planning technique to create the plan documentation. However, this will only identify the products required, a plan also needs the activities to be identified, the resources needed to carry out the activities, and control points along with the narrative that make up the complete plan document.

 

The purpose of creating any plan is to establish that there is a feasible, achievable and realistic path to get from where we are today to where we need to go. Before committing any major expenditure on a project the timescale and resource requirements must first be established.  This information contained in the Project Plan will be used to refine the project Business Case.

 

Planning is best carried out in workshops where the project manager can facilitate such sessions and use the knowledge skills and experience of the rest of the team to help assemble and create the plan.  In particular both the user and supply-side should be invited to ensure that the plan is realistic and achievable.

 

The Project Brief and should be reviewed to clarify any stated milestones and to check whether there are any corporate or programme management strategies, standards or practices that the project needs to adhere to.  In particular the Project Brief may contain information on pre-requisites, dependencies, constraints or assumptions which need to be built into the project plan, or at least need to be taken into consideration.

 

The project approach which forms part of the Project Brief should be used as an input to create the Project Plan.  In other words, the Project Plan must show the realisation of the chosen project approach.

 

Lessons should be sought from similar previous projects that relate to planning, although these may already have been captured in the Lessons Log.  Similarly the risk and issue registers should be examined to respond to any risk or issues related with planning.

 

Any particular planning and control tools are used by the organisation would normally be used for the creation of parts of the Project Plan and other plans within this project.  There may also be methods used for estimating which need to be applied.

 

The four management strategies which will have already been created, only explain the ‘how’.  These strategies should be applied to the project plan in terms of resources, activities, standards, methods, and costs for the work to be carried out.

 

Product based planning will be used to create the Product Breakdown Structure, Product Flow Diagram and Product Descriptions for the major products within the project plan.  At this point is helpful to consider whether the Project Product Description needs to be refined or updated in some way, for example the acceptance criteria may now be refined or extended as a result of detailed planning.

 

As new or modified Product Descriptions are created then so too will new all modified Configuration Item Records.

 

The resources identified in the plan need to be confirmed that they are available and the schedule created including key timing and control points.  Risk responses also need to be included within the plan.

 

Project assurance will want to review draft copies of the Project Plan and the project board will want to approve it although they may wait until later and review it as part of the Project Initiation Documentation.

 

For more information on PRINCE2 -  GO HERE