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The project plan is crucial in instilling confidence in the project board and the project manager, paving the way for successful project delivery.
PRINCE2’s unique approach of structuring project management on a stage-by-stage basis, coupled with the products principle, empowers the project management team to plan and deliver what is required when it is required.
Determining how to divide the project into stages is a matter of balancing:
- The delivery method (iterative-incremental or linear-sequential)
- The sequence of delivery activities
- The type of people and resources involved
- The number and timing of key decision points
- The amount of risk the project can manage
- How far ahead in the project is it sensible to plan?
The number of stages
The number of stages is a strategic decision influenced by the nature of the products and the necessary delivery activities. While more stages enhance control, it also increases the management overhead, necessitating a careful balance.
Only two stages may be required for a simple project with a few well-understood products and a mature delivery method. These are an initiation stage to prepare the project initiation documentation and a single delivery stage.
For a larger project with a complex set of products and a mix of delivery methods, multiple delivery stages will be required, each with its own products and stage boundaries.
This approach allows the project management team to refine its estimates in each stage plan and the project board to confirm that the project continues to satisfy its business justification.
The project plan for an iterative-incremental project may provide multiple delivery stages. The quality and acceptance criteria are refined in parallel with developing the required products through a product backlog.
Some projects may need to align stage boundaries with external events. For example, in organisations with an annual budget cycle, there may be a requirement to provide an accounting of what the project has delivered and what is in progress at the end of the budget year before authorising the next portion of the project budget.
The length of stages
Determining the appropriate length of a stage is a matter of assessing the following:
The level of complexity: if the number and dependencies among delivery activities are high, a shorter stage may help avoid encountering exceptions to the approved tolerances.
The level of risk: Stages are useful in controlling high-risk projects. Stage breaks can be inserted at key points where risks to the project can be reviewed before major resource commitments.
The planning horizon: if there is significant uncertainty in the estimates of resources or the duration of activities, a shorter stage can allow these estimates to be refined in the next Stage Plan.
Appropriate decision points: stage boundaries should be aligned with critical decisions to be made by the project board (such as whether and how to continue after delivery of a prototype) or business layer decisions or events (such as a business planning cycle).
Alignment with programme activities: programmes may be organised around groups of projects structured around distinct capability and delivery tranche changes.
The programme may require the project to align the end of a stage with the end of a programme tranche.
The length of stages does not have to be uniform throughout the project. For example, a new system’s design or prototyping stages may be much shorter than the build stage.
Stages and work packages
PRINCE2 stages do not overlap. Instead, they partition the project by introducing stop-go decision points.
This effective strategy ensures that the project management team and project board can review progress and assess whether the project has continued business justification, providing a sense of security and assurance in the project’s direction.
The stages also enable the project management team and project board to maintain alignment with the business case through the plans for the subsequent stage and the decisions taken at stage boundaries.
Project work may be organised into logical groups of work packages, depending on the delivery method, the set of specialist skills required, or the relationships of the organisations involved.
Such logical groupings of activity may run in parallel and overlap. It is a good practice to avoid work packages spanning a stage boundary, as decisions taken at stage boundaries could lead to repeated work or waste relating to work in progress.
Where work packages span a stage boundary, such as work packages involving procurement of long lead items, their status will need to be reviewed as part of the Managing a Stage Boundary process.
PRINCE2 Stages
The goal of the project plan is to give the project board and the project manager confidence in proceeding with delivery.
PRINCE2, a widely recognized project management methodology, structures the project management on a stage-by-stage basis. This approach, combined with the focus on the products principle, helps the project management team plan and deliver what is required when it is required.
By emphasizing the importance of structuring projects into stages, it instills confidence in the project’s overall structure and progress.
Determining how to divide the project into stages is a matter of balancing:
- the delivery method (iterative-incremental or linear-sequential)
- the sequence of delivery activities
- the type of people and resources involved
- the number and timing of key decision points
- the amount of risk the project can manage
- how far ahead in the project is it sensible to plan?
The number of stages
The number of stages in a project is not arbitrary. It is a strategic decision that should be based on the nature of the products and the necessary delivery activities. While more stages can enhance control, it also increases management overhead. Therefore, it’s crucial to balance control and management overhead when determining the number of stages.
Only two stages may be required for a simple project with a few well-understood products and a mature delivery method. These are an initiation stage to prepare the project initiation documentation and a single delivery stage.
For a larger project with a complex set of products and a mix of delivery methods, multiple delivery stages will be required, each with its own products and stage boundaries.
This approach allows the project management team to refine its estimates in each stage plan and the project board to confirm that the project continues to satisfy its business justification.
For an iterative-incremental project, the project plan may provide multiple delivery stages in which the quality and acceptance criteria are refined in parallel with the development of the required products through a product backlog.
Some projects may need to align stage boundaries with external events. For example, in organizations with an annual budget cycle, there may be a requirement to provide an accounting of what the project has delivered and what is in progress as it stands at the end of the budget year before authorizing the next portion of the project budget.
The length of the stages
Determining the appropriate length of a stage is a matter of assessing the following:
The level of complexity: if the number and dependencies among delivery activities are high, a shorter stage may help avoid encountering exceptions to the approved tolerances.
The level of risk: Stages are useful in controlling high-risk projects. Stage breaks can be inserted at key points where risks to the project can be reviewed before major resource commitments.
The planning horizon: if there is significant uncertainty in the estimates of resources or the duration of activities, a shorter stage can allow these estimates to be refined in the next stage plan.
Appropriate decision points: stage boundaries should be aligned with critical decisions to be made by the project board (such as whether and how to continue after delivery of a prototype) or business layer decisions or events (such as a business planning cycle).
Alignment with programme activities: programmes may be organized around groups of projects structured around distinct capability and delivery tranche changes.
The programme may require the project to align the end of a stage with the end of a programme tranche.
The length of stages does not have to be uniform throughout the project. For example, the design or prototyping stages for a new system may be much shorter than the build stage.
Stages and work packages
PRINCE2 stages are not just arbitrary divisions of a project. They serve a specific purpose. Introducing stop-go decision points enables the project management team and project board to review progress and assess whether the project continues to align with its business justification.
This ensures that the project proceeds to the next stage only if it’s still justified, maintaining project alignment and focus.
The stages, a key component of PRINCE2, play a crucial role in maintaining alignment with the business case.
They do so through the plans for the subsequent stage and the decisions taken at stage boundaries. This approach reassures the project management team and project board, ensuring that the project continues to align with its strategic direction.
Project work may be organized into logical groups of work packages, depending on the delivery method, the set of specialist skills required, or the relationships of the organizations involved.
Such logical groupings of activity may run in parallel and overlap. It is a good practice to avoid work packages spanning a stage boundary, as decisions taken at stage boundaries could lead to repeated work or waste relating to work in progress.
Where work packages span a stage boundary, such as work packages involving procurement of long lead items, their status will need to be reviewed as part of the Managing a Stage Boundary process.
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