PRINCE2 Project Tracking and corrective action
Let’s face it, in the real world project tracking doesn’t always go to plan, and this can happen for a variety of reasons, some of them internal and some of them external to the project.
Sources of planning deviation can include requested changes, incorrect estimating, scope changes, resource problems, technical problems, delays, and changes to the customer or business environment.
What is vital if the project is to be successful is that a structured approach is needed to handle such disruptions and to ensure that project tracking can keep the project on schedule and budget. Once the Initiation Stage has completed, focus will be on monitoring and controlling in each PRINCE2 delivery stages
The PRINCE2 framework includes the change theme and progress theme to counter all of the above and to aid project tracking and to ensure a timely and structured approach to your project when things go wrong.
Most of the project tracking and control will occur within the Controlling a Stage process, and will be initiated upon authorizing a work package to the specialist team.
PRINCE2 also has the beneficial control of tolerance which is applied at both at project and stage level, and may also be used at the executing a work package level. This acts as a safety net for when forecast variances are predicted during project tracking to exceed the authority of a management level, and ensures that such variances are escalated to the next level above.
I am referring of course to tolerances at work package level being escalated to the project manager, tolerances at the created stage plan level been escalated to the project board, and project level tolerances being escalated up to corporate or programme management.
Where problems or concerns during project tracking can be managed within tolerances, then the PRINCE2 issue process may be used. This is covered in the PRINCE2 Change Control theme.
Project issues can be regarded as anything that happens on the project that has not already been included in the plans. It’s important to understand that anyone can raise an issue whether they are part of the project team or not, and also, that they can be raised at any time.
Project Tracking – project changes
PRINCE2 suggest a structure for controlling all issues and changes as part of project tracking:
- Capture the issue to determine its severity and priority, and place it on the issue register
- Examine the issue by assessing its impact on the project objectives, risks and business case
- Propose and evaluate alternative response options and conclude with a recommendation
- Decide how best to implement the chosen option, escalate if beyond delegated authority, and make a decision whether to approve,
- Reject or defer the recommended option
- Implement by taking the above corrective action while updating all relevant records and plans
Let me now go through the above and bring out key points of project tracking:
However insignificant if the issue may first appear, it must be recorded either in the daily log if to be managed informally, or in the issue register so that its receipt can be acknowledged.
Issues can arise in an ad hoc manner and many small issues when seen as a combination, can cause serious potential problems to a project and thwart project tracking. To do this the capture and examine issues and risks activity will be used.
Even if initially the issue looks harmless enough and easily dealt with, they can turn out to be more dangerous than was first thought. It’s important that nothing gets overlooked within project tracking which is why every issue no matter how small should be recorded in some way, and the first thing that should occur is to acknowledge to the originator that you are now dealing with it.
The issue register is used for the whole project and it is the responsibility of the project manager to ensure that all issues are recorded within it, however this particular activity may be delegated to project support in their role of providing configuration management and change control.
Even if this happens, the project manager must review the progress and content of the issue register on a regular basis to ensure that all issues are being dealt with effectively as part of project tracking.
Attention to detail is vital here, as each issue should be allocated a unique reference number and assigned a category as this will aid managing, reporting and project tracking. PRINCE2 suggests three general categories for issues:
- Request for change
- Off specification
- General issue (this can include perceived problems or concerns)
When developing the configuration management strategy, a consideration is whether for large and complex projects that the above categories may be split into sub groupings. This may also be needed for when the project has a fixed end date all key milestones that must be met, or when there is pressure to start the project as soon as possible. These situations should provide clues during project tracking that it is likely that many issues will arise.
A grouping example of requests for change might be technical aspects, user driven change, or business reasons. Another grouping may be some change within the general environment of the project such as strategic direction, competitive forces or legislative change.
The PRINCE2 method recommends that the project manager uses some form of trend identification in project tracking to help keep in control. And the general management of issues is an example where trends can help.
Suppose that many issues are being raised by the customer, this may give clues to a misunderstanding of their quality expectations in particular the quality criteria contained within product descriptions. This is done in the PRINCE2 quality check.
Another example may be issues regarding excessive rework which may point towards a lack of skills knowledge or experience within the specialist team, the need for training, or an inadequate development environment such as the use and availability of development tools. Using these as inputs will help precise project tracking.
When examining issues, PRINCE2 suggests that a distinction is made between changes that affect an already developed product or one which is currently in progress. For the former, you will need the approval of the project board since it is they who have authorized the product descriptions.
When a change relates to a product that is still being created, it may be possible to incorporate such a change in to the existing work package.
As part of this examination, using the PRINCE2 activity take corrective action, such corrective action would need to be carried out within tolerance as part of project tracking, otherwise an issue will need to be raised along with an exception report. Always involve both customer and supplier sides when considering whether it is worthwhile in making the change including the involvement of those within the senior user role.
When examining project issues it is important that this should happen against the right criteria and to always ensure that you have the full set of information to hand. Beware of jumping to a conclusion even if the change request first appears to be only a cosmetic one.
Potential impacts to be considered in project tracking include the extra implementation time and/or cost, increased risk, potential quality issues, or a reduction in benefits. For these reasons PRINCE2 recommends that all project objectives should be inspected, relevant plans, impact on the business case, and the aggregation of all project risks.
The originator of the issue should document how serious they believe it to be, and the use of a prioritisation scheme such as MOSCOW should be used. An example of a must have change is where the final product will not work or not meet its quality criteria without this change. An important change would be where the final product would require some form of corrective action without this change.
An example of a nice to have change is where the user or customer would find the product easier to use or that the product would increase benefits in some way. An example of a cosmetic change would be one that does not change any working parts of the product.
In Part 2 of my article on project tracking, I shall discuss aspects such as reviewing the stage status, taking corrective action, re-planning, reporting on the issues, escalating problems, and preen would show a closure.
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