How to control the progress of a project is covered within the PRINCE2 process model part of the PRINCE2 courses offered by Knowledge Train.
This involves the Project Manager agreeing work to be done in the form of Work Packages, monitoring progress and reporting progress to the Project Board in the form of Highlight Reports. To monitor progress the Project Manager receives and reviews Checkpoint Reports from the Team Managers. The Project Manager monitors the status of quality checking by consulting the Quality Log and updates the Stage Plan with ‘actuals’ from the Checkpoint Reports.
Project Issues that arise are assessed and dealt with on a regular basis. The Project Manager makes alterations to the Stage Plan as necessary to keep the stage on track, providing stage tolerances are not forecast to be exceeded, otherwise the situation is escalated to the Project Board in the form of an Exception Report. All of these things are done by the Project Manager in Controlling a Stage (CS). At the same time during Managing Product Delivery (MP) Team Managers make sure the work is done, products are built, quality checks are performed and completed products are handed over.
The Project Manager should review risks on a regular basis or at least at the end of each stage. At the end of a stage during Managing Stage Boundaries (SB), the Project Manager summarises what has been achieved during the stage in the form of an End Stage Report. The Project Board reviews this report and may approve the next Stage Plan at the End Stage Assessment (DP3). They should only give authorisation to proceed if the Business Case remains viable, otherwise they should sanction the early closure of the project. At the end of a stage the Project Manager can update the Lessons Learned Log which summarises what things went well and what went badly on the project.
This article was taken from the booklet Concise PRINCE2™ (PRINCE2 ™ is a Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce) which was offered to students as part of the PRINCE2 training course (version 2005) by Knowledge Train. This booklet has been based on OGC (PRINCE2™) material. Reproduced under licence from OGC.
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