Note:

PRINCE is a registered trademark owned by OGC (Office of Government Commerce).

PRINCE2 is an unregistered trademark owned by OGC (Office of Government Commerce).

Published here November 2002.

Introduction | Project Life Cycle | Management Levels | Authority Documentation
Special Project Management Roles | Document Description
Planning and Scheduling | Control | Summary | Endnotes

Planning and Scheduling

Product-based planning is a key feature of PRINCE2, providing a focus on the products to be delivered and their quality. It forms an integral part of the Planning (PL) process and leads into the use of other generic techniques such as network planning and Gantt charts.[40] It provides a product-based framework that can be applied to any project, at any level, to give a logical sequence to the project's work. A "product" may be a tangible one, such as a machine, a document or a piece of software, or it may be intangible, such as a culture change or a different organizational structure.[41]

PRINCE2 describes three steps to the PL technique: (1) Producing a Product Breakdown Structure (PBS); (2) Writing Product Descriptions; and (3) Producing a Product Flow Diagram. Each step is described in detail and excellent examples are provided as illustration. In step 2, writing a clear, complete and unambiguous description of products is a tremendous aid to their successful creation. The corollary is, of course, that if it is not possible to write the description, then more work, or another iteration, is necessary to ferret out the necessary information. In step 3, the products are re-ordered into their logical sequence to form a product flow diagram.

The original PBS can become very detailed because the links between the products in the product flow diagram represent the activities required to create them, and every product must be included to capture every activity. The converse is that no activity is necessary unless it contributes to the final outcome. A correctly formed product flow diagram, therefore, not only identifies the activities involved but also leads to a network dependency-based schedule or Gantt chart.[42] PRINCE2 provides a good explanation of the technique and specifies the associated documentation to go with it.

In the Guide, planning generally is seen as part of key general management skills,[43] is one of the five process groups applied to each phase[44] and is therefore recognized as an ongoing effort throughout the life of the project. Planning is discussed in the chapter Project Integration Management, and the essence of which is to create a consistent, coherent document that can be used to guide both project execution[45]æand a baseline against which changes will be controlled.[46] However, planning also appears in each knowledge area and must be integrated across all of them.[47] Because of this fragmentation, an attempt is made for ease of reference to map the Guide's various content to the planning process.[48]

Document Description Outlines  Document Description Outlines

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