PRINCE2 7 Product Description Template Part 1
Okay, so you want to get really good at creating PRINCE2 Product descriptions!
Well, before I take you into the detail and show you how to precisely to do just that, I need to give you the small amount of background detail to help you get off to a flying start…
What PRINCE2 Products?
If you have the official PRINCE2 Manual in front of you, then you will be aware that in appendix a you have a complete alphabetical list of the product description outlines also known as the management Product description templates.
However, the method refers to two categories of product: specialists and management. The so called specialist products are basically those that the teams will be building and I am referring of course to the specialist teams and the main products that will be created during your project.
So if you are managing a PRINCE2 construction project then the products will be those that you are creating such as bathrooms, kitchens, bridges, and so on.
Of course, you will have already written the project product description along with its acceptance criteria which refers to the main end product of your project. So if the project was refurbishing your kitchen at home, the various specialist products have been created as part of their project, are things like the kitchen work surface, new oven, seating area, cupboards, and so on.
So although specialist products will come from outside the project – It is likely for example, you would not build the oven but merely obtain it from a local supplier and install it within your new kitchen.
So the product description for the oven would be an external one, but the product “Installed oven“ will be an internal product.
The management products are the things being used for project management, and these include products such as the risk register, the business case, and the project initiation document.
You use the management products to manage the production of the specialist products. So that when you create the product breakdown structure and product flow diagrams, this would normally be based on the specialist products only.
PRINCE2 Products for quality and progress milestones
Using the product based approach to planning also opens the door to very specific quality control and also superb progress monitoring. The reason for this is simple.
By creating a unique product description for each product, you will also define for a precisely the quality criteria that that particular product must meet in order for it to be accepted. So if your Project consists of say 30 products, then when you are tracking progress every single product will either be not yet started or 100% complete. In this way progress can be very precisely tracked.
Writing PRINCE2 Product descriptions
Depending on your background, it is highly likely that you hate bureaucracy and form filling.
So it is particularly important that you understand that the product description for each product is really a product definition and is not just paperwork but a powerful technique to ensure that you get your products right first time. Creating the product descriptions is primarily a thinking exercise that helped you understand the product and you’ve put the results of their thinking on the form.
Therefore, do not resort to just form filling, but rather focus not on the paperwork board on understanding the product.
Having facilitated and run countless product description workshops in my past, I need to tell you how beneficial and vital it was to run such workshops and that they turned out to be one of the main reasons why my projects were successful.
I can tell you that getting half a dozen people together in one room and spending a whole day to complete just one product description for a vital project product was not bureaucratic nor wasteful.
In fact, everybody was delighted, as the exercise of thinking through the product was absolutely critical in this particular high-risk, two-year project and until that point nobody had properly understood or agreed what the product was before we started the workshop.
After several hours which were spent mostly discussing and thinking, everybody understood the product and were all agreed on the product description. Feedback from the session proved that the time was very well spent.
At the other extreme, I’ve sat down with one other person at their desk and created the product description to a joint satisfaction in under 10 minutes.
The reason that it is so powerful, is that the product description poses some really useful questions that help in down exactly what the product must be.
Product description
The purpose of a product description is to describe a product’s purpose, composition, where it is derived
from, and quality specifications. It is produced at the planning phase as soon as possible after the need
for the product is identified.
Identifier: product name or a unique identifier if the project has a large number of products
Version: the current version number of the product description
Purpose: the purpose of the product, how it will be used, and who will use it
Composition: list of the product’s components or parts
Format: is there a standard appearance to which the finished product must conform?
Derived from: the source of the product, such as a design, a commercial product, an existing system to
be upgraded or replaced, or a statement of expected benefits
Quality specifications: the functional and non-functional requirements for the product along with
their associated measures
Development or production approach and skills required: description of how the product is expected to be developed or produced; any special skills, facilities, or equipment required
Allocated to: the person or team needed to create this product
Quality tolerance: the ranges within which key quality specifications can vary and remain acceptable
Quality methods and quality skills required: the quality methods (such as verification, test, and
inspection) to be used to check that the product meets its quality specification and the indication of
skills required to perform the quality control activities
Responsibilities: the producer, reviewer, and acceptance authority for the product.
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