Managing Level 1 Projects

• Cost/Value: £50,000 - £100,000* (could be larger for construction)
• Effort: Up to 75 days
• Timescale: Between 6-12 months in duration
• Risk Level: Low – Medium
• Nature: Simple / Informal
• Approach: Single Service; Internal Development

Managing this work as a project will help to:

• Increase the understanding of what is expected
• Provide a common understanding of constraints
• Reduce the need for re-work
• Improve the communication between the teams
• Establish a system for when things may go wrong

1. Prior to Start-Up in the form of a Project Mandate
2. At the end of Start-Up and Initiation when the PID is presented. This should usually be a meeting.
3. At the end of the delivery stage when the work is completed.
4. At the end of the project for final closure.

Before starting a project, you must have a Project Mandate. Issued by the Project Board Executive, it provides the basic information for you to complete the Start-Up and Initiation Stage.   and the Project Manager to complete the Start-Up & Initiation stage. The Project Mandate should be authorised by the board in a meeting known in Level 1 projects as “End Stage Assessment A1”. This can be done formally or informally. The authorisation should be recorded in the Daily Log or filed in the Project File.

Start-Up and Initiation can be combined in Level 1 projects, and is designed to help you plan the project to establish key information ensuring the project starts on the right foot. Much of the information needed for completing Start-Up and Initiation may already have been completed in the Gateway Review Process: Gateways 1 & 2 and therefore needs collating into a Project Brief forming the Level 1 projects terms of reference for the Project Manager.

The following table lists the PRINCE2 Management Products that will be created in this process, and the information each will provide.

• Project Board Executive
• Project Manager

When considering candidates to fill the Project Board Executive role you should be thinking of someone with appropriate authority; Director, Assistant Director, Heads of Department, Heads of Service.

The Project Manager’s responsibility is to manage the project for the Project Board. This will include managing and progressing the plan; managing issues and risks; working with other resources to ensure the timely delivery of products; and keeping the relevant people involved.

For Level 1 projects the Project Manager will most often be an internally appointed project manager.

If the decision is to proceed you will receive authorisation to progress with the plan. The authorisation should be recorded and filed in the Project File. If the decision is not to proceed, then the information gathered should be archived and made accessible for use with future project requests.

• Check the quality of products
• Handle issues and risks
• Manage the stage & Report progress to the Project Board
• Keep the project plan up to date

You should note that any risks that are considered to be a medium-high or high level should be escalated to the Project Board.

The Project Board may meet to consider an Exception Report, but a formal meeting is not always necessary. More likely, the Project Board will review the situation informally, by telephone or e-mail, and then give its response.

Basically your plan is the backbone to your project. You should keep a close eye on it and ensure that it is kept up to date at all time.

• A Product Description of the product(s) to be created
• How the work should be managed
• Clear understanding of who is responsible for delivering the work
• Agreement of timescales, costs and resources required
• Clear communication arrangements

If Work Packages are to be authorised to other members of the team, an agreement of the contents should be made. This will help you and them to understand the requirements and any potential problems that may occur with regards development, time, cost, etc. When undertaking development work yourself, you might find it useful to review the headings of the Work Package to help you better understand the requirements.

The key benefits of Highlight Reporting are:

• Provides summary information – no need for long reports
• Keeps the Project Board informed of events on a regular basis
• Helps the Project Manager to stand back and look at the bigger picture

For all levels of project, it is recommended that Highlight Reports are no more than one sheet of A4. If anybody needs more detailed information, then the project files can be viewed.

• Summary of work completed during the stage
• Summary of outstanding Issues
• Summary of Risks
• The latest updated Project Plan

• Prepare for Project Closure
• Summarise outstanding issues
• Document Lessons Learned
• Get formal close authorisation from the Project Board

The main benefit of this comes when you refer back to this information in the future when starting new projects.

• How the project achieved its objectives (originally recorded in the Project Brief)
• Details of the projects performance against the timescales and costs outlined in the plan
• Summary of changes and how these were handled
• Summary of the products delivered and any comments on quality checks

In some projects it might be necessary to plan for a review to establish whether benefits that were originally identified are indeed being achieved. This is known as a Benefits Review Plan. The actual review will happen some time after the project has finished.

OGC Gateway Review Process: Gateway 5 should be completed as part of Closing the Project.

The Project Closure authorization for Level 1 projects is known as “End Stage Assessment D”. Once agreed, the project can be closed and the project files can be archived.