PRINCE2 Issue Definition – Part 1
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Setting up the Issue Register
Getting to grips with PRINCE2 Issues and their journey through the PRINCE2 Method is like unscrambling an egg – there are bits everywhere. Sure, the Change Theme is the logical place to start, and it also contains the issue process, but it does not tell you the whole story. So, I decided to fix that.
This series of articles and the associated three videos tell the path and journey from the raising of a new issue right through to its controlled completion. But I mustn’t get ahead of myself here, first I need to set the basics in place and explain why it is important to have a controlled route into the topic of PRINCE2 Issue Definition and management. Read On.
First up, an issue is communication from anyone with an interest in the project straight to the project manager at any time and about anything.
The subject matter of the issue may be to request that something be changed, or it may be to report a problem, perhaps it is to put forward a good idea.
Once the project manager receives an issue, they must make a decision about whether or not to deal with it formally or informally.
If the project manager’s decision is to deal with it informally, they simply record this in the Daily Log, which could be seen as a project diary.
However, if the issue needs to be managed more formally, then the project manager records the details on an Issue Report and then keeps track of the issue progress with entries in the Issue Register.
Defining a PRINCE2 7 project issue
PRINCE2 7 recommends that all issues are categorized as either:
- a problem or concern
- an event external to the project
- a business opportunity
- a request for change
- off-specification.
A project issue is a communication from anyone in the project or anyone with an interest in the project and it is sent directly to the project manager. An issue can be sent at any time during the project and it can be about anything, in particular, it does not have to relate to change.
As soon as the issue is received it is logged in the Issue Register so that it can be tracked or, if the project manager decides that the issue should be handled informally, it is entered into the Daily Log.
If It is entered into the Issue Register, the project manager first records the full details of the issue on an Issue Report.
A word of caution here. There may be those within your organisation who want to try to influence everything and the project manager may get bombarded with lots of issues. One way to resolve this and avoid overloading the project manager is to agree that anyone outside of the project raises such issues to the senior user and only then if it is agreed that It is entered as a formal issue.
PRINCE2 7 issue categories
PRINCE2 has three categories of issue even though you would want to process them in exactly the same way, and by this I mean record them and track their progress until they are resolved. Let me deal with each issue category in turn:
A general issue or “Problem /concern/opportunity “
The use of the term “Problem/Concern” can mislead some folks because of the negative connotation the word concern gives as being bad. However, an issue can be about anything at all, not just bad situations. Issues can also be a good ideas or questions.
Request For Change (RFC)
An RFC is a type of project issue where someone wants a change to a product that is already under change control since it has been baselined. The term baseline Is a configuration management term and means that the product has been quality checked and signed off.
An RFC can be submitted for a specialist product that a team has built, or a management product, for example the Business Case that you use to help manage the project.
Once a product has been baseline and, any change must go through the formal change control procedure. This is obvious really because there is no point in quality control staff carefully checking a product against its quality criteria and then signing it off if someone else and then complete the change it a few minutes later.
After a product is quality checked and signed off, nobody is allowed to touch it except under change control. This is equally true even if someone has a good idea for improvement and it may not take long to do.
Off Specification (Off-Spec)
The term off specification means that the product has failed to meet its quality criteria during testing and that you cannot easily correct the problem. An off specification could be raised even before the product is tested in a situation where the team can see that the product is never going to meet its quality criteria.
You may be thinking that if a product does not meet its criteria and it fails its test, the all you need to do is to take it away on work on it until it does meet the standard and passes the test. Although a reasonable thing to do, it may not always be that easy.
It may be that the correction is going to take some time and that time tolerance would be exceeded, or perhaps the resources are no longer available, or that obtaining resources is difficult, for example some components used within the product are no longer available.
So the usual case is that an off specification is for a product that has not met its quality criteria, but sometimes it can be because a product exceeds its specification which may also cause a problem.
Dealing with a PRINCE2 Concession
On occasion, it may be the right thing to do to accept an off specification rather than try to correct, or redesign the product in some way. Just accepting the product as it is may be the best option for many reasons including time or cost. Such a situation within a PRINCE2 project is called a Concession.
Most of the time, it will only be the Project Board who can sign off a Concession. But what about highly technical projects where the Project Board’s experience may not be sufficient to make an informed choice?
In such a situation it may make sense to delegate Concession decision-making to the team manager or possibly even a team specialist. If this were to be the case, the Project Board would merely be “Rubber stamping “such an evaluation.
Accept it now – Fix it later
This is often a decision that needs to be made in the real world. The way to approach this is to combine a Concession with a follow on action – Which in turn allows the situation to be managed as a temporary Concession.
This would be a smart move particularly if you don’t have time to correct it without missing a key delivery milestone. You would make a Concession and accept the product knowing that it is only a temporary fix.
You would need the supplier or technical team to provide a new reworked product that does meet its quality criteria and come back after some time, maybe even after the project has finished, and get it accepted. You would pass the follow-on action to a manager in the organization who would then take responsibility for it after the project and is committed to ensuring that the supplier provides an improved product.
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