PRINCE2 7 Issues Practice supporting tools
It is often possible to make trade-offs or concessions among requirements or tolerances, such as obtaining better performance from a product in return for allowing a delay in its delivery.
Although all issues should be assessed, not all will necessitate a change. To reject it and do nothing can be an issue’s valid response.
The assessment of issues and the development of ways to resolve them is best approached cooperatively by gathering inputs and ideas from a variety of project team members and stakeholders.
This is particularly true when the issue has impacts and response options outside the project scope.
It may be useful to seek the advice of the project board to confirm its understanding of an issue’s priority or severity before completing the assessment and proposing options.
PRINCE2 Issues – Supporting techniques
A variety of problem-solving techniques may be used to enable the assessment and resolution of
issues. Examples include:
- Root cause analysis: deconstructs a problem into its contributing causes to distinguish one or more primary causes from other secondary or derivative ones.
- Pareto analysis: collects possible causes and identifies the most likely ones using the 80/20rule, also known as the Pareto principle, which asserts that 80 per cent of outcomes result from 20 per cent of all causes. This is useful when multiple causes exist and no single one is the obvious source.
- cause and effect analysis: sorts possible causes into categories that diverge from the original problem, to identify the most significant factors. This analysis is sometimes performed using a fishbone or Ishikawa diagram
- failure mode analysis: a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a product or process and assessing the consequences of each. This usually requires some form of the product, either an interim form (such as a prototype) or a final form to exist
- five whys: uses a series of questions (such as ‘why did this happen? ’ ) to investigate successive layers of a problem. The answer to each question becomes the basis of the next ‘ why? ’ question. This is a simple tool that is useful when detailed statistics are not needed or available.
The 5 Whys uses “counter-measures,” rather than “solutions.” A counter-measure is an action or set of actions that seek to prevent the problem from arising again, while a solution may seek to deal with the symptom. As such, counter-measures are more robust, and will more likely prevent recurring problems.
To be effective, problem-solving techniques must be applied systematically. A team effort is typically required.
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