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

Reviewing benefits

Hold benefits reviews

For benefits realization to be effective, analysis needs to be undertaken and some decisions need to be made early in the project:

• Identify the benefits
• Select objective measures that reliably prove the benefits
• Collect the baseline measures (from which the improvements will be quantified)
• Decide how, when and by whom the benefit measures will be collected

The arrangements for measuring benefits should be agreed when the Business Case is being developed in the Starting up a Project process and then updated at the end of each stage in the Managing a Stage Boundary process.
Each benefit in the Business Case should be quantified (even if it is not possible to do so in cash terms), otherwise it is not possible to justify the investment in the first place.
The measurement activity itself may well result in the inclusion of additional products in the Project Plan.

Example of measuring benefits directly

If one of the project benefits is a 10% reduction in customer complaints, then the project needs to consider:

• Defining what constitutes a complaint
• Ensuring there is a mechanism to count the complaints
• Ensuring that there is baseline data to compare improvements
• Defining the period over which the reduction will be compared (e.g. comparing the number of complaints in the same two-month period of successive years)
• Whether the comparisons need to be adjusted for external factors (e.g. if the number of customers grows by 20%, then the number of complaints needs to be adjusted in some way to account for the different overall population)

Some benefits may only be measured indirectly, in which case the Project Board should consider using other key performance indicators (KPIs) to extrapolate the benefits.

Example of measuring benefits indirectly

Company X was able to prove the correlation between customer satisfaction and repeat orders and therefore initiated a set of projects to improve customer satisfaction for each aspect of the customer experience (marketing, sales, project delivery, product quality, support).

Where project delivery was concerned, ‘being kept informed about project progress’ was identified as a key factor in customer satisfaction.
Consequently, a KPI was established for progress reporting - the ‘average number of days since last progress update’.
This became a predictive measure for increased customer satisfaction and, ultimately, repeat orders.

The benefits reviews should be held as soon as it is practicable to demonstrate that the benefits have been realized or are capable of being realized.
This should not be too soon - such that the measures are unreliable; nor too late for the findings to be useful.
Also, later in the project, there may be continuity issues with key participants no longer being available after the project closes.

Consideration should be given to aligning the benefits reviews to the organization’s strategic planning or budgeting cycles, as the extent to which benefits have been realized may influence the choice or priority of projects in the next planning cycle.

It is worth considering who leads the benefits reviews.
PRINCE2® recommends that, as the custodian of the business interest, the Executive is accountable for benefits reviews but also recognizes that the Senior User is more directly responsible for achieving the business benefits.
The rationale here is that the investment was made to achieve a beneficial outcome for users (often at their request): consequently, the Executive needs to verify that the return represents value for money for the business by asking the Senior User for evidence of the benefits gained.
While this is valid in many project circumstances, it is not always the case, and project Executives should give careful consideration to responsibilities for benefits realization early on during project initiation.

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.