PRINCE2 products Demystified
Products are a vital part of PRINCE2 planning, and cover not just what the teams are to build, but what is being used to manage the project. This is a significant departure from the traditional activity-led approach.
Specialist products
As a start, I want to focus on the products that the specialist teams are creating. Now, projects are primarily about delivering things, so the main work of the project teams is production – and what the teams are producing other products.
The product is something that you can holding your hands or, if it’s too big for that, something you can kick!
In most cases the product is something physical, but occasionally they may not be. An example could be where the end product of the project is a change of culture.
The two categories of PRINCE2 products
PRINCE2 recognizes two categories of product, where the products being built by the teams are known as specialist products or deliverables.
Although the team products are extremely important if the project is to be successful, you are also going to need some products for planning and control of the project. You will also require things such as a risk register, a project plan and the daily log.
These things are also products, the ones that are being used for project management, and for this reason they are known as management products. The official Manual lists all of the management products in Appendix A.
PRINCE2 Non-Products
Specialist products are what the teams are producing and they are usually physical things. To help your understanding, here are some examples of what the product is not:
Activities. The trick here is to watch out for any verbs in the product names
Sources of supply. Where the product has come from, notably when it is outside the project, rather than what the product actually is
Resources. Particular people rather than the products which those people are generating, but resources can be Financial Resources as well
The three sub categories of management products
Baseline management products
The baseline management products are ones which will change, or which are highly likely to change, and for which you will want to keep earlier versions. The key to remembering these is the word baseline, which is a configuration management or version control expression.
If something is changing, you are going to need version control to know how and when it is changed, and whether you have got the latest version. The project plan is included within this category as the project plan will definitely change during the project.
For a start, things never go exactly to plan, and the plan will need adjusting, as you are going to want to enter actual source of time and money actually spent in order to do further forecasts. So it makes a lot of sense to find that the project plan, stage plan and team plan all form part of the baselines list.
Records
Records are dynamic products in constant use and being updated with the latest information. For a record, you would not normally want to revert to an earlier version of the product.
As an example, consider the daily log. The daily log acts primarily as a diary. If you notice something today then find out in three days’ time that circumstances have changed, you will not go back and alter the earlier entry, rather, you will just add another dated note explaining the new situation
Reports
Reports are snapshots at a particular point in time, and consequently are not normally version controlled. The project manager will report progress to the project board at set and agreed intervals; normally monthly or weekly.
The highlight report for a particular month should be prepared in under an hour, so it’s not going to go through several versions.
If, say after two weeks of issuing a highlight report, the situation changes in some way, the project manager will simply explain that change in the next report – they will not go back and edit the previous reports and then reissue it as it was just a snapshot of the position at that time.
All of the reports within PRINCE2 have the word report in their title apart from the product status account which could have been called the product status report to better describe its purpose.
