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PRINCE2 2009 - Tailoring PRINCE2 part 24

Tailoring PRINCE2 to the project environment

Project scale

Simple project

Management products

The choice of format of the management product can help reduce the project management effort for a small project, for example:

  • The Project Board may decide to receive some, or all, reports orally or have a verbal exchange of information and decisions instead of formal meetings. In such cases, the Project Manager should, as a minimum, document the exchange in the Daily Log since people’s recollection of a verbal agreement can differ weeks, or even days, later
  • Reports could be in the form of an email
  • The Project Initiation Documentation could be a set of presentation slides

Consideration should be given to creating documents that physically include more than one management product.
It is possible to manage a small PRINCE2® project with just four sets of documentation:

  • The Project Initiation Documentation, which includes:
    • Project Brief
    • Business Case
    • Risk Management Strategy
    • Quality Management Strategy
    • Configuration Management Strategy
    • Communication Management Strategy
    • Project Plan, which includes:
    • Project Product Description
    • Product Descriptions
    • Benefits Review Plan
  • Highlight Reports, which include:
    • Product Status Account
  • The Daily Log, which includes:
    • Issues
    • Risks
    • Lessons
    • Planned and actual quality management activities
    • Configuration Item Records
  • End Project Report, which includes:
    • Lessons Report

The following management products may not be needed:

Stage Plan

If there is only one delivery stage, then the Stage Plan details can be included in the Project Plan.

Checkpoint Reports

If there are no Team Managers, there may be no need for Checkpoint Reports (although the Project Manager may request individual team members to provide them).

Work Packages

May only be appropriate when the project has Team Managers.
When there is only the Project Manager, then the Stage Plan may suffice.
However, even in such cases, the Project Manager may choose to use Work Packages as a control for individual team members.

End Stage Report

If there is only one delivery stage, then the end of that stage is also the end of the project and only an End Project Report is required.

Issue Report

If the details of the issue are adequately captured in the Issue Register (or Daily Log), there may be no need for an Issue Report.

Management products example

Having decided to combine the Starting up a Project and Initiating a Project processes for a small project, no Project Brief was produced; instead, the project management team used the project mandate to produce simple Project Initiation Documentation.
The Project Initiation Documentation included a basic Project Plan, with several Product Descriptions and the details of all the strategies and controls to be applied.

The Project Manager elected to use the Daily Log to record risks, issues, lessons and quality results.

Following the initiation stage there was just one more stage, during which a small number of Work Packages were authorized.
As these were being managed, the Project Manager held regular checkpoints, which allowed the production of the regular Highlight Reports to the Project Board.

At the end of that stage (and hence the project) an End Project Report was produced that also included the information for the Lessons Report, follow-on action recommendations and Benefits Review Plan.

PRINCE2® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.

This product contains EVERYTHING in the publications:

Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 - 2005 edition
Managing successful Projects with PRINCE2 – 2009 edition
Directing Projects with PRINCE2.
plus:
The Complete Project Management package.

And much more besides - at a fantastic price.