HOW TO START USING PRINCE2®

Having received an instruction to investigate a potential project (this instruction is known as a Project Mandate), this section takes you through the activities of Starting up a Project - the first process of the PRINCE2® methodology.

The originator or sponsor of a project will produce a Project Mandate containing all or some of the following basic information:

• Background to the project - Where did the idea come from?

• Project objectives - What is the desired outcome?
• Scope of the project - What is included (and what is not)?
• Customer's quality expectations - Of the product or deliverable.
• Outline business case - Justification and expected benefits.
• Potential project management team-members - People playing which roles?
• Any constraints or interfaces - Financial limits or existing systems?

Appoint an Executive to chair the Project Board, and a Project Manager to plan and manage the project on a daily basis. The project sponsor may determine people for these roles.

The Executive must be a decision-taker.

The Project Manager must be a motivator and forward-thinker...

...with an eye for detail.

Your organisation will have undertaken projects or other ventures in the past. Some of them will have gone well, and some will have gone badly.

This is the opportunity to capture, understand and build on previous weaknesses and strengths so that the project learns from what has gone before.

Often when setting up a project, organisations focus on what is being done and how it is to be done and ignore why the project is worth doing. The Business Case captures why the work is to be done.

Given that there may not be much information available at this point, the outline Business Case is likely to contain a high-level summary.

(Based on OGC material)

The project management team makes and carries out decisions.

To gain commitment to decisions, 3 differing interests must be represented on the Project Board:

• Business Executive - Focuses on whether the end project deliverable will offer "value for money".
• Senior User(s) - Focuses on whether the end project deliverable will offer something that is "fit for the users' purpose".
• Senior Supplier(s) - Focuses on whether the end project deliverable "can be done".

There are also essential roles in a project management team for monitoring all aspects of the project's performance independently of the Project Manager and dealing with requests for change and off-specifications. These roles are called Project Assurance and Change Authority respectively and are the responsibility of individual Project Board-members. Sometimes, the Project Board delegates these roles to other people who are independent of the project management team.

Other optional roles are Team Manager(s) and Project Support.

If you cannot afford them, their responsibilities fall to the Project Manager.

Once you have designed the team structure, put names to the roles and make sure each person signs up to their role's specific responsibilities.

Enhance whatever is in your Project Mandate to create your Project Brief. This will include:

• The formal Terms of Reference for the project.
• Sufficient high-level information to enable the Project Board to justify committing resources to more detailed planning (e.g. outline Business Case, project management team structure, etc.).
• A Product Description of the project's final deliverable (including the Customer's acceptance criteria).

Email us at info@scoll.co.uk if you need a Project Brief or Product Description template.

Ask your Business Analyst what Project Approach was assumed in the costings of the Business Case (e.g. do the work in-house, or use an external supplier, etc.).

Check that the Analyst's chosen approach still makes sense in your organisation's current economic and technical climate.

Plan your time for the detailed planning work involved in creating the PID.

You are looking at 2 weeks to 3 months of work depending on the size and your familiarity with your type of project.

It needs lots of discussion with the Project Board, so do not set impossible targets.

PRINCE2® gives you a flying start in terms of templates, checklists, techniques and processes, but YOU have got to make the project happen.

We appreciate that it's detail, but always ask:

"What's the purpose of my project?"

This 'Using PRINCE2®' section has outlined the first process of the PRINCE® methodology - Starting up a Project.

As indicated in the 'Themes' and 'Processes' sections, there are 6 more processes to the method.

We hope that you have found this Introduction to the PRINCE2® method useful. If you have any questions you want to raise with us, or you want to find out more about using PRINCE2® by attending one of our training courses or by using our consultants:

Click here for more information about our PRINCE® training courses, or call us on 0845 223 5464.

Click here for more information about our consultancy services, or call us on 0845 223 5464.