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PRINCE2 2009 - Directing Projects with PRINCE2 part 45

Authorize a Stage or Exception Plan

Review End Stage Reports

The current stage is not formally complete until the Project Board accepts it as such.

The Project Manager’s End Stage Report may take the form of a document, a slide presentation or even a verbal account - whichever is agreed as suitable.

What Project Board members want to know is:

  • Are all the stage products complete?
  • Have they met their respective quality criteria? Were they assessed by appropriate quality authorities?
  • If there are any activities which span the stage boundary, are they on track?
  • Were there any benefits reviews? What is the status of any benefits due to be realized during the stage?
  • Were there any significant issues during the stage? How were they dealt with? What were the root causes and corrective actions?
  • Was the work completed within budget and schedule tolerances or within any other tolerances that were set, e.g. Scope or quality constraints?
  • Have we learned any important lessons during the stage? (A Lessons Report may be included with the End Stage Report.)

The Project Manager should be able to back up the report with evidence from progress records, from the Quality Register, Issue Register, Lessons Log and the Risk Register.
Project Assurance and/or Project Support personnel may also be able to help confirm the detail.

Some loose ends may be acceptable.
For instance, a minor product may be incomplete or quality review/testing follow-up action on a major product may not be fully resolved.
The Project Board must judge the extent to which incomplete work represents a risk, but there are simple ways of managing minor slippages like these (see ‘Assess project viability’).

However, if Project Board members are not satisfied that the stage is really complete, the Project Manager has not properly fulfilled the stage contract and Project Board members should make it clear that, in these circumstances, they expect to receive earlier warning in the form of an Exception Report - just pressing on, hoping that the situation can be recovered, is not an adequate response.

All references above are in Directing Successful Projects with PRINCE2® unless stated otherwise.

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.