PRINCE2 2009 - Directing Projects with PRINCE2 part 27
of the Cabinet Office under delegated authority from the Controller of HMSO.
Authorize initiation
Approve the Project Brief
OverviewA Product Description for the Project Brief is provided (in the folder ‘Product Description outlines’) as part of the product package and this includes some generic quality criteria against which the Project Brief should be assessed.
It is good practice to add in other, more specific criteria relating to the project in question.
The Project Brief should be concise.
Its purpose is to avoid time being wasted on detailed planning before there is adequate agreement on what the project is about and whether it is a worthwhile business investment - so it would defeat this purpose if the Project Manager were to waste time instead producing a voluminous Project Brief.
Some information may not be available (or agreed) at this early point.
What is important is that sufficient information is agreed for the detailed planning to commence.
The Project Manager will have worked informally with Project Board members on the content of the Project Brief - this is encouraged and Project Board members should make every effort to be available for the purpose (see ‘Prepare the Project Brief’ in the section covering ‘Starting up a Project’).
The evolving outline Business Case, in particular, should be monitored carefully by the Project Board. Clearly, if it becomes evident that the project is not viable, whether because of flaws in the proposed initiative or other business priorities, it may be considered that continuing work on initiating the project is pointless.
Areas of focusBroadly speaking, the Executive will be most concerned with the validity of the outline Business Case.
An important aspect of this is that the Business Case should be aligned to relevant corporate strategies and investment priorities.
A project with a perfectly healthy Business Case may not be a good candidate for investment if there are other business priorities at the time.
Senior Users will be concerned with the business benefits, because they will have the long-term responsibility for realizing them.
Senior Users will also wish to ensure that the customer’s quality expectations and acceptance criteria have been properly represented in the Project Brief.
The Brief contains a Project Product Description which should be a concise but accurate description of what the project will deliver.
The Senior Supplier’s focus will be on the project approach (is it feasible?) and scope (what do they need to deliver?).
Important considerations will be whether key assumptions and dependencies have been identified and the extent to which they need to be regarded and managed as risks.
The proposals for the structure and appointments for the project management team should be carefully considered by all Project Board members.
Those involved in the project’s management need to have the experience, knowledge and authority appropriate for the scale and nature of the project - also the personal qualities to be able to work together effectively as a team.
Ultimately, the Project Board members, as a team, need to review and approve the Project Brief as a whole, to ensure there is a sound, common understanding.
An efficient way to achieve this (for any important document) is to employ a structured quality inspection or review technique - with a meeting or a telephone conference.
The Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2® manual describes a simple, generic quality review technique of this type.
Techniques such as this provide a systematic and efficient way to facilitate agreement and resolve errors, omissions and ambiguities.
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.
References to the 'manual' refer to the official publication by OGC. Everything in the manual is included in the product package.
Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 - 2005 edition
Managing successful Projects with PRINCE2 – 2009 edition
Directing Projects with PRINCE2.
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The Complete Project Management package.
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