PRINCE2 Project Plan creation 

PRINCE2 Project Plan creation

There are three possible levels of plans within PRINCE2, the Project Plan, Stage Plans, and optional Team Plans.  All of them use the product based planning technique to create the plan documentation. However, this will only identify the products required, a plan also needs the activities to be identified, the resources needed to carry out the activities, and control points along with the narrative that make up the complete plan document.

The purpose of creating any plan is to establish that there is a feasible, achievable and realistic path to get from where we are today to where we need to go. Before committing any major expenditure on a project the timescale and resource requirements must first be established.  This information contained in the Project Plan will be used to refine the project Business Case.

Planning is best carried out in workshops where the project manager can facilitate such sessions and use the knowledge skills and experience of the rest of the team to help assemble and create the plan.  In particular both the user and supply-side should be invited to ensure that the plan is realistic and achievable.

Creating a PRINCE2 Plan Document

The vital skills needed for either passing the PRINCE2 Practitioner or for in your real world, is creating the actual PRINCE2 Plan DOCUMENT. This article will address that concern, and show you how to complete the actual document itself with the correct critical information.

If you are a project manager, then you need to ensure that the right information is recorded, since you will use the plan not just as part of approval to proceed, but also to manage, track and control your project.

You may be members of the Project Board, and need to review a PRINCE2 Plan, in which case, this article will act as a ‘quality check’ that the plan is complete, accurate and fit for purpose.

If you are preparing for your Practitioner exam, then several questions will test your critical thinking with regard to key management documents. I am referring of course, to the management products listed in Appendix A in the official PRINCE2 Manual Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2.

Be aware that there is only one ‘template’ in the Manual regarding a Plan, and this is used as a basis to create the Project Plan, A Stage Plan, An Exception Plan (if needed), and optionally, A Team Plan.

It is worth just quickly discussing why using the Plan template, the Team Plan may be created by an external organisation who use different planning standards and may not use PRINCE2. Also, for simple Team Plans, all that may be needed is a simple schedule of activities to accompany the Work Package, and so again, it would not be necessary to use the formal PRINCE2 Plan management product template.

Before you read on, I have created a downloadable version of this article as a pdf document and also an editable WORD document for the standard Plan Template.

What is a PRINCE2 Plan used for?

Put simply, it is there to illustrate the work effort needed to both create and deliver the project’s products, the timeframes for the work effort, and the resources required (think of resources as covering cost, people, materials, equipment, and so on).

In a PRINCE2 project, the total work effort is expended not just on the creation of the products, but also other work aspects such as:

• Quality checking the products to ensure their fitness for purpose
• Authorising, hand over and acceptance activities
• Monitoring and controlling (such as reporting and corrective actions) activities
• Configuration management to document and track product status
• Risk management activity responses (both for threats and opportunities).

A typical PRINCE2 Plan will also contain narrative sections to include aspects such as:

• Plan prerequisites.
• Critical timing such as milestones or review/audit dates
• Plan assumptions
• Product Description for the products covered in the plan
• The project management and product scope

So what is in a typical PRINCE2 Plan?

So it is no wonder that PRINCE2 exam delegates can get confused, and that creating an accurate PRINCE2 Plan in your real world takes careful and critical thinking!

PRINCE2 Plan creation sequence

In PRINCE2 all plans are DOCUMENTS.

As such there is a recommended sequence to their creation.

The blue steps above, are covered in articles elsewhere, but what this article covers, is shown above in the yellow box. Note, that in the step labelled Define and analyse the products, is the where the PRINCE2 Product-based Planning technique is used and applied.

I am currently creating an extra Practitioner Exam paper to accompany my PRINCE2 Primer, and I have used a real scenario from when I recently visited a tropical island within the Philippines with my wife.

The scenario includes the creation of 6 beach-side luxury beach huts which are an ‘optional extra’ to the standard accommodation with the actual hotel itself. I shall use the example of building and fitting out each of the 6 beach huts as an example of a Stage Plan, as I am sure that YOU will be familiar with the typical fittings within a hotel room, and the building requirements for a simple concrete, plaster, wood and palm roof.

Here then is your guide to keep as a constant reference, along with some examples of the typical information that should go in each section:

Plan Description

This should describe the type of plan (Project, Stage, or Exception Plan)

It should describe the scope of the work that is covered within this plan.

This Stage Plan covers the work and products to create and fit out 6 beach huts adjacent to the hotel. It covers the installation of water and electricity, the basic fittings including the en-suite bathroom, room furniture, and internal decoration.

This section should take care to encompass the scope of the plan, but be aware that the product description section later will describe the details. However, there may be general work activities that should be included here, such as close liaison with third parties or local authorities.

Plan Prerequisites

The definition of a prerequisite is something that must be in place before the work of the plan can start and must remain in place for the plan to succeed. Be careful here. A prerequisite is a dependency, and can often be confused with a risk such as a certain resources not being available at some time point within the plan.

It may that certain activities are going on the same time such as refurbishing the hotel’s main lobby, but this would have no impact on the creation of the beach huts and is therefore NOT a dependency.

A further potential point of confusion could be (say) that the lobby refurbishment may eat into funds or the availability of planned resources for the beach huts. These should not be confused with a dependency, since they are both examples of a risk and should be managed accordingly.

• Gaining planning permission would stop the plan from starting and is therefore a dependency example.
• The signing of a contract for building the beach huts would also stop the plan and is another example of a dependency
• Clearing the site (possibly done in a previous phase/stage of the project) is another example as this would prevent work from starting on the beach huts.

External Dependencies

These describe products that will be needed for the work described within the plan, but they will be created outside the scope of the plan. This is another area of potential confusion, particularly when using a third party to create a product.

If the project manager delegates the work via a Work Package, then it is NOT an external dependency!

A product may be an external dependency because it already exists (it may even have been created in a previous stage of this project), but that the product is now required in this plan.

Another way of thinking about an external dependency is that the project manager has no control over the work to either create the product, or for it to be made available.

The pre-formed moulded shower unit is a standard unit available and procured from a third party supplier

The contract signed was also a prerequisite, but the contract agreement and signature is outside the scope of this Stage Plan.

There are several companies that construct beach huts on the island and until, and unless they issue a response, aspects of the plan work cannot proceed. What if none were interested or did not have the resources available?

Can you see that although they are needed for this stage, the project manager will not manage the work of creating them?

Unlike a prerequisite, an external dependency may only affect some of the plans activities. An example here is the availability of certain decorative trees and shrubs surrounding each beach hut.

Much like prerequisites, external dependencies may represent risks and should be entered into the risk register and managed accordingly.

Planning Assumptions

These are any planning assumptions that have been made when estimating and creating the plan.

Be careful about over-doing this part, and don’t try to use it as an excuse for poor risk management, or “I am assuming the boss will like my plan” type of assumptions!

Assumptions can cover a host of aspects, and rather than give you an example from the scenario, I will list some general example types:

• The daily hours for the specialist team (9 to 5 with one hour for lunch?)
• The work productivity of the specialist team (5 hours per day?)
• The hourly rate of the team and/or assumption of no overtime/premium rates
• The availability of certain resources to carry out scheduled activities
• The availability of tools and/or equipment
• Clear access to the site for resources
• Data or information being made available at key time points

Lessons Incorporated

As the title suggests, this is where you advise the reader that any appropriate previous lessons learned have been embedded within this plan document. Using the Beach Hut scenario as an example, you could include here:

• Include early copies of site and dwelling construction plans to the local authorities to minimise sign-off delays
• Include third party contract penalty clauses for delays in provision of human resources and key plant equipment.
• Provide lodging for the project manager in the hotel to improve daily communications

Monitoring and Control

There are two main reasons why a plan is required; the first is to determine whether or not there is a feasible and realistic approach to delivering the planned objectives, while the second reason is to use the plan as a baseline reference point against which to monitor progress and keep the remainder of the project or stage under control.

If the work is behind schedule or over budget, then the project manager will want to take some form of corrective action to bring the work and plan back on track.

Therefore, this section of the project plan lays out exactly how monitoring and control will take place within this particular plan.

I will not attempt to list all of the methods and techniques used to keep a project on track (for example the use of the earned value analysis), but rather to give you some general examples of the types of information that may be included in this section:

• Progress of the beach hut construction will be reviewed end of each week and at the close of work each Wednesday evening.  Schedule, work effort, and cost variances will be compared against their planned values and appropriate corrective action taken if required.
• A Product Status Account (report) will be requested from project support at the end of each work week to direct the actual progress of the stages products.
• Each team manager to create a weekly Highlight Report to the project manager to report work progress against their Work Packages.
• With reference to the Communication Management Strategy document, a Highlight Report will be sent to the hotel management and members of the project board every 10 days.

Budgets

Money has a time value, and so this section needs to describe how much and when.  Some projects is used stage funding or even milestone payments, are so it is important when funding is required as well as how much.

The section should contain information that describes two aspects:

1. The amount of money budgeted for the plans work
2. Over what period of time this budget will be required for

There are two other amounts of money that may need to be allocated (typically at project level, but maybe at stage level):

The change budget

This is an amount of money set aside to fund changes to either the plans products or to its scope.  Typically, the change budget will be an estimate based on the likely change within a project or stage, and will cover the management of such changes as well as the change costs themselves.

Risk countermeasures budget

This amount of money covers the response actions of those risks that may impact the plan.

There is an example from the Beach Hut scenario:

• $200,000 has been budgeted for the builder of the six beach huts, which is estimated to take 10 weeks.
• $15,000 is being budgeted to hire extra builders should the beach hut contractors forecast a time overrun.
• A change budget of $5,000 has been set aside to fund small functionality changes in the beach hut internal facilities and decoration. Any change costing more than $200, should be escalated to the project board.

Tolerances

This section will describe the plus or minus tolerances to the plans schedule, cost or scope.

Time tolerance. The Beach Hut stage is to be delivered in 10 weeks with a tolerance of plus two weeks and minus four weeks and not

The cost of the stage is $200,000 with a cost budget tolerance of plus $15,000 and minus $30,000.

Scope tolerance is the allowable flexibility it delivered products within the plan.  In the case of the beach hut project, an example might be:

• A Microwave oven is to be included in each beach hut, but if there is neither time nor cost, this is seen as a non-essential fixture and feature.

Product descriptions

You will recall that one of the steps in creating a plan was called ‘define and analyse the products’.  This is the Product-Based planning step and includes the creation of a product description for each product.

This makes it clear about the products that will need to be created, and allows the identification of activities and resources that would be needed to create each product.

Each PRINCE2 Plan contains a Product Description for each product that will be delivered within the planned scope.  As such they include the detailed and measurable specifications as well as how such specifications will be checked and there will be responsible for signing off each product.

PRINCE2 recommends that even external products could benefit from having a product description created as it will help agree a joint understanding of each products fitness for purpose.

In the example scenario of the six beach huts, the product descriptions to be created may include:

• The moulded shower units
• Each Beach Hut (there may be some differences)
• The decoration and furnishing of each beach hut
• Individual components such as the bed and dressing table
• The standard of external finishing and rendering of each beach hut

Schedule

Each PRINCE2 Plan will contain the activities and their dependencies is needed to create each product, what resources will be needed for each activity, or will carry out the work of each activity, and the forecast start and finish dates for each activity.

A planning to all such as Microsoft Project may be used to help create the above, and as work progresses this section of the plan will be updated with the actual results.

Typical data to be captured should include plan, actual, variance and forecast information for each activity.  Each activity will include not just start and finish dates, but also work effort hours for each individual on each task, as well as costs.

Typically, a Gantt chart would be used to portray the schedule information, although for smaller and similar projects it may be shown in a calendar view, or even just a list of activities with key status dates for each.

Also included within the schedule section of each plan will either be a diagram or a link to the PRINCE2 Product Breakdown Structure, and the Product Flow Diagram views.

As a final added value, here is a template for a PRINCE2 Plan:

1.  Description

Covering a brief description of what the plan encompasses (i.e. project, stage, team, exception) and the planning approach)

2.  Prerequisites

Containing any fundamental aspects that must be in place, and remain in place, for the plan to succeed

3.  External dependencies

Any that may influence the plan in any way:

4.  Planning assumptions

Upon which the plan is based

5.  Lessons incorporated

Details of relevant lessons from previous similar projects, which have been reviewed and accommodated within this plan:

6.  Monitoring and control

Details of how it will be monitored and controlled:

7.  Budgets

Covering time and cost (this could be a Spend Plan) including provisions for risks and changes such as a Risk Budget and a Change Budget:

Time and COST

8.  Tolerances

Time, cost and scope tolerances for the level of plan (which may include more specific stage or team-level risk tolerances)

9.  Product Descriptions

Covering products within the scope of the plan, and may include – Project Product Description, stage level products, or those within one or more Work Packages. NOTE: normally this would refer to, or append, a separate Product Description.

10.     Schedule

May include graphical representations of Gantt or bar chart, for small simple projects it may simply be a Product Checklist, Product Breakdown Structure, Product Flow Diagram, Activity network, etc:

11.     Resources

May include resource requirements by resource type/knowledge/skills/experience, or it may be a resource time-based skill table:

12.     Supporting or additional Information

Any supporting information, such as relevant strategy documents from the Product Initiation Documentation, resource availability and source, or registers and logs such as lessons learned:

13.     Document Distribution

14.     Approvals

Prepared By       __________________________________

([Job Title])

This document requires the following approvals

Approved By      __________________________________

([Job Title])

__________________________________

([Job Title])

Approval Date   __________________________________

Want to pass your PRINCE2 exams First Time? Check out my PRINCE2 Masterclass HERE!

The Project Brief and should be reviewed to clarify any stated milestones and to check whether there are any corporate or programme management strategies, standards or practices that the project needs to adhere to.  In particular the Project Brief may contain information on pre-requisites, dependencies, constraints or assumptions which need to be built into the project plan, or at least need to be taken into consideration.

The project approach which forms part of the Project Brief should be used as an input to create the Project Plan.  In other words, the Project Plan must show the realisation of the chosen project approach.

Lessons should be sought from similar previous projects that relate to planning, although these may already have been captured in the Lessons Log.  Similarly the risk and issue registers should be examined to respond to any risk or issues related with planning.

Any particular planning and control tools are used by the organisation would normally be used for the creation of parts of the Project Plan and other plans within this project.  There may also be methods used for estimating which need to be applied.

The four management strategies which will have already been created, only explain the ‘how’.  These strategies should be applied to the project plan in terms of resources, activities, standards, methods, and costs for the work to be carried out.

Product based planning will be used to create the Product Breakdown Structure, Product Flow Diagram and Product Descriptions for the major products within the project plan.  At this point is helpful to consider whether the Project Product Description needs to be refined or updated in some way, for example the acceptance criteria may now be refined or extended as a result of detailed planning.

As new or modified Product Descriptions are created then so too will new all modified Configuration Item Records.

The resources identified in the plan need to be confirmed that they are available and the schedule created including key timing and control points.  Risk responses also need to be included within the plan.

Project assurance will want to review draft copies of the Project Plan and the project board will want to approve it although they may wait until later and review it as part of the Project Initiation Documentation.

PRINCE2 Project Plan contents:

Plan description – what the project plan covers and the planning approach

Plan prerequisites – aspects that must be, and must remain in place for the project plan to be successful.

External dependencies – any that may influence the project plan

Planning assumptions – any stated assumptions up which the project plan rests.

Lessons incorporated – details of relevant lessons from similar projects.

monitoring and control – how the plan will be monitored and controlled.

Budgets – covering time and cost, including provisions for risk and change.

Tolerances – time and cost, benefits, scope and quality – whatever tolerances that are set for this particular project plan.

Product descriptions – listing all product descriptions whose products will be created during the scope of this project plan. For the project plan only, it will include the Project Product Description. For a team plan, this section will reference the relevant work packages.

Schedule – this will include the following:

• Gantt or bar chart
• Product Breakdown Structure
• Product Flow Diagram
• Activity network
• Resource requirements (type/skill/non-human)
• Specific assigned resources

PRINCE2 6th Edition Masterclass

This course is DEPRECATED

The old PRINCE2 6th Edition Foundation and Practitioner syllabus was upgraded in 2024. Check out the brand NEW PRINCE2 7th Edition Masterclass, covering all the current syllabus, training material and online exam benefits HERE

get started

5.0

Your Route To PRINCE2 6th Edition Practitioner

Study PRINCE2 6 Foundation and Practitioner Exams with our famous on-line course with streaming HD Video Lessons, study guides and mock exams. In the last fifteen years we have had 6,000+ Academy students successfully transform their careers as PRINCE2 Practitioners.

• Bite Sized Lessons  The sheer size of PRINCE2 can be daunting. The Masterclass will guide you through the syllabus in easy to consume bite sized lessons
• Be prepared and confident for the exams  Test your knowledge in a fun, entertaining environment with the PRINCE2 Foundation & practitioner exam revision tools
• Enjoy yourself!  This PRINCE2 Foundation & Practitioner online course is broken into bite-size lessons, combining leading edge multimedia and interactive exercises for optimum enjoyment and knowledge retention
• Feel confident with full tutorial support  Benefit from fast access to experienced, one-to-one learning support as you study via email and phone, so there is no need to feel isolated while you are learning
• Take your time  Study at your own pace by bookmarking your progress and picking up where you left off at a speed that suits you