PRINCE2 Stage – management and delivery
Within a typical PRINCE2 stage as each Work Package is completed, the team manager or the specialist team themselves needs to inform the project manager that the Work Package is indeed complete. The project manager, as part of the activity review work package status will need to agree that all the products have been completed, met their quality criteria, and have been approved by the appropriate authority.
This may trigger the authorization of a new/revised Work Package, or that the PRINCE2 stage end is approaching, in which case the project manager would use the Managing a Stage Boundary (SB) process to prepare for an end stage assessment.
Corrective action in a PRINCE2 Stage
If at any time during the stage, either issues or risks should arise, then the project manager should use the activity of capture and examine issues and risks to carry out an impact analysis of these on both the PRINCE2 stage and project. The appropriate Issue or Risk Register should be updated with such information.
If the project manager determines that some corrective action can be taken within the PRINCE2 stage, then this is done via the issue of new or modified Work Packages then such actions would need to be taken to resolve the situation.
If after impact analysis and the review of this within the status of the PRINCE2 stage or the project would show that forecast of tolerances would be exceeded, then the project manager must create an Exception Report and bring this to the attention of the project board.
If a Work Package is forecast to exceed PRINCE2 stage or project tolerance levels, the Team Manager would raise this as an issue to bring it to the attention of the project manager.
Using the activity escalate issues and risks within the PRINCE2 stage, the project manager would bring this Exception Report to the attention of the project board.
Put simply this Exception Report should contain information on the reasons for this forecast of exceeding tolerances, the impact in terms of the appropriate tolerance, and a set of options, which if implemented would return the PRINCE2 stage of project within tolerance bounds, and a recommendation of which option should be chosen, and why it is the best option.
This is sent to the project board who now need to make a decision on what to do next within the current PRINCE2 stage and for the rest of the project. One option they have is to prematurely close the project, in which case the project manager would use the Closing a Project (CP) process to carry this out.
For the moment we shall assume that they prefer another option, either recommended by the project manager, or one which they themselves have determined. This would trigger the project manager to use the Managing a Stage Boundary (SB) process.
Managing a Stage Boundary (SB) process
The project board would request the preparation of an Exception Plan which contain a solution to resolve the tolerance deviation in the PRINCE2 stage using the Managing a Stage Boundary process.
At this point it would be helpful to state that the Managing a Stage Boundary process has only TWO uses:
- The first is to prepare for an end stage assessment (ESA) by creating the next Stage Plan.
- The second is to prepare for an exception assessment (EXA).
In the former the objective is to approve or otherwise, the next Stage Plan for the next PRINCE2 stage, and in the latter it is to approve or otherwise the Exception Plan that would then replace the original plan for the PRINCE2 stage.
Whichever of the above, this process would follow the following steps and activities:
1. Create either a next Stage Plan or an Exception Plan
2. Update the Project Plan to show actual progress and if necessary, a modified future forecast
3. As part of updating the Project Plan and the next Stage Plan/Exception Plan, it may be necessary to update some aspects of the PID (possibly in terms of the strategies, the plan, and the controls, or the Business Case and related Benefits Review Plan.
4. As a result of the above, new or modified Product Descriptions will need to be created, new or modified risks and issues entered on to the appropriate registers including any lessons that have been learned during the stage.
5. The Benefits Management Approach needs to be updated to reflect any products that may have already being released into the operational (business as usual – BAU) areas.
6. The project manager will produce an End Stage Report and if appropriate create a Lessons Report for this PRINCE2 stage.
All of the above will be brought before the project board at either the PRINCE2 stage end stage assessment or an exception assessment.
The project board will need to make a decision to either:
- approve the next PRINCE2 Stage Plan
- or approve the Exception Plan if one has been created
- or request more information
- or to order a premature close of the project.
For each delivery PRINCE2 stage these four processes will continue in the same manner as described above.
The Managing a Stage Boundary process will be used either to prepare a next Stage Plan or an Exception Plan and is brought before the project board using the Directing a Project process to either approve or otherwise the next PRINCE2 Stage Plan or an Exception Plan.
Once this has been authorized, the project manager will give out the work contained within that PRINCE2 Stage Plan and the specialist team will create the specialist products via each Work Package.
When the last Work Package within the project has been completed (each specialist product has been approved), then this will trigger the project manager to acknowledge that the last PRINCE2 stage has delivered all specialist products, and that the project end is approaching.
A very important point needs to be made here. If the project, within any management PRINCE2 stage, needs to be brought to a premature close, then the closing a project process (CP) is used.
Let us suppose that a given project has three delivery stages after the initiation stage. In the final delivery PRINCE2 stage, work packages containing information on the specialist products to be created will be issued and managed as described above.
However, once the final specialist product within the final work package has been approved within that PRINCE2 stage, then the project manager will trigger the closing a project (CP) processes to shut the project down in a controlled manner.
A final management stage is not used to merely to use the Closing a Project process. In summary, the final stage of a project will use the Controlling a Stage, Managing Product Delivery, and Closing a Project processes.
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