Directing Projects with PRINCE2

• Introduction
• Overview of PRINCE2
  • Key definitions
  • Structure of PRINCE2
  • The role of senior management in PRINCE2
  • Overview of PRINCE2
• Project Board duties and behaviours
  • Overview
  • Be accountable for the project
  • Provide unified direction
  • Delegate effectively
  • Facilitate cross functional integration
  • Commit resources
  • Ensure effective decision making
  • Support the Project Manager
  • Ensure effective communication
• Starting up a Project
  • Purpose
  • Context
  • Confirm the understanding of the project mandate
  • Appoint the Executive and Project Manager
  • Capture previous lessons
  • Design and appoint the project management team
  • Prepare the outline Business Case
  • Prepare the Project Brief
  • Prepare the Initiation Stage Plan
  • Summary
• Authorize initiation
  • Purpose
  • Context
  • Approve the Project Brief
  • Approve the Initiation Stage Plan
  • Communication
  • Suggested Project Board agenda
  • Summary
• Authorize the project
  • Purpose
  • Context part 1
  • Context part 2
  • Context part 3
  • Communication
  • Review the End Stage Report for initiation
  • Approve the Project Initiation Documentation
  • Approve the next Stage Plan
  • Suggested Project Board agenda
  • Summary
• Authorize a Stage or Exception Plan
  • Purpose
  • Context part 1
  • Context part 2
  • Review End Stage Reports
  • Approve Stage or Exception Plans
  • Assess project viability
  • Suggested Project Board agenda
  • Summary
• Give ad hoc direction
  • Purpose
  • Context
  • Respond to requests
  • Respond to reports
  • Respond to external influences
  • Focus of individual board members
  • Communication
  • Summary
• Authorize project closure
  • Purpose
  • Context
  • Confirm handover and acceptance
  • Approve the End Project Report
  • Approve the Benefits Review Plan
  • Communication
  • Suggested Project Board agenda
  • Summary
• Reviewing benefits
  • Purpose
  • Context
  • Hold benefits reviews
  • Close the Business Case
  • Communication
  • Suggested agenda for benefit reviews
  • Summary
• Tailoring PRINCE2
  • Purpose
  • Introduction
  • Environmental factors
  • Project related factors
  • What does tailoring involve?Adapting the themes

Key sections

• Introduction
• Business case
• Organization
• Quality
• Plans
• Risk
• Change
• Progress
• Introduction to processes
• Starting up a projectDirecting a project
• Initiating a project
• Controlling a stage
• Managing Product Delivery
• Managing a Stage Boundary
• Closing a Project
• Tailoring PRINCE2 to the project environment
• Directing Projects with PRINCE2

Project Board duties and behaviours

Ensure effective communication

The Project Board must ensure that communication is timely [see 'The Complete Time Management package'] and effective, both within the project and with the key external stakeholders.
The Project Board is responsible for directing project communication with stakeholders - as champions for the project.

On large or complex projects there may be a wide range of stakeholders, including the public.
In this type of project a formal Communication Management Strategy will be essential.
On simple projects the communications channels and messages may be agreed more informally.

Important aspects to consider are:

• Who are the audiences (internal and external) for project communication?
• How will they be impacted by the project? Sometimes there may be negative impacts and communications must be particularly sensitive
• What are the most appropriate channels in each case - personal contacts, reports, email, newsletters, websites, press releases etc?
• What are the key messages? These should:
• Be mutually consistent
• Be consistent with the Project Plan/Stage Plans
• Be timely: issuing a lot of messages to stakeholders early in a project can result in a perceived lack of momentum later on. It is preferable to time communications to coincide with demonstrable progress. On the other hand, as the handover to operational implementation approaches, stakeholders who have not been directly involved with the project may be anxious about its impact and are likely to need more information and reassurance
• Set realistic expectations - in particular, qualify estimated budgets and target completion dates carefully according to the level of confidence in them; quote ranges rather than absolute values until there is confidence in the detail
• When to communicate? A common problem is too much communication from different projects at the same time. Corporate and/or programme communication functions should be able to assist with this - employing a wider communication management strategy.

The essential internal project communication is covered by PRINCE2® project controls - plans, Work Package definitions, Highlight Reports, End Stage Reports etc. Supplementary and ‘social’ communications such as newsletters are often useful but they should not obscure the basic information flows.

Highlight Reports and End Stage Reports can also be used to keep line managers outside the immediate project management team informed.
This is sensible in that it avoids duplicating reports, but it can occasionally lead to unnecessary interventions by stakeholders outside the project management team - and this, in turn, can cause unnecessary friction.
It is important to communicate and reinforce the accountability of Project Board members (for directing project activity) and Project Managers (for managing it) in the wider organizational culture, so that managers outside the project management team know the correct channels for communicating with the project.

Communication is considered vital in many aspects of modern life but ‘getting it right’ in projects, as in other spheres, involves achieving a balance.
Busy people appreciate information that is ‘just in time’, i.e. enough to meet their needs at that point in time.
Offer too much communication and the audiences may become jaded, switch off and then miss important messages.
Give too little and people may become anxious or suspicious about what the project is doing.

Project Board members are responsible, in particular, for communicating effectively with the programme or corporate management sponsoring the project.
Perceptions at that level are crucial to continuing business visibility and support.
In order to ensure that consistent and accurate messages are communicated, Project Board members often ‘reserve’ the exclusive right to communicate at this level.

In devising a Communication Management Strategy for the project, careful attention must also be given to any non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or other considerations of commercial confidentiality or security.

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.