Progress

• Purpose
• Progress defined
  • What is progress?
  • What are progress controls?
  • Exceptions and tolerances
• The PRINCE2 approach
• Delegating authority
  • The four levels of management
  • Project Board controls
  • Project Manager controls
• Use of management stages for control
  • Overview
  • Number of stages
  • Length of stages
  • Technical stages
• Event driven and time driven controls
  • Overview
  • Baselines for progress control
  • Reviewing progress
  • Capturing and reporting lessons
  • Reporting progress
• Raising exceptions
• Responsibilities

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

Progress defined

© Crown copyright 2005 Reproduced under licence from OGC

Exceptions and tolerances

An exception is a situation where it can be forecast that there will be a deviation beyond the agreed tolerance levels.

Tolerances are the permissible deviation above and below a plan’s target for time and cost without escalating the deviation to the next level of management.
There may also be tolerance levels for quality, scope, benefit and risk.

If tolerances are not implemented, there is no clear measure of discretion if things do not go to plan.
For example, if every minor deviation is escalated to the Project Board, the Project Manager is merely monitoring the work and making no effort to implement corrective action - clearly unsatisfactory from the Project Board members’ point of view.
In effect, the Project Board is having to do the Project Manager’s job.
On the other hand, if the Project Manager carries on working to put things right, implementing corrective actions, there is the risk that Project Board members will see this as exceeding the Project Manager’s (unwritten) discretion, and will question why the problems were not escalated earlier.
In this instance, the Project Manager is seen as taking on the Project Board’s role.

The diagram indicates where tolerances may be usefully applied and shows in which management product they are documented

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