PRINCE2 Requirements For Controlling Progress
PRINCE2 Controlling Progress
The Progress Theme Key message is: The purpose of the progress theme is to establish mechanisms to monitor and compare actual achievements against those planned, provide a forecast for the project objectives and the project’s continued viability, and control any unacceptable deviations.
Progress is the measure of the achievement of the objectives of a plan. Controlling progress is central to project management, ensuring that the project remains viable against its approved business case.
Progress control involves measuring actual progress against the performance targets of time, cost, quality, scope, benefits and risk.
This information is used to make decisions such as whether to approve a management stage or work package, whether to escalate deviations and whether to prematurely close the project, and to take actions as required. Progress can be monitored at work package, management stage and project level.
Of the PRINCE2 seven principles, the principle of manage by exception is particularly important to the progress theme.
An exception is a situation where it can be forecast that there will be a deviation beyond agreed tolerance levels. Tolerances are the permissible deviation above and below a plan’s target for cost and time without escalating the deviation to the next level of management. There may also be tolerance levels for quality, scope, benefits and risk.
To be following PRINCE2, a project must, as a minimum:
- define its approach to controlling progress in the PID be managed by stages (PRINCE2’s manage by stages principle)
- set tolerances and be managed by exception against these tolerances (PRINCE2’s manage by exception principle)
- review the business justification when exceptions are raised (PRINCE2’s continued business justification principle)
- learn lessons (PRINCE2’s learn from experience principle).
- Key message PRINCE2 does not prescribe a particular or detailed approach to managing progress. Any approach that meets the requirements described can be said to be following PRINCE2.
PRINCE2 provides progress control through: delegating authority from one level of management to the level below it dividing the project into management stages and authorizing the project one management stage at a time (PRINCE2’s manage by stages principle) time-driven and event-driven progress reporting and reviews raising exceptions (PRINCE2’s manage by exception principle).
The project’s controls should be documented in the PID .
PRINCE2 Types of Control
PRINCE2 provides two types of progress control throughout the life of a project:
Event driven controls
These take place when a specific event occurs. This could be, for example, the end stage assessment at the end of a management stage, the completion of the PID or the creation of an exception report. It could also include organizational events that might affect the project, such as the end of the financial year.
Time driven controls
These take place at predefined periodic intervals. This could be, for example, producing monthly highlight reports for the project board or weekly checkpoint reports showing the progress of a work package.
Monitoring and reporting requires a time-based approach, whereas control (decision-making) is an event-based activity. The following sections describe the management products that are used to establish and execute event-driven and time-driven controls.Baselines for Progress Control
It is only possible to control progress at the level of detail in the plans; for example, if weekly checkpoint reports are required, the stage plan will have to include what is to be achieved week by week.
PRINCE2 Progress Control management products
The following management products assist the project manager in establishing baselines for progress control:
Project Plan. Includes the project-level performance targets and tolerances. Threats to the project-level tolerances need to be escalated to the project board, which will seek advice from corporate, programme management or the customer for corrective action.
Stage Plan. Forms the basis of the day-to-day control of the management stage and detail stage-level tolerances. May be requested by the project board after considering an exception report during the directing a project process.
Work Package. Forms an agreement between the project manager and team manager as to the work to be completed within defined tolerances.
Reviewing Progress
As part of controlling a stage, the project manager will regularly review the progress of work through checkpoint reports and maintain the project registers and logs. The project manager will use this information to update the stage plan with actual progress achieved.
The format and frequency of checkpoint reporting will depend on the needs of individual work packages. It is also useful to look at trends to get a view of the overall ‘health’ of the management stage.
For example, the management stage may seem to be progressing well in terms of the products being completed against the schedule. However, the issue register may reveal an increasing number of issues which are not being resolved and which may be a cause for concern.
Similarly, a high number of outstanding items against a product in the quality register may show design issues with that product.The following management products assist in reviewing progress:
Issue register. Contains details of all formal issues raised during the project.
Product Status Account. Provides a snapshot of the status of products within the project, management stage or a particular area of the project.
Quality Register. Records all planned and implemented quality activities.
Risk Register. In addition, a daily log is a useful tool for recording actions. Project actions may arise from many sources and small actions may simply be recorded on the daily log and marked off when completed.
The daily log can also be used to record informal issues and any other notes or observations that are not captured by any other registers or logs.
The daily log is a useful way of recording individual observations that on their own may seem insignificant, but when collated may alert the project manager to a new issue or risk.
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