Accept and Execute a PRINCE2 Work Package – Part 2
Work Package secrets
Using your PRINCE2 work package
Okay, now you have a solid understanding of how each work package is authorized. Now let us cover the main purpose of this article.
To help, here is a diagram showing the relationships between the controlling a stage and managing product delivery processes.
Remember that the project manager is responsible for the former, and the team manager and teams, responsible for the latter:
Accept and Execute a PRINCE2 Work Package
Accept a work package
This activity belongs to the managing product delivery process where the team and the team manager if there is one, will carry out this activity.
It is where the team or team manager takes responsibility for delivering the work packages products. The team may not accept the initial information in the work package and they may need to negotiate with the project manager for things such as more time or resources to carry out the work.
The teams will then need to agree with the project manager to deliver the work package within certain tolerances.
An important aspect to consider here, is that the team do not issue an exception report if they are forecasting that tolerances are to be exceeded. Instead, they raise an issue and bring it to the attention of the project manager who will then decide on what to do next based on the wider tolerances within the stage and project.
The work package contains the product descriptions for the products to be delivered.
These contain the product specifications and explain how to check and approve the product – in other words to carry out the quality checks. The teams use this information to understand what to deliver and what quality activities to plan.
It could be a good idea for the teams to check with project assurance to ensure that the quality activities are still suitable and that no extra viewers will be needed.
The team or the team manager may need to create a team plan to show how the work package will be delivered within the agreed constraints. They would want to consult with the supplier side project assurance to ensure that the team plan follows any relevant supplier standards.
In addition, the project manager might want to review this team plan to reassure themselves on the viability of the work package.
If the work package is being carried out under a contract by a third party, then it may not be appropriate that the project manager is shown the team plan, but in such a case, it would be prudent to issue the project manager with the key set of milestones and delivery dates of the individual products within the work package.
As I mentioned in my note above, the teams may have already created the team plan when the project manager was creating the stage plan (simply because the teams were involved with the project manager at stage planning time). This should make a lot of sense, since the stage plan would encompass all the work to be carried out within each work package.
It is important to note that if at stage planning time, the teams are assisting the project manager in creating the next stage plan, then they would be using the managing product delivery activity, accept a work package, even though at this point, the teams are not accepting a work package!
You won’t find that information in the official PRINCE2 Manual!
Execute a work package
This is where 80 to 90% of the project budget is being spent, since it is where the project’s specialist products are created.
Quite an important activity – I’m sure you would agree.
These activities carried out by the team manager if there is one, and the specialist team.
Put another way, this is where the “real work” is carried out rather than the management stuff like creating plans.
The teams will develop the specialist products so that they match the specifications described and each products’ product descriptions.
They may have agreed with the project manager to use certain techniques, process is, or procedures when they create the products. An example here might be to follow an organizational standard.
During the creation of the products, the teams may need to liaise with other people or organizations. This may be necessary to insure their work does not conflict with each other, or that their product has the right “interfaces” to match all work with other products being created by other teams.
The “development interfaces” section of the work package will describe anyone the teams might need to liaise with.
As I’ve mentioned, the products may have to connect with other products during their operational life, and here the “operations and maintenance interface” section of the work package will describe any specialist products that the products being delivered will need to interface with in their operational life.
The teams and project assurance will need to ensure that quality control activities to check the products, are carried out by the relevant people.
The product descriptions will specify what quality methods must be used to check the products and who should be involved with the review and approval of such products.
The teams should ensure that quality and approval records are kept showing proof that the quality activities have been done and the products are approved. In this respect, the team should ensure that the quality register is updated with the results of these quality checks.
The teams will also need to follow any configuration management approach is described within the work package. Such descriptions could, where the products need to be stored, have different versions of the products be identified, all who needs to be updated if the product is completed.
Finally, the team should readily update the project manager on their product creation progress by sending a checkpoint report. The work package will describe the format and frequency of the checkpoint report.
Be aware, that the checkpoint could be a face to face (or teleconference) meeting rather than a document.
