Appoint the executive and the project manager

The buck needs to stop somewhere, and as we’ve seen in Chapter 3, that’s at the Executive’s desk. So filling this role is a logical first step. In fact, a prerequisite for the project having a sound business justification is that a suitably qualified person is willing to take on this accountability. The Executive is appointed by whoever commissioned the project.

Once the Executive is in place, their immediate priority will be to find someone to delegate day-to-day management to. Enter the Project Manager. PRINCE2 recommends that the Executive makes the appointment. Whilst many organisations have their own systems for assigning Project Managers, it’s reasonable for the Executive at least to vet the proposed candidate. After all, the Executive and Project Manager will need to form an effective working relationship, and to maintain this through thick and thin.

As Executive, you suspect a questionable assignment has been made when the Project Manager …

• seems more surprised than you that they’ve been asked to manage the project;
• has already found a way of alienating your PA before even getting started;
• is proud of the fact that their diary is frequently double and triple-booked;
• arrives at your first meeting with no visible means of recording anything agreed or actioned;
• sees communication by anything other than email as a measure of last resort;
• believes ‘organised chaos’ is a serious management technique (with the ‘organised’ part being optional).

At this point, PRINCE2 recommends that a Daily Log is set up. This is a central repository that can be used for holding information on actions and events. It can also be used to hold risks and issues until formal registers have been established.

Capture previous lessons

In line with the Learn from Experience principle, this early stage is the right time to begin the search for relevant, reusable lessons. An effort should be made to track down others within the organisation with useful know-how. Perhaps they’ve been involved in a similar project, are subject matter experts in a relevant field, or have simply watched many projects come and go. There might also be some valuable insights to be gained from suppliers or other organisations that have faced similar challenges (even competitors). So it’s time to dust off those personal networks and then to see what can be learned.

Building up a wide range of connections early on pays dividends in all sorts of ways. It’s an excellent opportunity to raise the profile of your project, and so reduce the risk of others straying onto your patch. Your contacts will be prompted to ask ‘Have you spoken to …?’ when they spot overlaps. Best of all, it’s surprising how many people you come across early on, who then turn out to be handy resources at a later date.

PRINCE2 recommends that lessons are recorded in a Lessons Log. This will then be grown throughout the project for the benefit of the team, and for others that take an interest.

Design and appoint the project management team

Having got the Executive and Project Manager in place, it’s time to decide upon the best management structure. As described in Chapter 3, PRINCE2 provides a framework designed to balance the needs of the sponsoring organisation, the people that will use the end results, and those making the delivery. This is used to build a team that’s capable of effective and timely decision making, and whose members are clear on their respective roles and responsibilities. It also sets up reporting and communications lines.

Some aspects of the PRINCE2 organisation aren’t negotiable, for example, having a Project Board and a single Project Manager. In other areas, there are specific options to consider, including:

• Do any of the Project Board members want to delegate their assurance activities to some additional resources?
• Will the Project Manager be supported by Team Managers when it comes to delivering the project outputs?
• Is the Project Manager likely to be successful in off-loading some Project Support tasks?

Where the answer to these questions is yes, the corresponding roles are defined and willing volunteers sought.

As far as possible, specific individuals should be identified for each of the project management team roles. Confirmation is required that they’re both willing and able to participate. However, it’s not always possible to get names in the frames for every role. For example, where a Team Manager is to be provided by an as yet to be selected supplier, the person to fill the role will have to go by the initials ‘TBD’.

Prepare the outline business case

A project that makes it through to the Initiation Stage is given the chance to develop its comprehensive Business Case. However, just an outline is needed for the decision to move forward or to be abandoned. (The whole story on Business Cases can be found in the next chapter.)

It’s the Executive’s responsibility to prepare the answer to the crucial ‘why?’ question. This task starts with the project’s mandate and consideration of the reasons for its commissioning. Based on the information that can be obtained from a light touch analysis, and data supplied by the Project Manager, an initial view is taken on the balance between cost, benefit and risk. Approval for the outline Business Case is sought from the relevant corporate or programme management.

Alongside the outline Business Case, and taking direction from the Senior User and Executive, the Project Manager produces the Project Product Description. This provides the highest level view of what the project will deliver. It includes:

• a description of the major products;
• the customer’s view on the quality targets that need to be hit;
• the criteria the customer will use to accept or reject the results;
• how the process of customer acceptance will be managed.

Select the project approach and assemble the project brief

Having got a picture of what has to be delivered, some thought can be given to how this is going to be achieved. Options for tackling delivery work are always available. These include the techniques and tools to be used, and how resources and materials will be sourced. There are also some more fundamental considerations, such as whether to build from the ground up, or to adapt an existing asset.

Some choices will already be pre-determined. For example, many organisations have a strategy of buying in packaged software rather than coding it themselves. In this environment, a proposal to deliver a system by recruiting an army of developers is unlikely to get far. Other considerations include requirements to comply with standards set within the organisation, and those enforced through legal requirements and regulatory frameworks.

Practical constraints also help to limit the range of feasible options to review. For example, the implications of the funds and skills available could heavily influence the choice of approach. A re-visit of lessons learned is always a good idea too. Experience may show that some routes give a better chance of success than others.

Decisions on the approach, and the results of the other start-up activities, are recorded in a Project Brief. This document collates the information needed for the initiate or abandon decision.

Project brief – table of contents

A Project Brief gathers together the analysis work for a decision on whether or not to proceed to initiation. It’s assembled by the Project Manager during Pre-project and would typically include the following sections:

Section	Typical contents
Background	The background to the project and a summary of progress made to date
Project Objectives and Desired Outcomes	A description of what the project is setting out to achieve; covering time, cost, quality, scope, risk and benefit objectives
Outline Business Case	A high level summary of the business justification for the project (based on current information), and the rationale for selecting the recommended delivery option
Project Scope	A clear description of the boundary that will be drawn around the scope of the project, identifying the key items that are both inside and outside its remit
Project Product Description	Identification of the major products the project will produce, with the criteria the customer will judge whether or not a fit-for-purpose delivery has been made
Project Tolerances	The important boundaries set for the project; described in terms of time, cost, quality, scope, risk and benefits
Project Approach	A description of the approach that will be taken to meeting the project requirements
Project Organisation	A diagram showing how the project management team is organised, together with a description of all of the important roles
Risks, Constraints and Assumptions	A list of the key risks and constraints identified to date, with a description of any important assumptions that have been made at this stage
Stakeholders	A list of the people and groups that have an interest in the project, with a brief description of the nature of their interest

Directing a project – opening act

Source: © Crown Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. Material is reproduced with the permission of the Cabinet Office under delegated authority from the Controller of HMSO.

Once the Starting up a Project process is complete, a decision is required as to whether or not to proceed any further. This is the first of a number of important management decisions that take place at major project milestones.

In PRINCE2, the process that implements this oversight is Directing a Project. It swings into action at the conclusion of the Starting up a Project process, and then runs through to closure.

The controls offered by the process are aligned with the Project Board’s responsibilities, and are consistent with the manage by exception principle. Directing a Project lays out the points in the lifecycle at which the Board has specific, high level decisions to make. Escalation paths are also defined to deal with exceptions and the interventions that may then be required. Lastly, whilst the Project Board has its important official role to play, there’s also room for friendly informal advice. The process includes the routes by which the Project Manager can take advantage of the knowledge and expertise of Board members.

Timely advice and guidance, and informal contact between Project Board and Project Manager, are great ways to harness collective expertise. All concerned just need to ensure that this informal channel isn’t used so extensively that it undermines proper controls.

A particular responsibility of the Project Board is to keep the Business Case under review, and this is prompted throughout the process. Accepting that the Board will have a personal commitment to the project, it’s still well placed to call time if it sees that the original business justification has evaporated. It brings the expertise of the Executive and Senior User, and also has the advantage of being one step removed from the daily cut and thrust.

Remembering that projects don’t take place in isolation, the Project Board also provides the formal channel of communication with corporate or programme management. These interactions also appear within the process.

The Directing a Project process is built around five activities:

• Authorise initiation – used during Pre-project.
• Authorise the project – used during Initiation Stage.
• Authorise a Stage or Exception Plan – used from Initiation Stage onwards.
• Give ad hoc direction – used throughout the project.
• Authorise project closure – used during the Final Delivery Stage.

Its key outputs are approvals and management decisions – plus some friendly advice and guidance.

Figure 4.2 Directing a Project activities across the PRINCE2 lifecycle

Source: © Crown Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. Material is reproduced with the permission of the Cabinet Office under delegated authority from the Controller of HMSO.

Authorise initiation

The first critical decision point has now been reached, and the Project Board is accountable for granting (or withholding) the approval required to move on to project initiation.

Arriving at the right decision involves a review of the Project Brief and Initiation Stage Plan that have been prepared. The Project Board may choose to enlist some expert assistance before making a call. For example, if the pitch under consideration is dependent upon some complex technology, a suitably qualified technical expert may be engaged to confirm the feasibility of what’s being proposed.

• Do the promised benefits sound plausible? Is there some logic behind the upside – or have numbers been plucked out of thin air?
• Does the proposed solution to the requirements look feasible? Is there a better way of achieving the same end result – or at least getting close?
• Are any of the assumptions made suspect? If those assumptions turn out to be wrong, is the proposal holed below the water line?
• Does the plan for the next stage include everything that’s needed to arrive at a detailed Business Case and a credible delivery plan? Do the time and resources allocated for this look realistic?
• Is there evidence of early commitment from the key players? If not, does this raise cause for concern?

If the Project Board gives the go-ahead, it signs off the Project Brief and Initiation Stage Plan. This includes acceptance of the proposed scope and approach, and the controls for the next stage. The appointments to the project management team are formally confirmed; which involves naming members of the Project Board, the Project Manager and any individuals required for assurance and support roles. Resources required to execute the Initiation Stage Plan are also committed.

Lastly, news of the approval is published to interested parties, and the Project Manager is given authorisation to kick off the Initiation Stage.

That’s it for now for Directing a Project. The next scheduled activity – authorise the project – runs at the conclusion of the Initiation Stage, which is the subject of Chapter 6.

Summary

Pre-project establishes control for a PRINCE2 project and then subjects it to an initial test of its ‘why?’ credentials. The Starting up a Project process runs the analysis work and produces a Project Brief and Initiation Stage Plan.

Events kick off with the appointment of the Executive followed by the Project Manager. The rest of the project management team is then lined up for formal confirmation if the go-ahead is given.

Some high level work is needed to explore the requirements and to investigate delivery options. This is one input to the Executive’s initial assessment of the business justification for the project. Meanwhile, the Project Manager’s planning skills are put to use crafting a course of action for the Initiation Stage.

Directing a Project picks up the results and then drives the Project Board to abandon or move on a decision.

Pre-project is carried out with an open and objective mind. It’s readily accepted that a project that’s abandoned after having been found to have a weak Business Case at modest cost, is as much of a success as one more promising that makes it through to initiation.