Creating work package products
In terms of the PRINCE2 method, it is the ‘managing product delivery’ process that deals with actually building the specialist products contained within one or more work packages within the PRINCE2 stage.
In this short article I explain the detailed activities that will typically be performed between receiving the work package and returning the completed work package.
In terms of the high-level activities contained within the ‘managing product delivery’ process, there are only three:
- Accept a Work Package
- Execute a Work Package
- Deliver a Work Package
So What Is A Work Package?
The work package is in effect an instruction pack from the project manager to a team manager asking them to build a PRINCE2 specialist product.
Each work package may contain one or more products to be created.
The details of exactly what each product should consist of, its outcome if you will, is contained within the product description. There will be one product description for each product and this will be included within the work package.
The work package defines what products are to be created, and sets out any constraints and requirements for the way that the work has to be carried out. I have given details of the structure and content of a work package in other articles that I have posted on my projex.com website.
The first assumption that is often made, is than a work package is a document and hence contributes to a bureaucratic overhead of any project, but this is not true.
One of the biggest killers of projects is poor communication, and in particular communication between the project manager and the specialist team who will create the products.
Merely asking for a product by name leads its interpretation wide open to the specialist team, while including a product description within a work package, it is absolutely clear what the product should be, and what it should be able to do.
This is clarified by including the quality criteria for each product within its product description along with who should check that the product meets these criteria, and who should authorize that the product is indeed fully complete.
The work package itself may be given verbally all very informally where this is appropriate. The watchword here is to provide sufficient information in an appropriate format in order to exercise sufficient control over the project.
Because of the flexibility of tailoring the PRINCE2 method to any project with in any environment, it may be for a small, low risk and simple project, that the project manager is also the team manager, and in addition will be the single individual that creates the products.
In this extreme case, issuing yourself with the work package including any relevant product descriptions may be just a mental exercise rather than a physical one!
PRINCE2 documentation
Before going into detail about the activities it is worth summarizing the main documents that will be used here:
The Checkpoint report. This is used by the team manager to report progress on the development of the products within a work package back to the project manager.
Configuration item records. These keep track of the state of products that the specialist team develop and deliver. Such records will often be set up and managed by your organizations project office as part of the provision of configuration management services.
Who actually creates and manages these records will be captured within the work package, which in itself feeds back to the configuration management strategy document contained within the project initiation documentation.
Quality Register. This record the outcome of the quality checks or tests and is normally completed by the same people will be carrying out such tests.
Team Plan. This is an optional PRINCE2 plan created by the team manager. Such a detail plan may help the team manager to plan and manage the information contained within the work package, although there may be sufficient information contained within the stage plan.
Let me now focus on creating the work package products themselves.
Accepting a Work Package
The team manager discusses the work package with the project manager to clarify and agree on the requirements contained within it. It may be sensible to include the team manager during planning the next stage, so that when the stage plan is signed off and work commences, the work package requirements will have already been discussed and agreed.
However, it is still important that the activity of receiving the work package is carried out, as there may be some detail all information that was not known at the time of planning the stage.
Don’t forget that the activity of receiving a work package will normally occur several times within a stage as the project manager gives out work to, possibly internal teams, and possibly external teams.
This may occur in a time series of work packages given out throughout the stage or it may be two or more work packages given out at one or more points during the stage.
In summary the purpose of the optional team plan is to provide sufficient level of detail for the team manager to control the development of the products within the work package.
Building the products
It is here that the stage plan or team plan along with information contained within the work package, is used by the team manager to initiate the team working to create and test the products.
Usefully, the work package contains information on any constraints and also sets down the reporting requirements which will refer to the information needed within the checkpoint report how often it is to be sent, and who needs to be sent a copy in addition to the project manager.
In this way, these checkpoints help to establish the progress of the products and ensure that the work package will be delivered within the agreed time. Checkpoints may be a documented report or they may be a meeting or even a presentation. These can often be distributed via email.
Version Control
It is important to keep the version control up to date as the products go through the different stages of their development, testing and approval. The configuration item records and the information they contain must be kept up to date. Remember that each product will have its own unique configuration item record.
The work package instructions will advise the team manager who needs to be notified to keep the configuration item record up to date, or it may be that the team manager is to do the updating themselves.
Checkpoint
As I said above this may be a document or it may be a meeting, however its purpose is to establish progress and to bring to the attention of the project manager any issues or risks that need to be dealt with.
It is most likely that checkpoints would occur are at the end of each week and can often be done informally with the team sat around a table. This may occur in tandem with the team completing their time sheets and thinking through their activities and any problems for the following week.
Management team takes both management and leadership skills, so the added benefit of regular checkpoints helps keep the manager in the loop and ensure that the team remain enthusiastic all be motivated and concerned. This can be a great help in taking corrective action before a problem gets to severe.
An important monitoring progress aspect for the project manager is keeping an eye on the quality of the products being created. This information may become clear at each checkpoint, but it is important that the team manager also checks that the right tests and checks are being performed by the right people.
The quality register is helpful here as the team manager can check the entries in it which lists all the required tests together with a space for signing them off when they are completed.
Returning the completed products
This is often a source for confusion. The nature of the product may determine whether it is actually ‘delivered’ or whether it is pre-installed.
For example, if one of the products is described as an installed cable conduit, then once that product is complete and authorized it always the does not need to be delivered in any way as he is already installed in place.
Another confusion is that when such completed products should be returned. In some projects the completed products are merely stored in a secure area until the project completes the end-product which is the point where all products are given to the users or the customer.
In other projects, it may be that the products are returned or installed to the customer or user at key points during the project rather than waiting until the end.
Whatever method is used, when the product or the products of the work package are complete, the team manager needs to check them over one last time before delivering the products or notifying appropriate individuals of their completion.
The ‘how’ and ‘who’ of this will be laid out within the work package instructions.
As part of this final checks the team manager will want to look at the quality register to ensure that all the tests required for these products have indeed been completed and signed off in addition to the necessary acceptances.
The acceptance authorization may come from the customer, user, or from a technical specialist. Indeed, the acceptance may be carried out by a third party such as a test house.
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