PRINCE2 7 Starting Up A Project Process
Starting Up a Project in PRINCE2 7
The first process to be triggered within PRINCE2 is the Starting Up A Project process. A project can be standalone or part of a programme, in which case a project may be triggered from either those within a programme, here called programme management, or by appropriate senior management within an organization, here called the business or commissioning level
A PRINCE2 project is therefore triggered by either of the above by issuing a Project Mandate.
Projects can be triggered in a number of ways and thus have a wide variation in the information
available prior to them being formally initiated.
This is provided by the responsible authority from the business that is commissioning the project. There is also a wide variety of areas where the responsible authority could come from. For example, the project executive group, a functional or operational unit, a programme, a portfolio, or a customer.
This document should contain as a minimum, the name of the prospective project board executive and the reasons for the need of the project. As such it may only be and verbal instruction or possibly an e-mail. At the other extreme it could be the final report from a feasibility study.
Whichever, it must contain sufficient information provided by an appropriate authority level, in order to trigger the first PRINCE2 process.
From an organizational perspective in PRINCE2, the responsible authority is regarded as being
outside the project in the business layer.
The term project mandate applies to whatever information is used to trigger the project, such as a feasibility study or the receipt of a request for proposal in a supplier environment.
The project mandate should provide the terms of reference for the project and should contain sufficient information to identify at least the prospective project executive of the project board. The information in the project mandate is refined to develop the project brief.
The first process is called Starting Up a Project and uses the initials SU. This occurs pre-project, and is used as a solid foundation prior to the first stage in a PRINCE2 project.
Developing detailed plans can consume a lot of resource, and since many projects should not even be started in the first place, it makes sense for SU to be used as a ‘filter’ – both to prevent poorly conceived projects from starting in the first place, and to establish an understanding of the goals and objectives of the project. In particular, to ensure that there are good business reasons to proceed with the project.
The Project Management Team needs to be designed and appointed, and guidance can be found within the PRINCE2 Organizing Practice
One of the first activities is to appoint the Executive of the Project Board and the Project Manager; the Executive will now design and appoint the remaining roles within the Project Board including who will fill the Senior User and Senior Supplier roles, and how Project Assurance is to be handled.
The project manager will design and appoint any other supporting roles that will be needed such as project support, configuration management and the optional Team Manager role.
The effort involved in starting up a project can vary enormously from project to project.
If the project is part of a programme, the programme management team should provide the project brief
and will appoint some, if not all, members of the project board, thus eliminating much of the work
required in this process. In such cases, the project manager should validate what is provided by the
programme and, if necessary, recommend modifications.
The preparation of the outline business case and the assembling of the project brief, which are
parallel and iterative activities, require regular and frequent interaction and consultation between
the project manager, the project board members, and other stakeholders.
The more time spent on clearly capturing the requirements during the process of starting up a project, the more time will be saved during project initiation and delivery by avoiding issues, exceptions, and replanning.
Starting Up a Project – management products.
There are two main management products that are an output from starting up a project, the Project Brief and a plan for the Initiation Stage.
The Project Brief contains the outline Business Case with sufficient information to justify carrying out the initiation stage, creating the Project Product Description which includes aspects such as the customer’s quality expectations and acceptance criteria for the end product of the project.
The Project Brief also contains the Project Approach management document.
It is important to create this in the starting up a project process as this lays out the approach used by the project to deliver the end product, for example, basing the design on an existing product or developing an entirely new design, or whether or not resources used for the project will be provided internally or by the use of third parties.
The Project Brief can be seen as a refinement of the Project Mandate and is created in starting up a project, and in a similar way the Project Brief will be refined further within the initiation stage to become the Project Initiation Documentation (PID).
One important principle of PRINCE2 is that of manage by exception.
The purpose of this is to set tolerance levels at the directing, managing, and delivering management levels within a project.
Tolerance is defined as limit within which a particular level may manage without the need to escalate to the next level above. The project tolerance needs to be set and agreed by Corporate/Programme Management during the starting up a project process.
There are seven objectives against which tolerances may be set: time, cost, quality, scope, risk, sustainability and benefits. If any of these tolerances are forecast to be exceeded, then an Exception Plan must be raised which if approved would replace the existing plan that would have no longer completed within tolerance.
Corporate or Programme management have the authority to set project level tolerances (and must do so in the starting up a project process), the Project Board have authority to set stage level tolerances, and optionally, the Project Manager may set tolerances around a particular Work Package description.
One of the PRINCE2 principles is learn from experience. For this reason the Lessons Log is created during starting up a project and filled with any lessons that can be learned from appropriate individuals and previous similar projects. The project manager would be expected to proactively collect such data.
The Lessons Log will be updated and used throughout the project, in particular as a source of information to create the optional Lessons Report at the end of each stage, and the Lessons Report that is created as part of the Closing a Project process. In this way, lessons can be passed on to future similar projects.
The Daily Log is also created by the project manager as the first PRINCE2 management product to be crated in the starting up a project process, and is used as a ‘diary’ by the project manager for the remainder of the project.
But here in SU, it is also used to capture any risks and issues that need to be managed prior to the formal start of the project.
To proceed any further, the newly formed project board will need to make a decision at the end of starting up a project to decide whether or not it is worth investing in the creation of the PID. In particular how much work effort and resources are needed in the initiation stage.
In this way, poorly conceived projects can be nipped in the bud before any further effort is wasted upon them. By the same token, the information contained within the Project Brief and the initiation Stage Plan will give the project board sufficient information to make an informed choice at the end of starting up a project.
The Starting Up a Project process culminates with the project manager requesting that the project board consider authorizing the initiation stage. This uses the first activity ‘authorizing initiation’ within the directing a project (DP) process.
The project board may decide not to proceed any further. However let’s assume that in this instance they agree based on the evidence above to invest in the initiation stage, then this will become the formal start of the project, and corporate/programme management will be informed that the project is initiated
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