Product Based Planning in detail
I have written another article on product-based planning, but this one is different, because I explain who toy WORKSHOP the technique in detail.
In case this sounds like PRINCE2 is not in the real world — then think again. The purpose of this article is to give you some ideas and approaches when using the very powerful PRINCE2 technique called product-based planning.
It is helpful to first consider where in a PRINCE2 project that product-based planning is used. There are three levels of plan, and four types of plans possible within a PRINCE2 project, and all of them use product-based planning. These are:
- The Project Plan (mandatory)
- The Stage Plan (normally used)
- The Team Plan (optional)
The Exception Plan is only ever needed, should the Project Plan or stages plans causes the project manager to forecast that Tolerance of that plan is to be exceeded.
In such a case, if the project board requests for it, an Exception Plan will be created, and if approved, replace the plan that would no longer finish within tolerance. Therefore, an Exception Plan must have the same level of detail in it as the plan it replaces – so these too need to use product-based planning!
For each of these situations the Product-Based Planning Technique is used.
In PRINCE2, all plans are normally documents and the planning process is used to create such a document. The planning process consists of several activity steps. It is the general activity of defining and then analyzing the products, that is done to perform product based planning.
The Product Based Planning Technique consists of four steps:
- Create a Project Product Description for the project final product (used for Project Plan only)
- Create the Product Breakdown Structure
- Create a Product Description for each lower level product
- Create a Product Flow Diagram
The first activity is to design the plan and is typically only used once in the project during PRINCE2 product-based planning to agree the way it will be presented and used. From there on, when creating the next stage plan at the end of a stage, having to agree the design and layout for example would not be necessary.
For a small and simple project, the four PRINCE2 product-based planning steps listed above may only consist of one step. If the project only has one major end product, then the diagrams are not required — maybe only the Project Product Description is needed – but this would be an extreme example in applying product-based planning…
For slightly more complex projects, there may only be a handful of products, and the two diagrams within PRINCE2 product-based planning can be sketched out in a matter of minutes. However, this will still mean that product descriptions will need to be created for significant products. The guideline here is that ” does the creation of a product description add any value”. The key question to ask here is “would determining the product quality criteria be helpful?”
Even if there were (say) four products to be created, then the Product Breakdown Structure may not be needed, but the Product Flow Diagram will enable the sequence of creation of the products, and this will give vital activity scheduling information after you have performed product-based planning.
But the way that product-based planning is applied to a particular project may not simply be all or nothing. For example, if the resources for the initiation stage plan are obvious and straightforward, then a simple statement of the time frame and those resources may be sufficient.
During the initiation stage, the project plan is created, and uses of course, the product-based planning technique. Because of the high-level nature of the Project Plan, not all products may be known at this time, or, for those that are known, not all of the details can be determined at this point in time.
This suggests that when the planning a particular stage at some point in the future for a given project, existing and incomplete product descriptions can now have the extra information added, along with the creation of new product descriptions by decomposition, known for the first time and their sequence at this point during product-based planning.
Product Based Planning in The Real World.
As with most product-based planning, it is best done within a team environment such as a planning workshop. This has the added advantage of using the combined knowledge skills and experience of all those present. The best practical way of carrying out such a workshop is by doing the following:
- Distributing a draft copy of the Project Product Description, and via a flip chart or overhead projector, refine the information in that document.
- Creating the product breakdown structure. Consider splitting the participants into groups or facilitating them as one large group. Give each participant a set of POST-IT Notes, and get them to name the products they believe necessary — one name per Post-It.
- Using a large sheet of paper usually mounted on a wall, get each of these post-its laid out in the form of a product breakdown structure. Be prepared for more than one opinion of the correct structure, it is important to reach a compromise.
- Draft copies of all major product descriptions can now be created, or you may choose to leave such creation until both diagrams have been created.
- It will be fairly straightforward to reuse the post-it notes to create the product flow diagram.
The remaining steps of the planning process (after product-based planning), will now be dealt with. Estimating. PRINCE2 gives little advice on estimating, and this is a good thing, because projects and industries will vary greatly in their use of estimating techniques.
However, the following points may be helpful:
PRINCE2 7 Planning Top-down estimating.
This is normally used when creating the project plan level.
This can be done using a flip chart with a few key people to determine the high-level technical tasks that needs to be undertaken. Examples such as design, development, testing, etc, can be used here.
Using the experience of the people present, a top level approach of costs and timescales for each of these activities can be estimated. The activities that are used for each particular product can be summed together to get a development cost/budget’s for each product within product-based planning.
An example might be ” this activity will take around four weeks and will need on average three people working full-time”. Knowing what the labor costs are, and any other non-than human resource, it is easy to arrive at a cost figure. Drawing a simple Gantt Chart on the flipchart will give a top-level estimates of the total project duration.
PRINCE2 7 Planning Bottom-Up Estimating.
This is normally used when creating the stage or team plan levels.
The secret here is not to estimate the task duration, but to consider the work effort needed within each task. Making assumptions about how many people will be carrying out the work on each task, the duration and costs for each class can be estimated.
Using a planning tool and the experienced advice from the team, the tasks or activities needed to create each product can be set up in the correct sequence and showing the right dependencies between each.
PRINCE2 Planning Scheduling
Using the name of each product in turn, get the participants to create new post-it notes, one for each activity that would be necessary to create each product. These new post-it notes can now be used directly to create a traditional network diagram. The product post-it notes will be represented on such a diagram as a milestone.
What happens next will depend upon the complexity of the project. PRINCE2 assumes the use of a planning tool, and it is often best to bring this planning meeting to a close and use the network diagram as an information source to enter activities directly into such a tool.
The remaining steps within scheduling can now take place, such as Critical Path analysis, resource leveling and loading, agreeing control points, and the creation of other costs and resource plans.
PRINCE2 Planning Risk Analysis.
This consists of using the team to determine what the risks are facing this particular plan. This uses risk analysis including the selection of possible risk responses. These actions will need to be built into the plan in the form of activities and resources — resulting in returning to previous steps to include these resources for example within the network diagram. It is important to take detailed notes here for inclusion within the Risk Register – particularly each Risk Owner.
PRINCE2 Planning Completing the Plan.
This is the final step, and since in PRINCE2 all plans documents, the narrative sections of the plan can now be created — resulting in the completed draft document.
It is advised that copies of this draft be circulated to all those involved in the planning with requests for feedback so that a second drafts can be created. Project Assurance should review all draft copies of Plans.
It can also be helpful to give copies of such draft plans to members of the project board prior to an end stage assessment, so that the meeting itself can be used to clarify and make decisions on whether the project should proceed.
In summary, you can see that the powerful PRINCE2 product-based planning technique is used first, then followed by traditional techniques to complete the plan documentation.
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