PRINCE2 Practitioner – Introduction to Processes Part 6

17. Tailoring the Directing a Project, Process

There are no management products to tailor in the direct in the project process. So instead we look at tailoring communications on a simple project. The communications and directions given to be tailored down to be phone calls, SMS messages or even simply spoken instructions. And in many circumstances there may be no record of those instructions.

So when working in these circumstances, I usually write the instructions down and then I email them back to the person who gave me the instructions so that a record is created which are then put on file. There are two reasons why I do this. The first is to ensure that there are no disagreements later over what was said and what was agreed to. The second reason is to comply with legal requirements for record keeping and complex projects.

The directing project process may be tailored up to include formal minutes of meetings, emails or communication in other format and other traceable means. Tailoring the roles and directing a project process is again concerned with the executive role. The executive is accountable for all activities in the process. And so at a minimum, the executive executive might actually perform all of the duties without any assistance. On a complex project, this role could be tailored up to allocate all of the activities to others, but the executive would still be accountable for all of them.

18. Tailoring the Initiating a Project, Process

One of the traps with initiating a project process is that because there are ten activities and nine roles involved in this process, it can make people overestimate the amount of time, effort, plan and detail required. On large complex projects there will be lots of time, effort and planning and detail required, but not in simple projects. The key is to always keep a level of tiring consistent across the project. All projects are a learning experience and so you’re unlikely to know accurately how much tailoring is actually required at such an early stage. If a prince who advises that you should start off simple and then build up as you identify the need.

And that will be after you have selected your option from the range of options for managing your project. Looking at the products first and here we are considering two areas. Firstly, table 16 point ten guidelines for tailoring baseline management products in initiating the project shows that we can tailor the Pit, which is project identification documentation and it benefits management approach. But a word of warning in here I’ve often heard the PID being referred to wrongly as the project initiation document. This is wrong. The Pit is the project initiation documentation and the Pit comprises the detailed business case, the risk management approach, the quality management approach, the risk management approach and the communication management approach, the project plan, the project controls, the project tailoring. Having said all that, on a very simple project the Pin can be a single document. However, it still has to address all of the areas looking at tailoring down the baseline management products on a simple project. As I said above, the PID can be a single Docklet.

There are BSL management products, the benefits management approach. It could be tailored right down to making it part of the detailed business case, which of course is included in the PID. Tiering up would mean having every component of the PID managed out as a separate document. Tiering can also be applied to terminology to fit in with the glossary of a particular industry or company. For example, the project plan may be called the project management plan. And please remember that a project plan is not just a project schedule.

Change control could be asset management and so on. But we come to tillering the records management products. These are the risk register, the issue register and the quality register. If you’re not used to prints two, you might have issues with the issue register because it is quite different from the everyday meaning of issue and even the meaning in other professions. When and art always check the glossary and in the Princeton glossary issue, a relevant event that has happened was not planned and requires management action. It can be any concern query, request for chains, suggestion or off specification raised during a project. Project issues can be about anything to do with the project or if it is simply an issue, is any on planned event that requires management action. To tailor down the record management products, you can combine the risk register and the issue register into a single document of issues, assumptions and decisions.

It can be tailored up in a complex project by having software systems dedicated to risks and issues. Tilling the quality register is concerned with the level of detail it contains. You will find the outline product description for all products in appendix two of the prints to guide the quality register is in appendix A 23 and page 352. Purpose a quality register is used to summarize all the quality management activities that are planned or have taken place and provides information for the end stage reports and end project report. Its purpose is to issue a unique reference for each quality activity. Act as a pointer to the quality records for a product.

 Act as a summary of the number and type of quality activities undertaken. So, if your simple project has one well defined product, maybe to create a model of the planet Alpha Centauri A and install it in the local library, there are very little tests you need to perform. And so the quality register may be just a quarter or half a page. But if the purpose of your project is to actually travel 1. 37 par six, which is about 4. 37 light years, give or take a few light weeks, to travel to the planet Alpha Centauri A or even Alpha Centauri B, but definitely not Alpha Centauri C, because that’s just a red dwarf star, then TerraForm the planet and colonize it. You’ll find that your quality register would require somewhat more than half a page because you’ll have millions of tests and results.

And see, we did entire computer systems to manage these products. So far we have covered the management products, both baseline management products and records management products and we have looked at tailoring the glossary and that leaves just the roles. In this case, tailoring the roles is quite simple. So as I said, the project manager role is responsible for the management products. But on a complex role this could be tailored up by delegating them to, for example, project support and ensuring that they are accurate. The project manager may hand over duties to other team members, but the project manager still owns the responsibility.

19. Tailoring the Controlling a Stage, Process

In children, a stage process is traditionally the most heavily tailored because it is in this stage that it controls the delivery of products. And by that I mean the output products, not the management products. And products are the key focus of printstow. This process is very busy and it’s good to remind ourselves that tailoring itself is not set in concrete. Even if your project is to deliver a brick ball, the project manager should follow continuous improvement principles and be on the lookout for ways to make inflight adjustments to the tailoring for the benefit of the project. The management products in this process are all to do with products and they are work packages, the Highlight report, issue report and the Exception report. So, first of all, let’s have a look at work packages.

Principle suggests that the project manager should always use the work package outline product description in Appendix A, point 26 to structure work packages. Moreover, when dealing with specialists, especially if they are external to the organization or if they are on the customer’s site, then they will often have their own methods. In fact, they may not even be following Prints Two, in this case Prince Two recommends that the project manager should still use the work package outline product description, but just really as a checklist to map to the specialist method so that they can ensure that the functionality is not lost.

Okay, so that was a work package. It could be tailored down to be just a checklist. And tailoring up for a complex project would simply be a matter of using every feature of the work package which you can find, as I said on Appendix A 26. 2 on pages 330 and 331. Next we come to the highlight reports. Appendix A, Point 11. 1 says a Highlight report is used to provide the project board and possibly other stakeholders with a summary of the management status at intervals defined by them. The project board uses the report to monitor management stage and project progress. The project manager also uses it to advise the project board of any potential problems or areas where the project board could help. And the glossary says Highlight Report a timedriven report from the project manager to the project board on Management stage progress. I would strongly advise that you constantly check products and terms against the Appendix A and the glossary. A frequent question in the exam is which of the following are or are not timedriven reports?

And sometimes they will try to trick you by asking you about a team manager submitting a Highlight Report, which of course a team manager doesn’t do. The Highlight report may not be distributed on a small project. They could be tailored down to be just wall charts or a can band board. That’s the thing with all the colored sticky labels that you put on it. And the project board would view them as a walk past, or they could be tailored down to be just emails. Tailoring up would include querying and distributing a multipage document which could contain charts, graphs and slideshows. On several of my larger projects, I had to travel interstate and deliver a formal presentation to stakeholders as well as distributing the report electronically. Gearing up would also mean that during periods of increased risk, the board might require a greater frequency of highlight reports so that they can react more quickly to the situation. But this of course has to be wed up against the extra burden of time that it will place on the project board members and they have to make sure that they are available during those times. Next product to be tailored in the controlled and the stage process is the Issue Report. The glossary tells us issue Report is a report containing the description, impact assessment and recommendations for a request for chains of specification for a problem concern. It is created only for issues that need to be handled formally. Scan that line and look for any terms that you’re not familiar with. If I were to ask you what of specification means, would you be able to tell me? And if you were to say it is anything that doesn’t meet specification, then you only half right. Make a note to check it in the Glossary for the exam. You cannot rely on everyday meetings for Prince two terms. Although it’s an open book exam, you may simply run out of time on the exam if you try to look everything up.

20. Tailoring the Managing Product Delivery, Process

Managing product delivery process focuses on the team managers because this process of course, is concerned with actually delivering products as specified in the work packages back to the project manager. The work packages are the interface between the project manager and the team managers. Often we might think of work packages, a sheet of paper, and in small projects that’s exactly what they could be. But think of the name work package.

What does a package implies here? And so they can, on large projects be quite a number of pages. In complex projects, work packages can be very large and in that case they are often split down into a hierarchy of sub work packages. But in that case, it’s important that the project manager still maintains control over the individual sub work packages. To avoid the project getting out of control, it is usually better to avoid sub work packages by having the project manager split the large work packages into smaller ones before they get to the team manager. However, there could be significant efficiencies or simply giving a large work package to team manager, especially if the team manager is significantly more experienced in the technical work and also has project management training. To avoid delays, the team manager should work alongside the project manager. As the project manager is creating the stage plan rather than waiting for the work package to arrive before creating the team plan, then these two products can be tailored in the management product delivery process.

There are two products that can be tailored in the management product delivery process the team plan and the checkpoint plan. On a simple project, the team plan could be tailored down to just a single paragraph on the stage plan listing the who, what, how and when I e the accountabilities, products, activities and target dates. This is very likely if the project manager is also performing the team manager role when tiring it up. For complex projects, it would be scheduled and planned using computerized project scheduling system. A checkpoint report is to keep the project manager up to date with progress. And please make sure that you know the difference between a checkpoint report and a highlight report before the exam. On a small project, this may be tailored down by replacing the checkpoint report with perhaps a weekly meeting or even a phone call.

I’m a strong believer in desk meetings or what used to be called water cooling meetings, which literally means going to the team manager’s desk for ten minute chat rather than arranging a meeting, which also seems to blow out to be an Arno how you plan it. Tearing up for a complex project could mean reports, graphs, schedules, progress against key performance indicators, and so on, and could even include formal presentations.

21. Tailoring the Managing a Stage Boundary, Process

There are five products that can be tailored in the manage in a stage boundary process. The stage plan, product descriptions, end stage report, lessons log and exception plan. Let’s consider a simple project. First of all, the minimum number of stages on a Prince two project is two an initiation stage and one other management stage. So our simple project will have just two stages. And because the project is still simple, we won’t have a separate stage plan.

We will simply incorporate it in the project plan. If you aren’t sure what a project plan is, please remember to check the outline. Product description independent. So back to our simple project. It won’t need an end stage report because there’s no end of stage, there is just an end of project. The lessons log can be combined with the end stage report if there is one. Otherwise it can be combined with the end project report. And finally, the exception plan could be just a list of who, what, how and when. I e the accountabilities, products, activities and targeted. You may have noticed that I didn’t say how to tailor the product descriptions.

That’s because the printston guide doesn’t say. It appears, I think, to be an error in table 19. 6, because it actually talks about the roles involved but not the tailoring. So that was a simple project. Let’s consider a complex project. This time we will have a number of stages and each one will have a separate stage plan. Our complex project will also have detailed end stage reports. The lessons log will be separately maintained and there will probably be a lessons report maintained as well. And finally, the exception plan will be a detailed plan maintained on a computerized planning system.

The only role to tailor in the managing Sage boundary process is the project manager. In a simple project, the project manager will create all of the above management management products. But on a complex project, the project manager may delegate them to others, such as project support or even the team manager. But the project manager is still responsible for them. This is an important point to remember for the examination.

22. Tailoring the Closing a Project, Process

Usually an end stage report is produced at the end of each stage, but not for the last stage. The reason is that one of the main purposes of the end stage report is to provide the project board with sufficient information to decide if the project should continue to the next stage. But there won’t be a next stage. This is the last one and so we produce at the end of project report instead. For some projects, the product or products may be handed over to the customer in the end of this final stage.

Say for example, you’re having a house built, then at the end of the project you sign acceptance of the house and they build the hands over the case. But in many projects the products will have been handed over in the previous stages and this is really just more of an administrative closure. The two documents to be tailored are the End project Report and the Lessons log to tailor down the End Project Report. It may be a single document on a simple project and it could be tailored up by expanding it to be a comprehensive document that includes performance reports on the project and the team. Or these could be separate reports referenced by the End project Reports. These reference reports may be confidential, especially concerning team performance. And so you could even tailor the document as two versions, a confidential version and a general audience version. The Lessons log may be tailored down to be included in the End project Report or tailored up to be a separate document. The roles impacted by Tailoring are the project manager.

In a simple project, the project manager will create all of the above the management reports. But on a complex project the project manager may delegate them to others who are suitably qualified. However, the project manager is still responsible for them. Another area that can be tailored in the closing of project process is the timing of the post project benefits review or reviews. In a simple project it may be possible for the senior user to complete the post project benefit reviews during the hand of the final products in this final stage. And that brings us to the end of tailoring the seven principal processes.