PRINCE2 7 Project Health Check – 38 Speedy Power Keys
Why do we need PRINCE2 Project Health Check? Despite our best practice methodologies and a slew of lessons learned, projects, just like dying dinosaurs, still continue to fail – a massive 66% of them in fact!
If PRINCE2 projects were easy and a formula for perfection had been discovered, then project managers and organisations would have applied it by now. The fact of the matter is however, that attaining or repeating project success remains the holy grail of project management.
It is generally accepted that PRINCE2 project success can be split into two broad camps, project management maturity and project delivery effectivity.
Here then, are the Power Keys for a toned-to-perfection PRINCE2 project:
PRINCE2 7 Pre-project
- The project board and appropriate other PRINCE2 roles designed and appointed by individuals along with their role descriptions and with sufficient authority, availability and credibility
- Lessons from previous projects have been determined and applied if required plus the daily lessons logs have been set up.
- A full project brief has been produced containing the outline business case, project product description and project approach
- The initiation stage plan has been produced
PRINCE2 7 – Authorizing the initiation stage
- The project brief and initiation stage plan are approved
- Resources are in place for the initiation stage and tolerances have been set
- The project manager is advised that work may start
- All key stakeholders advised that the project has now formally started
PRINCE2 7 – The initiation stage
- The PRINCE2 project initiation documentation has been defined, documented and assembled
- The project log and registers have been set up and populated
- The project management team structure has been refined as per PRINCE2 organizing practice and the People section, and where appropriate new appointments are in place along with appropriate role descriptions
- The nine project management approaches have been created and reviewed
- The PRINCE2 project board have reviewed and approved the project initiation documentation in particular, confirming that the various tailoring, approaches, plans, controls roles and tolerances are appropriate
PRINCE2 7 – Delivering the project
- The PRINCE2 stage plan has been reviewed and authorised and stage tolerances have been set
- Work package descriptions have been authorized and approved with a team plan if required
- Specialist products have been produced in accordance with their product descriptions and have been approved
- Version control records are up to date and products handed over if appropriate according to the Issues Management Approach
- The registers and logs have been maintained and regular checkpoint reports had been created with actual and forecast progress
- Issues, problems, concerns, risks and records and other online communication aspects are regularly occurring between the project manager and team manager.
- The PRINCE2 stage plan is regularly updated with corrective actions if required, and remains within stage tolerances
- Regular highlight reports have been created and issued and the business case checked for viability
- PRINCE2 Management by Exception is being used an exception report created when tolerance is forecast to be exceeded
- Good lines of communication exists between the PRINCE2 project board and the project manager in terms of requests and reports
PRINCE2 7 – Stage boundary activities
- All stage products have been approved and status verified via the Product Register
- If appropriate, products were handed over along with documented issues and follow-on action recommendations
- All PRINCE2 logs, registers, issues and reports have been created or updated, and reviewed
- The various PRINCE2 plans and approaches have been reviewed and updated if appropriate
- The project initiation documentation has been reviewed and updated if appropriate
- The project board review the end stage report, and updated project plan, business case and the risks
- The project board review and approve the next stage plan, set tolerances for it, and ensure that resources are in place for the next stage, or have directed that the project be prematurely closed
PRINCE2 7 – Project closure
- the benefits management approach may need to be updated to include the post-project benefits review or reviews of the performance of the project product in operational use. Such benefits reviews may identify whether there have been any side effects (beneficial or adverse) that could provide useful lessons for other projects.
- prepare follow-on action recommendations for the project product to include any uncompleted work, issues, and risks in consultation with the project management team.
- check that the benefits management approach includes post-project activities to confirm benefits that cannot be measured until after the project product has been in operational use for some time, such as reliability performance.
- Exceptions records have been completed for handover of the project product and operational and maintenance staff have accepted it
- The PRINCE2 project plan, business case and benefits management approach have been updated with actuals
- All registers and logs have been closed and project documentation archived
- The PRINCE2 project board have confirmed handover and acceptance and approved the end project report
- The PRINCE2 project board can approve the end project report and confirmed the business case and approved the updated benefits management approach
- The project board have ensured that follow-on action recommendations have been correctly recorded, reviewed, the lessons report and project closure notification issued, and advised that resources can now be released
- In the case of premature closure, a plan is in place for recovering complete or incomplete products and if so requested, an exception plan has been created and approved
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PRINCE2® 7 Foundation and Practitioner
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The PRINCE2 Foundation examination assesses your knowledge and comprehension of the PRINCE2 project management methodology as detailed in the syllabus. The PRINCE2 Practitioner examination, on the other hand, gauges your ability to apply and tailor the PRINCE2 method. Candidates who pass the Practitioner exam should be able to start implementing the method on an actual project with some guidance. However, their effectiveness may differ based on their experience in project management, the complexity of the project, and the level of support they receive in their work environment.
