Product-based Planning Demystified – Part 1 

Product-based Planning Demystified – Part 1

You will probably already familiar with what is generally known as task planning using various views such as the Gantt chart and network diagram to show the list of tasks and their dependencies.

However, PRINCE2 does not expect you to start at that point, instead, it expects that you will be using some techniques upfront that require a totally different approach when thinking about the project – and this involves the techniques associated with “product-based” or “product-led” planning.

Just so that you are clear, the project deliverables in PRINCE2 are known as products, and although the deliverables are usually physical products, occasionally a deliverable may be a soft product or “outcome”.

This outcome may be something like a changed customer perception of the company, and in case it’s not obvious you cannot hold or touch a changed perception!

The problem with traditional planning

The traditional approach to planning that starts off with the familiar Gantt chart has a problem, and that is in order to draw a Gantt charts you start off by listing the activities of tasks down the left side of the Gantt.

As an example, suppose that you are to dig the foundations for a house.  So the task is called “dig the foundations”.  I’m sure you’ll agree that definition is on the task and not a product.

So now you wish to enter that task or activity on to the Gantt chart to show how long this activity should take.  So exactly how long does it take to dig the foundations?

This question will draw you into thinking about how deep to the foundations need to be, how long will the foundation trench need to be?  The answer to those to questions will tell you how much work is involved, and hence how long it will take you to complete the task of digging the foundations.

So let me stop you there.  If you attempt to draw that taskbar on to a Gantt chart then you will have to guess at how long it will take you.  You can now see that traditional planning has skipped an important first step.

You will need to start thinking of the “product-led” way.  First, you must define the product “foundations”.  And only when you are clear about what you intend to escalate, then you can come up more easily with the activities you need to do to build that deliverable and more accurately predict how long the work will take.

In other words, the focus first of all is on what you produce – the products – what the project produces.

If you have been going activity planning for some time, you may argue that you already think about what you are going to produce in order to come up with meaningful activities and timescales.  If that is so, then fine.

You see, you are already convinced of the value of the product-led approach and will fill a ease that it is expected in PRINCE2.

But the best news is yet to come, because if you take the product-led approach to planning, you will find that this approach has considerably more power than you think, and in particular when it comes to progress control.

Thinking “product” before “activity” is actually rather logical, because how can you come up with meaningful activities and sensible estimates until you know exactly what the product is.

It’s a cold fact that many projects go wrong right at the beginning because people do indeed just list activities and estimate durations before knowing what the project requires.  If you have project planners that provide you the project manager with such information, then you will need to ensure that they too, follow the product-led approach.

… to be continued …