How long should a PRINCE2 Project Delivery Stage last?

PRINCE2 Projects are based on a customer/supplier environment. The Managing Product Delivery process describes the tasks and responsibilities of the Team Manager accomplishing the goals of a Work Package:

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Project Delivery – the heart of the PRINCE2 matter

Probably 90% of the project budget is spent within project delivery using the PRINCE2 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 PRINCE2 Checkpoint Reports during project delivery, 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 within a project delivery stage and the approval of these specialist products.

Since the PRINCE2 Stage Plan has been approved by the Project Board to trigger project delivery, 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.

Within PRINCE2 project delivery 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 PRINCE2 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 within a PRINCE2 project delivery stage, 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 PRINCE2 stage end is approaching, in which case the project manager would use the Managing a Stage Boundary (SB) process to prepare for a PRINCE2 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 PRINCE2 stage and project. The appropriate Issue or Risk Register should be updated with such information during project delivery.

If the project manager determines that some corrective action can be taken during project delivery, via the issue of new or modified Work Packages to resolve the situation then such actions would need to be taken within a PRINCE2 project.

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 PRINCE2 activity Escalate issues and risks, the project manager would bring this Exception Report to the attention of the PRINCE2 project board during a project delivery stage. 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
a set of options, which if implemented would return the stage of project within tolerance bounds
a recommendation of which option should be chosen, and why it is the best option

PRINCE2 Project Delivery outcomes

The Exception Report is sent to the PRINCE2 project board who now need to make a decision on what to do next within this project delivery stage. 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 one recommended by the project manager, or one which they have determined. This would trigger the project manager to use the PRINCE2 Managing a Stage Boundary (SB) process within the current project delivery stage.

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 during a project delivery:

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 PRINCE2 process would follow the following steps and activities during project delivery:

Create either a next PRINCE2 Stage Plan or an Exception Plan
Update the PRINCE2 Project Plan to show actual progress and if necessary, a modified future forecast
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.
As a result of the above, new or modified Product Descriptions will need to be created, plus new or modified risks and issues entered on to the appropriate registers including any lessons that have been learned during the PRINCE2 stage.
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 during the project delivery stage.
The project manager will produce an End Stage Report and if appropriate create a Lessons Report.

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All of the above will be brought before the PRINCE2 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 (triggering the stage in project delivery), 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 and hence the stage to use project delivery, 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) within a project delivery stage, then this will trigger the project manager to acknowledge that the project end is approaching, and will then trigger the Closing a Project process

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