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Managing Product Delivery 

 April 28, 2016

By  Dave Litten

Managing Product Delivery

Here is what you will learn in this Managing Product Delivery Process. In this process, you will learn about the 3 activities which are:

  • Accepting a Work Package
  • Executing a Work Package
  • Delivering a Work Package

These Activities outline the actions for the Team Manager, not the Project Manager.

It is important that you understand what a Work Package is: A Work Packages is a way for the Project Manager to group work activities together and assign it to a team or Team Manager to produce one or more products. So a Work Package is a document; it is a set of information about one or more required products.

A Work Package can contain the following:

  • Work Package description
  • product descriptions
  • techniques to be used
  • tolerances
  • date of agreement between Project Manager and Team Manager
  • how the Team Manager will report to the Project Manager
  • Quality information.

A Work Package should be seen as a document that does not include the products themselves, just information about the work to be done and how to do it. Later, it will show what has been done and information on the Quality checks.

Managing Product Delivery Purpose

The purpose of the Managing Product Delivery Process is to manage and control the work between the Project Manager and the Team Manager by placing certain formal requirements on the accepting, executing, and delivery of products.

The objective of the Managing Product Delivery Process is to ensure that:

  • Products assigned to the team are authorized and agreed.
  • The team is clear about what has to be produced & understands the effort, time and cost.
  • The planned products are delivered to the expectations and within tolerance.
  • Accurate progress information is provided to the Project Manager by the Team Manager.

The Managing Product Delivery Process views the project from the Team Manager’s point of view in the same way the Controlling a Project process is from the point of view of the Project Manager.

The Managing Product Delivery Process only interacts with the Controlling a Stage process.

The Team Manager does the following to ensure that products contained in the Work Packages are created and delivered:

  • Accepts and checks Work Packages from the Project Manager
  • Creates a Team Plan to show how these products will be developed.
  • Gets the products developed.
  • Demonstrates that each product meets its quality criteria (Tip: Use the Quality Review Meeting.)
  • Obtains approval for each product.
  • Delivers the completed products to the Project Manager.

Managing Product Delivery Activities

There are just three activities in Managing Product Delivery, and they are:

  • Accepting a Work Package
  • Executing a Work Package
  • Delivering a Work Package

You could also think of this as Accept, Do and Deliver.

Remember that the Managing Product Delivery Process views the project from the Team Managers perspective

Accepting a Work Package:

The Team Manager accepts the Work Package from the Project Manager and creates the Team Plan to manage the development of the products.

Executing a Work Package:
The team produces the products, carries out quality checks, obtains approval, and reports to the Project Manager using the Checkpoint Report.

Delivering a Work Package:
Deliver a Work Package is delivering proof that the products are complete (e.g. results of test, acceptance) to Project Manager.
This involves ensuring that the Quality Register is updated, that approvals are done, that products are delivered as described in the Configuration Management Document, and that the Project Manager is notified

Accepting a Work Package is about getting an agreement between the Project Manager and the Team Manager on what has to be delivered, and on reporting requirements and other work.

The Team Manager will do the following when reviewing the Work Package to ensure they understand what has to be done before committing to the Work Package:

  • Clarify with the Project Manager what has to be delivered
  • Negotiate the constraints with the Project Manager for time, effort and cost to make sure they can work within these limits.
  • Understand the reporting requirements, i.e., the format & frequency of the Checkpoint Report.

Accept a Work Package

  • Understand how and from whom approval for the products is to be obtained, i.e., who has to sign off on each product.
  • Understand how the approved products are to be handed over (e.g., hand over to product owner or to the person responsible for Configuration Management)
  • Confirm how the Project Manager would like to be informed when the Work Package is complete (e.g., via an email with a list of all products, their quality checks and approval information).

The Team Manager creates the Team Plan to show how the products will be produced. This Team Plan can be reviewed by the Project Manager.

The Team Manager will also:

  • update the Quality Register to add planned quality reviews
  • agree with the Project Manager to deliver the Work Package

The documents that are usually created and updated during this activity are:

  • the Team Plan
  • the Quality Register
  • the Configuration Item Records to show how the status of the products that have changed

The Team Manager will manage the production of the products and keep within the tolerances that have been agreed with the Project Manager. If the Team Manager believes that a tolerance will be exceeded, they must inform the Project Manager.

The first and third activities deal with administration, i.e., accepting and delivering back a Work Package. This activity is where the products get produced and the real work gets done. Therefore the first and third activities can be very short compared to this activity.

PRINCE2 recommends the following actions for the Team Manager:

  • Develop products to the required quality criteria. This information comes from the Product Descriptions
  • Ensure that work is done using the required techniques and processes.
  • Update the Quality Register to record Quality activities.
  • Record the effort expended (e.g., how the resources are being used)
  • Monitor for risks and issues.

Accept a Work Package

Other actions recommend by PRINCE2 are:

  • Notifying the Project Manager of any issues or risks that they need to be made aware off
  • Obtaining approvals for completed products and updating the necessary Configuration Item Records, as the status of products will have changed (been developed, Quality-Checked and Approved)
  • Reviewing the progress of the work, updating the Team Plan and creating the Checkpoint Reports, which will be sent to the Project Manager

If at any time the Team Manager believes that the agreed tolerances will be exceeded, then they should notify the Project Manager by raising an issue.
Another important point to be noted is:

  • The Team used to develop the products may not be aware of the full PRINCE2 process and this is fine, as long as they follow this process outlined in these three activities
  • The Team can also use such methods as SCRUM to develop the products, and this can work very well with PRINCE2.

Deliver a Work Package

The activity name “Deliver a Work Package” is perhaps confusing, especially when you hear the following statement, “Deliver a Work Package to the Project Manager.” This activity is about returning a list of work to the Project Manager, which is a paper document and does not include the products. The produced products are delivered to a specific person as agreed in the Work Package.

PRINCE2 recommends the following actions for the Team Manager:

  • Checking the Quality Register to verify that all the Quality activities associated with the Work Package are complete
  • Checking that all products have been approved correctly. Checking with approval records
  • Updating Team Plan to show that work has been completed.

Execute a Work Package

Following the procedure in the Work Package to deliver the completed products, e.g.: hand them over to a specific person or this could be the person responsible for Configuration Management.
The final steps include the notification of the Project Manager that the Work Package is complete. As already mentioned, this could be an email to the Project Manager with a copy to the Product Owner.

The Project Manager should always check that products have been correctly handed over

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Dave Litten


Dave spent 25+ years as a senior project manager for UK and USA multinationals and has deep experience in project management. He now develops a wide range of Project Management Masterclasses, under the Projex Academy brand name. In addition, David runs project management training seminars across the world, and is a prolific writer on the many topics of project management.

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