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.  

The project board may wish to implement such lessons in the next stage or as part of this project.  The main objective of course, is to request authorisation to begin work on the next stage.

 

If the Managing a Stage Boundary process is being used to prepare for an Exception Assessment, then the objectives are to prepare an Exception Plan as requested by the project board, update as appropriate, the documents already mentioned, and seek approval from the project board to either replace the Project Plan or the Stage Plan of the current stage with the Exception Plan.

 

Throughout this process project assurance and configuration management will be used extensively to review draft copies of documents and to provide new or modified Configurations Item Records or, if requested, to prepare a Product Status Account.

 

When approaching the end of the final stage in a PRINCE2 project, the Managing a Stage Boundary process will not be used.  When the final specialist product has been approved, the project manager will use the Closing a Project process to shut the project down in a controlled manner.  And hence the Managing a Stage Boundary process will not be needed.

 

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