PRINCE2 7th Edition Process and Management Products Roadmap

hi there I Dave from projects Academy and a warm welcome to our Prince 2 7th edition process and management product roadmap now as I'm sure you're aware the official print 2 manual or guide shows that there are seven processes and here they are and there are also seven practices which used to be called themes although I shall refer to the practices from time to time I do not intend to show them here but rather keep the focus on how these processes which after all are the framework of Prince 2 how they work together as this

can often be confusing to folks first looking at the massive details in the official guide so let's start our story up here top left indeed within prints 2 the highest layer is called the business ler also known as the commissioning layer and these are senior managers who are respons responsible for triggering a project into being in the first place and they do this by issuing what's known as a project mandate as I'm about to explain this will trigger the first process called starting up a project or Su if you will and this process is the

only one which is pre-project the project doesn't formally start until starting of a project is finished the initiating a project process or IP is where the project initi ation documentation is assembled so this is where most of the detailed planning occurs at project level the managing of stage boundary process has really just two purposes it's normally triggered as the project approaches the end of a particular stage and the project manager wants to prepare for an endstage assessment which is run by the project board and they live in the directing a project process within each of

these processes by the way there are activities and I'll be sharing those with you as we proceed but I've left one here right from the very start it's called give ongoing Direction and as you might gather from that it's a communication conduit it's where the project board can communicate with the commissioning layer or to the project manager down in controlling a stage or indeed any other key stakeholders and it's also where the commissioning layer or the project manager can ask questions of the project board so there are three roles in the project board the project

board executive the senior user and the senior supplier roles these are roles not people although the executive much like the project manager is only ever filled by one person so there is a second trigger for the managing a stage boundary process and that is if the project board as a result of Tolerance being exceeded requests an exception plan so this will be triggered for an exception plan also much more of that to come so the controlling estate is where the project manager lives and as you aware there are at least two management stages the initiation

stage which is where the bid is assembled and at least one other these other management stages are typically called delivery stages why because in those stages unlike the initiation stage is where the specialist products are created and the managing product delivery process or MP is run and managed by the team manager and it's in here as I've said with a special products are created when it comes to closing down a project we have naturally enough the closing a project or CP process this too can be triggered by two situations the first is coming to a

natural end in the last management stage where the project manager will start to shut the project down the other time in which it's used is if the project board decide to prematurely close the project then it is they who will trigger closing a project once more the project manager will be running around shutting the project down as a premature project but I'm getting ahead of myself let's come back up here so the Mandate what exactly is it well you could see it as a terms of reference it could be an email it could be a

simple report it could be the result of a meeting or management decision or it could be the final report from a feasibility study any of these are possible and directly this triggers the starting up a project pre- project the first two things that need to happen is the project board executive needs to be appointed and the project manager it may be that the project mandate names these two individuals as a minimum it must name the project board executive if that's the case then it's the project board's executive first important task is to assign the project

manager to this project so the project mandate should as a minimum provide the subject matter of the project and who the project board executive is it should therefore outline the scope or for example set project level tolerances at a high level it should State what the benefits are expected or are there any constraints this mandate will be further refined in the starting up a project process to become what's known as the project brief more of that shortly the project brief in and of itself will later be refined when we're into the initiation stage into the

project initiation documentation or PID as it's known now inside each of these processes there are activities and these are shown in sequence some in series some in parallel and that's exactly how I'll portray them here however getting real power from Prince 27th Edition is all about tailoring it to suit a specific project so I'd rather you see these activities of which this is one as I've explained as a checklist so you go through these and decide how you need to use them and in which order so let's move on then in starting up a project

the first thing you'll want to do is to set up the project organization as far as it can be in terms of the structure roles and responsibilities so we know we'll do that for the project board executive and for the project manager it may well be that the other two roles of senior user and Senior supplier for many reasons possibly not enough information yet they may or may not be appointed at this juncture if the senior supplier for example can't be known at this point you may well have someone to handle hold that particular role

such as someone from your purchasing department until the real supplier or suppliers are known again I'll make this point here is that these are three roles the executive and the project manager wherever you see them will be filled by one individual but the senior user role may be filled by several users with an interest in the project similarly the senior supplier role may be filled by other suppliers all with an interest in the project so back up here then we'll learn that there are various logs and registers that need to be set up and they

reside in what's known as the project log so as you'll see in this video the project log will consist of four registers and two logs and here they are so the daily log much like a project manager's diary hence me showing it looking a little like a phoa although these days it's more likely to be an application on your smartphone and the lessons log this needs to be set up and it's normally the project manager that will go out and investigate and find any lessons that would be suitable to be applied to this project if

your organization has a project office or a project support part of your organization they may well indeed have this information in some form of a library that can be used by the project manager so these lessons can be applied directly to this project as the project progresses through its various management stages the lessons log will also be filled up with lessons that have been learned through carrying out this project so at the end of the project in closing a project these lessons can be passed back into the organization for use on future similar projects so

the daily log is a is a bit like the DI for a project manager and could contain just about anything meeting minutes to-do lists any issues or risks that the project manager is currently dealing with and so on when we get into the initiation stage the daily log will continue to be used throughout the project but only for informal purposes such as informal issues other than that the project log which consists of these two elements only at this juncture will be populated later on with for example the issue register and risk register in which case

the daily log issues and risks if there are any that are ongoing will be transferred more of that later so back here to starting up a project pre- project so we have our organization set up such as it is at this moment and we now come to the project brief one of the two main management products that are created during the starting up a project process now the project brief consists of what's known as the outline business case at this juncture it may well be that the project mandate does contain some outline information regarding the

business case for example expected benefits time scales risks or what have you nonetheless here part of the project brief will contain the outline business case refining such information if it exists there won't be anything detailed here such as investment appraisal techniques because at this early juncture we haven't done any detailed planning but as I've said it could contain expected benefits a likely project budget and key time frames driven frankly from business needs it may have any existing business risks that are known at this point inside the project brief there's another important document and that's the

project product description now this as you would imagine describes the end product from the project so if you're delivering a new computer system this describes it if it's a new building this describes it but importantly within the project product description it'll have two important sets of metrics the first is called the users's quality expectations and this is normally set out in a prioritized form but of generic statements such as it must be easy to use or low cost to maintain or easy to upgrade or it must be fast or lightweight or anything such as that

these should be prioritized so that we can understand how the user would see the importance of these so the project manager would collect this user quality expectations and refine it into what's known as acceptance criteria the difference here is that acceptance criteria must be measurable so the metrics you're going to be writing down down here typically functional and non-functional features or specifications must have real numbers in them so that they can be measured oh and by the way the outline business case will be refined into the full business case when you and I come to

the initiating a project process in a similar way the project product description along with the business case will be continuously refined as the project goes through its various management stages also part of the project brief along with the project organiz ational roles and responsibilities is the project approach this for example might describe whether you're going to use an agile or iterative and incremental approach rather than a linear approach or waterfall approach or it might be the approach chosen in terms of developing the end product you might be taking an existing product and refining it and

updating it or start with a brand new design another approach might be the approach to resourcing the project for example you you may have skilled software services in house but not but you would need to procure v a third party specialists for the creation of Hardware or for example enclosure design or to meet some regulations which would need an external test house as another example now in a prin St project there are at least two stages the initiation stage which is where the initiating of project process is used to create the bid and at least

one other stage Ty typically this other stage would be called a delivery stage why well because in the initiation stage it's all about planning pulling together the PID if you will but management stages after that will be about creating the specialist products and they're made down here in the managing product delivery process here's our team manager waiting to receive the first work package as you'll learn later but the point I'm making here there may be several delivery stages but at least one delivery stage so every prince two project has at least two stages the initiation

stage plus one delivery stage back to my point here with the initiation stage plan each stage will consume time money resources people facilities you name it and so the project board before they approve the first management stage the initiation stage wants a plan showing how much this first stage will actually cost how much resources we need how long will it take and so on so the project manager creates the initiation stage plan in the pre- project starting up a project process to put before the project board along with the project brief for them to make

a decision on what to do next after all their decision might be having looked at the information here to decide not to proceed any further however let's see what comes next so this will culminate in a project initiation requests put before the new formed project board and this is their first activity called authorize initiation that is authorizing the initiation stage and let's suppose so I can continue drawing my road map the answer is yes they like it so this becomes the formal project start since this was pre-project and at the same moment the project manager

will be given authorization to start the initiation stage called as you can see initiate a project authorization so here we are now in the initiation stage where there's more than one process being used certainly the initiating a project process or IP where the PID is assembled but also as we get to the end of that stage the managing a stage boundary process to prepare a plan for the next stage let's pause for a moment that's an important Point I've just made and that is in the same way that in starting up a project we needed

a plan for the next stage in this this case it's the first stage and that is used as part of the information for the project board to make an informed choice so too at the end of the initiation stage you would want a nextstage plan put before the project board in directing a project so once more they have the information and data to make an informed choice about what to do next so let's now look at the activities within the initiating a project process the first is to agree the tailoring requirements and this would be

based primarily on the project approach as that will Factor exactly what we're going to tailor and how and it'll also use other information in the project brief for example the business case may give clues about which is the right tailoring method to use as will what the end product at this juncture might look like with its quality expectations and acceptance criteria once this has happened we then agree management approaches of which there's nine and here they are so let's go through these management approaches first of all we have the change management approach which is not

about how you change the project it's used to establish the target organizational state required for the project to meet its objectives in other words it's about changing the organization and it does this by including the means by which the business will shift from the current state and through any interim States the communication management approach and by the way all of these approaches are see them as strategies if you will is this the approach you're taking to communicate throughout the project the new kit on the Block here is sustainability this is the approach you're taking to

ensure you meet your sustainability goals sustainability goals are contained within the business case then you have benefits management approach the companion if you will to the business case and here the benefits management approach says what benefits are you seeking to achieve how are you going to achieve them when you're going to achieve them what resources you need and what you're going to measure a new approach is the Commercial Management approach now the Commercial Management approach is used to describe the procedures techniques and standards that need to be applied for Effective Commercial Management and as you

might expect this will cover the approach to secure service and maintain all commercial agreements required for the project to be a success then you have the quality management approach describing exactly how you will approach quality then similar you have the risk management approach and issue management approach now in Prince 2 one of the old practices from the sixth edition Prince 2 was called the Change Control approach which was always a bit of a misnomer because changes are a subset of issues as we're about to look at very shortly so the issue management approach describes how

issues will be captured and reported and explain exp how changes to the project Baseline will be assessed and controlled so this contains both the issue reporting and resolution procedure as well as the Change Control procedure another new approach is digital and data now this describes what data is to be managed it goes on to explain what the digital technology requirements are and what the data management requirements are and these procedures needed to manage both digital and data so the next activities are to in parallel prepare the project plan and establish the project controls and when

it comes to establishing project controls as I'm sure you know there are many for example end stage assessments checkpoint reports and so on and so forth and it's time now to introduce the project log way back here when I was telling you about the starting up a project I said we would set up the lessons log and the daily log these are the fledgling pair if you will that will end up being in the prodject log when it's set up here in initiating a project in addition let's talk about these issues in the seventh edition

issues have quite rightly been expanded to cover problems or concerns there are an issue some external project event or maybe it's a positive issue such as a business opportunity when it comes to changes we have a request for change and an offsp specification and also just a small icon here to remind you of the brand new people chapter within Prince 2 and that's of leading successful change as well as leading successful teams and communication bearing in mind that people always have been but now are Central to the prince 2 7th edition method and while we're

on controls I want to mention tolerances we now have seven tolerances time cost scope quality risk and benefits but with the addition of sustainability all of these form part of what's known as project controls and will need to be embedded here at this point following on from that because now we have the project plan we can prepare the full business case what's different from back here you may ask well the answer is we now have time and costs and a better understanding of risk so the full business case including for example the investment appraisal can

be pulled together and will form part of the PID talking of that we now need to take all this information and to assemble the pit itself so now the project manager needs to go back to the project board in directing a project and ask them to authorize the project now the words here are very important this occurs at the first end stage assessment which is at the end of the first stage called the initiation stage so the project board come together now and decide whether the project makes sense not the next stage the whole Project

based on the project plan now the project plan will contain information about the number of stages at this point but here we're merely authorizing the project so watch carefully remember we are in the initiation stage like any other management stage except this is all about planning and assembling the bid nonetheless as the project manager sees the end of the initiation stage coming up fast this will trigger the project manager since the stage boundary is approaching to prepare the next stage plan remember this is the initiation stage and there will always be at least one more

and possibly several management stages and this is for the next stage plan which will include creating the specialist products and it's time to remind you although I'm not going to show it in detail about the product based planning technique within Prince 2 it's no different in the seventh edition but what this means is we will use the product based planning technique starting off with understanding what the products are creating a product breakdown structure product descriptions coming up in a second and the product flow diagram so whenever you see a stage plan being created and yes

that goes for the initiation stage plan as well and more to be mentioned shortly we would create product descriptions now I've also given a reminder to the project log which we mentioned up here now the project log or at least parts of it it will constantly being referred to updated and amended as the project proceeds through its various stages but I thought it particularly important to mention here since in managing a stage boundary we're creating the next stage plan and as you're about to find out updating the project plan so it's highly likely the project

log will get a lot of action here for example as we create the next stage plan new or modified issues and risks will occur lessons will be learned and the product register identifies the products to be delivered by the project and also records their acceptance the quality register contains updates on the road to Quality for each product has the product been created yet has the quality checks been carried out have they been approved and so on and our old friends the lessons log and the daily log you already know a fair bit about so weever

see creating a plan whether it's a project plan a stage plan A Team plan or even an except plan you'll almost certainly have product based planning involved and that will mean product descriptions I just referenced it here because it's probably one of the most important places once we're underway you may rest assured that when we prepared the project plan up here we also would have created product descriptions and used the product based planning technique moving on so let's remind ourselves we've got the PID signed off and that everyone's going great stuff this project is going

to proceed but no no one can do anything yet why because the project manager is given authority to manage the project one stage at a time so before we go anywhere further the project manager needs to create the next stage plan having done that since this is the first time we've created the next stage plan and it will have a greater level of detail than the project plan said we'll now need to harmonize that or update the project plan to make one a perfect subset of the other but now we've updated the project plan maybe

in terms of time cost schedule resources the definition of products and so on and so forth we now need in a similar way to update the business case but not just the business case which can I remind you contains sustainability targets and tolerances here they are mentioned up here but also the benefits management approach one of the approaches we talked about here of course at the end of each stage we'll want to look at other elements within the pit and update those as appropriate you see although we've signed off the pit here and it becomes

the Baseline version as we go through each stage it's highly likely that elements of the pit will be updated however I have to say that here having just signed it off that the updates here should be minimal apart from those already mentioned having done that we now need in managing a stage boundary to evaluate the stage one of the activities and what this does is it creates the end stage report yes as we come towards the end of any management stage including the initiation stage the project manager creates an end stage report this will often

contain lessons within it however for reasons of communication and distribution the project manager may choose to have a separate lessons report so that all occurs within the activity evaluate the stage that's the stage just finished now of course we've got that the whole point of managing a stage boundary is to get this information update the pit and so on and to request the next stage where does that occur watch carefully here we go this now causes the project manager to request the next stage of the project board well pay attention that happens at an end

stage assessment using the activity authorize a stage or exception plan we'll come to exception plans a little later in this diagram but for now what are you seeing here two end State assessments there are meeting after all by the project board although that could be done electronically or as a video conference call not necessarily so they're two distinct activities in terms of what you need to look at and agree on but they could be held at the same meeting couldn't they for example when the project manager has got the PID already assembled and ready to

authorize the project he or she could go dive into here create the next stage plan and all this stuff and then request the next stage and have these two points being one meeting again it's about tailoring and suitability for the project whatever makes good sense now what's we've just finished the initiation stage which includes using the initiating a project process and managing a stage boundary and now it's time to start the first delivery stage how does that occur well in this activity authorize a stage plan as we're going to look at it now this is

now the project board authorizing the stage to start and telling the project manager in the controlling EST stage process so this my friend is the first time we're using controlling estage in the prince through method it's worth just pausing for a moment here that in some projects when you're in the initiation stage maybe some of the work will include for example letting a contract or using some other form of specialist resource so the manual States quite correctly sometimes and I'm not going to talk about it anymore other than at this point during the initiation stage

controlling a stage may be used as well as mod managing product delivery and here's a mindset I want you to immediately get when we talk about specialist products we or at least I do as an engineer tend to think about specialism meaning Hardware software electronic you name it but frankly managing product delivery as a specialist delivery arm may be talking about commercial specialism or legal specialism so during the initiation stage the project board may have the project manager working in controlling a stage giving out a work package description so that the managing product delivery team

will be putting a contract in place or negotiating some particular set of specialist skills elsewhere all right pause again let's get back to where we were we've just approved the next stage plan whether it's one or two meetings we've now agreed to proceed to the next stage which in this case is the first delivery stage maybe one of many so the stage is authorized and the project manager authorizes a work package description he or she does not give out a work package per se but to give out a work package description and this is sent

to the team manager in the accept a work package activity well if you were this individual and you're looking at a work package description what exactly would you be doing you'd be making sure that before you accept a work package that you can do it and what does that mean can do it in terms of technical resource cost time frames you name it so although the prince to manual talks about the team plan being optional frankly if you want my opinion it never is even if the team plan is just a checklist on a scrap

piece of paper it's the team manager making sure that when they say I accept this work package and we can start on it immediately they mean it because they've got everything in place including any constraints such as tolerances or other external situations that exist at this moment so this is really a handshake as you can see so what occurs in managing product delivery is in executing a work package which is where the products are built quality checks for the one of a better word carried out and ultimately the products are approved and the quality register

is our little story line if you will showing the progress of each product so if within a work package you've got six products to create each one will be in a quality register the day work started has it been tested has it been approved yet so the quality register is a little built-in progress machine which is very very useful so that's executing a work package however when the project manager authorized the work package description amongst the product descriptions and any other constraints that were laid down it would also advise how often the project manager wants

progress checks typically weekly but it could be any other time and this is in the new activity called a valuate a work package where the so-called checkpoint report is given back to the project manager in controlling a stage and the activity the project manager uses is evaluate work package status to check exactly how we're doing is it on track now ultimately as the work package is gradually completed and by that I mean the products are approved and signed off it may be time for the project manager to give out the next work package because of

course within a stage there could be several work work packages given out to the same team one after the other or sometimes several at a time or maybe also in parallel to other teams because there may be more than one team involved here so the managing product delivery process will be used by each team imagine you had a hardware group and a software group and therefore each would get their own relevant work package description and they would be going through this as an entity while the other group would be doing exactly the same thing however

getting to my point ultimately let's assume that this particular work package has indeed been completed the project manager needs to be informed of that so the team manager our little Chum here needs to notify the project manager this work package is complete by giving out a completed work package notice and here's the project manager his or her activity will be to receive these completed work packages now it's always been a little bit vague here but let's be quite clear a work package is usually a document electronic or otherwise with information that the team manager needs

to accept the products don't exist yet only the product descriptions every work package contains at least one although often several so this notify work package completion is really saying of the one or more products within that work package they are now approved products and that is what the team manager is advising the project manager here the project manager receives this completion notice and hopefully agrees with it what happens next is interesting is this the first and final work package within this stage or are there others well what the project manager now needs to do is

having received it is to double check that is this the last work package or not but before I get to that what now needs to happen because it's one thing saying yes the work package is complete but how does that relate and this is a very very important activity evaluate stage status remember the project manager had the stage plan authorized and here it is and it's the project manager's job to manage progress against that stage plan so when he or she is evaluating State status he or she is doing just that are we on track

are we behind are we ahead what are the problems and so on and so forth so part of evaluating stage status something else needs to happen which when the project report approved the stage plan they insisted upon and that is the project manager gives them a regular highlight report now this will typically be monthly but once more it could be any other time frame that makes sense for the project and yes the Highlight report would look back at the various check point reports typically weekly and use the information on how that's doing and look at

that in the context of the entire stage and the Highlight report reports on that again I don't tend to go into the details of what's in a highlight report suffice to say each highlight report starts off by saying here's what we promised you last time here's what we've done what are the issues and risk what are the forecasts for next month and so on so it provides an update to the project board and here's our very very useful communication conduit both ways should it be necessary give ongoing Direction so here we're informing the project board

exactly how we're doing partway through the current stage continuing well having evaluating stage status tell me my friend have you ever known a project that goes exactly to the plan all the time there are always going to be slightly different deviations estimating after all is an art not a science we can get it pretty good but ultimately an estimate is an estimate plus what about the outside world that has a funny habit of changing by the moment without any regard to our project for example external markets or commercial situations may change meaning that maybe we

need to make micro adjustments within the state and this is important this isn't oh dear we've blown tolerance we've got to do something different this is the project manager steering the ship through rough seas and taking slight deviations to actually keep on track to reach the next Port so this is called take corrective action it's small actions that need to be taken quite naturally in normally within a project these would not be happening if it meant unless the corrective action is going to fix the small deviation now the way in which this often happens it

might be the project manager going having a chat down the corridor with a few people to sort it out if it's that sort of a problem but ultimately it might mean tweaking the work package to include these extra actions so once more there might be a little hand over here where the work package is a modified version perhaps including one or two extra tasks or activi is since it's the team manager and The Specialist Team that will be carrying those correcting out they need to be advised of it but I'll say one more time the

take corrective action may be of the management type in which case they don't need to be involved and talking of corrective action in fact any actions throughout the project there's a very powerful activity in directing a project called give on goinging Direction notice it's toway it's a communication conduit so it could be the project manager requesting advice from the project board that they might then use to take this corrective action or not and it's also where the project board can provide answers or advice of their own to the project manager so this is ongoing frankly

between directing a project and controlling a stage and although not shown here give odg direction could also be upwards and outwards to any other key stakeholders so the project board could for example be given advice to the commissioning or business layer or any other senior stakeholders back into controlling a stage so let's remind ourselves where we've got to we're giving out work packages the work's being done and we're getting them finished then we give out the next work package within that stage and the cycle continues but what about when you get to the point where

it's the last work package in that particular stage and it's been completed where you can't go any further what the project manager's got to do seeing that the stage boundary is approaching therefore watch carefully is to trigger the use managing a stage boundary process again and create the next stage plan ready for an end stage assessment does that make sense so there's the project manager will go through all of this stuff again I won't repeat myself and then request the next stage and the next stage occurs and we're around this little cycle here this round

robin if you will between directing a project controlling a stage managing a stage boundary and managing product delivery but life is not that simple I've talked about taking corrective action and the project manager keeping on track best they can but what about if something occurs which would drive the project Beyond tolerances do you remember these up here there's the seven and what if during a particular management stage something occurs That Rocks the boat come down here and watch very carefully what we're talking about is a new issue arising or possibly an extreme risk be aware

as Prince 2 States that very often new issues arise as a result of creating the specialist products in managing product delivery so this is a very common place where new issues will first show their ugly phases what the team manager must do is to raise it as an issue the team manager takes no corrective action if it's an issue they can't deal with then an issue is raised by them and sent to the project manager in the activity called capture and examine issues and risks well that's one over here so maybe the project manager has

just been advised about this issue from managing product delivery or maybe it's come from another source it doesn't matter this activity capture and examine issues and again for this diagram I'm not going to go into details about the issues practice or the risk practice and how this occurs nonetheless an impact analysis will occur and as part of doing that an issue report will be raised to accompany the input in the issue register once more watch the arrows when this occurs we need to ask ourselves so what is this a biggie is it a small one

what we need to compare that to the activity called evaluate stage status so it's the context of this issue whether it emanated from other sources or from the managing product delivery what does this mean to the stage status and based on that it may well be that this new issue means that we can take corrective action and all is well and good and we just inform the project manager of what needed to be done in the next highlight report but suppose that in evaluating stage status we can see in the analysis that this issue or

risk will blow stage and maybe project tolerance in which case emanating from this we need to use an activity called escalate issues and risk and in essence this means raising an exception report which the project manager will send to the project board for the activity give ongoing Direction now let's be clear the exception report talks about what we've found what the issue is what its impact is what tolerances are going to be blown and so on and so forth but also but also the exception report from the project manager says here's the options we've got

for Recovery or minimization and of those options here's the one I recommend what do you think and this is sent to the project board who now consider this they may agree with the exception report options or they may choose an option of their own including for example shutting the project down more of that later however the ball is now in the project board's Court let's suppose that they like option three whatever that was they then ask a project manager right here we are partway through a stage picture this this is very very important we haven't

got to the end of the stage and they're asking for an exception plan request so if we're partway through let's say stage three let's say it's halfway through then the other half of stage three is not going to happen we're going to create an exception plan that fills in the Gap almost certainly that new way will have different time costs resources different products even a different end date duration you see when the project board considered this exception as I said they could decide it's not worth proceeding prematurely close the project but they do have other

options which I won't go into too much detail suffice to say they might say well let's relax those tolerances because we save those to the project manager for the stage plan but we have got a little in hand for the project level tolerances let's however assume they want an exception plan as I've described that's a project manager now triggering managing a stage boundary process but this time not going in through the next stage plan door but through the exception plan door please notice the activity is called prepare exception plan but and this is important just

like a next stage plan this is exception plan which is at stage level we now need to feed that into the project plan and update that look at the bigger picture we need to update the business case to make sure that's still viable and so on and so forth all of these also but this time all we're saying is we now want to approve an exception plan not a stage plan cuz we never got there so watch carefully this now goes back to the project board who meet again it's not an end stage assessment it's

partway through a stage and it's called an exception assessment or EXA and here is where we see the Dual name of this activity called authorizer stage or exception plan but what happens if the exception report shows that not just stage tolerances are forecast to be exceeded but also project level tolerances well you will recall that those who set the project level tolerances are the business or commissioning layer and so the project board executive will pass the exception report up to them so that they can make a decision on what to do next what happens now

well if they approve it we're all fine and dandy they might prematurely close the project they could do whatever they want but be very clear they like the exception plan or rather they accepted it once the project board have approved the exception plan becomes in effect a stage plan for the next stage inserted into what was originally the remain of the previous stage managing that stage which means authorizing now probably a modified work package and this whole cycle starts over until what well until the end of that stage if we got through that then the

project manager will then start preparing the next stage plan and the whole cycle continues however let's bring our story to a close by looking down here suppose we are now in the final management stage whatever number that is and the project manager has just received the final work package there's no way we want to start preparing for the next stage this is no longer needed what the project manager does however is recognize that the project end is approaching and here that will trigger the closing of project or CP process the first thing that happens here

is the project manager needs to prepare for a planned closure and what this will normally involve is the project manager will use the communication management approach to identify exactly who needs to know the Project's about to close close the project log our good old friend there and ensure that all project information is secured and archived and then advise the project board that we're about to close coming up shortly however the next activity is confirm project acceptance and this involves several things most importantly is prepare follow an action recommendations now if you're not familiar with this

I often call them loose ends simply because as the project comes to a close and we're trying to get acceptance there will be things that need to be shut down this might include passing on any work issues or risks to the operational staff it would mean checking that the benefits management approach includes any post project activities remember the benefits management approach because there will very likely be benefits that have yet to happen and examine the pit to confirm how the products assuming its products are to be passed on to those who will look after them

and maintain Ain them in their operational life then evaluate the project which is looking back over your shoulder and saying so how did we do do you remember the PID that was signed off back in initiating a project well every time we get to an end stage we'll not only look at the Baseline version at this point but also the updated Baseline version as we go through each end stage assessment so here evaluating the project will look back at aspects such as this and it provides the complete history of what happened throughout the project this

isn't an opportunity for the project manager to be horsewhipped but merely just the facts also within the end project report you'll include Lessons Learned although this may as I've suggested here be created as a separate document All That Remains therefore is for the project manager who can only request project closure not actually do it is to provide a project closure to request to the project board and they use the activity authorize project closure and then advise the world that this becomes the formal project management close but I haven't quite finished there may be you see

for whatever reasons I've discussed thus far that the project board decide to prematurely close the project in which case this needs to go in through a different doorway if you will and the activity here is to prepare a premature closure now there are some significant potential differences here between a planned closure and a premature closure one of them for example is that if you're closing prematurely there may be products that need to be made safe or maybe they should be completed a nice mindset here is to imagine it's a construction project where you've got a

new office headquarters building where it's partially completed and for whatever reason it's not going to you need to make it safe there may be expensive plant that shouldn't be stolen uh and you need to make sure it's for health and safety reasons that people can't climb it or hurt themselves in any way so a premature clo will often have lots of these things that need to occur and very often you'll find that these extra activities due to a premature close May indeed blow the tolerances for the stage you're currently in in which case preparing a

premature close could trigger an exception report from the project manager to the project board other than that however these extra activities are carried out and you can see exactly the same thing happens having done that we need to confirm product project acceptance even though here the customer almost certainly will not get all I expected and also to evaluate the project possibly even more importantly here since we could learn lessons from why we had to bring it to a premature close very good well that brings us to an end thank you so much for your time

and attention yes it's quite a busy diagram isn't it but there's no other way to tell this story and very often diving into the manual looking at the detailed activities in the seven processes can seem daunting I hope you agree that my Prince 2 7th edition road map focusing on the processes of major products will actually give you a well structured understanding of the way in which the prince T method Works to deliver successful projects so my name is Dave from projects Academy and if you want to find out more about our latest Prince 2

7th edition masterclass hop on over to projects Academy that's p r o j x.com so until then from me davits bye for now