The Product Checklist – PRINCE2’s answer to project product control
You can become a more competent project manager or team member when you have grasped how absolutely vital and effective the Product Checklist really is. If YOU have ever stumbled in your attempts to estimate and forecast activities within a project, then read on …
Let me start at the beginning. Suppose you want to estimate the effort needed to create a product, say a Power Supply Unit (PSU). Let’s imagine this is part of the design for the New Amplifier project.
You call the team in for a planning meeting to create your PRINCE2 Stage Plan (where the PSU will be designed, built, tested and approved.
Old School thinking (pre-PRINCE2)
This would have you estimating all the tasks/activities, assigning resources, getting the plan agreed, and starting work on the PSU…
The trouble starts to rear its ugly head once work proceeds. Let’s say a week has passed, and you want an update from the team on the progress being made for the new PSU:
Let’s assume the team have 3 activities that they have been working on:
Create a prototype design schematic.
Build prototype PSU
Test prototype PSU
The team advise that:
The schematic has been created and is at version 1.3
The prototype is currently being built and the team are 50% complete
Some testing has been done – estimated at 10% complete
The team have booked 16 hours so far
You note that duration, work effort, and cost percentage complete have different percentage values
A week later, the team advise that they are behind schedule and give you an update on percentage complete….you ask for an estimate for when they will finish, and are advised should be done by the end of the week. Are you confident about that? Sounds Familiar??
Who is to blame for this?
Well, nobody, yet everybody!
Let’s go back to the beginning and consider the potential problems back in that planning meeting…
Planning Problems…
The first problem was that you planned using activities only
The second problem that you did not include product complete milestones including the milestones leading to product completion.
The third problem was that ‘percentage complete’ is ambiguous and somewhat unnatural for us humans! So let’s see how this can be improved:
Product based Planning.
Of course, you were anticipating I would bring this up, but I’m not going to explain how to do it all, as I have written several articles and posted YouTube videos on this powerful technique already.
But I will remind you that during planning, a simplified summary of Product-based planning would be:
Identify the products (both specialist and management) to be created
Identify the activities required to create each product
Assign available resources to carry out the activities
Create a schedule of key dates
Use this schedule to keep track of progress.
Okay. So a product is something that is produced and is usually tangible. An activity is just carrying out the required work effort to create the product. Work is not tangible – only the outcome of such work.
The Completed Product.
Quality is key here.
Let’s re-live some horror stories:
“But you said you needed a PSU – I thought you meant similar to the last one I made for you”
“You didn’t tell me it had to weigh less than one kilogram and have specific dimensions”
“I never agreed to test it – I thought you were going to do that”
“Now is a fine time to tell me it has to meet these country-specific safety standards”
You get the idea – one person’s definition of ‘finished’ may be different to yours or your customer/user.
The Product Description.
PRINCE2 therefore states that this be written as soon as possible after the need for the product has been agreed. It will contain the quality criteria that the product must meet, and the key individuals involved. It will lay out the range of tolerances that the quality criteria must fall between.
Then, and only then, can the project manager and their team start to create the steps 1 to 5 above. But now you have full control, let me explain…
The PRINCE2 Product Checklist.
Amazingly, the PRINCE2 Manual says that this is optional – but I say it is vital and should ALWAYS be used. The important discipline it gives is:
Ensure that a Product Description has been drafted AND approved (and this means that the above quality criteria have also been approved). So everyone has a common agreement on what ‘doneness’ looks like!
A Work Package is given out and agreed to the team so that work can start work.
The Product Checklist lays down the key planned and actual dates (which gives you variances to the plan if they occur)
These planned and actual dates are given For Each Step In The Product Of Each Product, that is, the duration to create the first draft (first prototype) of the product, The dates of the Quality Check to be carried out, the date that the product was approved, and if relevant, the date that the product was handed over to those who will now use it.
Product Checklist Layout
A suggested layout may look something like this:
Summary.
I hope you can see the power of the PRINCE2 Product Checklist:
It gives you an agreement on what the product will be including its quality criteria (this would often include its functionality or performance criteria)
This level of detail allows far more accurate estimates for duration, work effort, resources, and tracking.
Each product/sub-product is only complete when it has been approved – no margin for error
I ought to mention that using tracking techniques such as actual/remaining work is better than percentage complete, but whichever method is used, you will have far more control over successful project and product delivery.
