Introduction on PRINCE2 Plans

What is the purpose of the Plan's theme

The Purpose of Plan theme is to facilitate communication and control by defining the means of delivering the products. Project management needs effective planning in order to exercise control. Plan involves everybody in a project with information on what is required, when the various activities and events will happen, on whether the targets that are being set our achieve. Plans provide a baseline against which progress can be measured.

The actor planning helps the project management team to think ahead and to mentally "run through" the project and i believe this is one aspect to plan which is often undervalued adding to think through the sequence of events and gonna happen that sometimes help you but only to make sure that you're going through things in the right sequence that to identify the source of problems that you may come up against a long way. The Plan theme provides the framework for the development of the projects plans.

What is a Plan?

Plan is not just a chart showing time scales. Very often people see chart such as a Gantt charts and they'll say there's my plan but of course it may show time scales, it may show the sequence of events but it certainly wouldn't give an adequate definition of what it is that you're producing. It may also show the resources that people need. But it probably won't show the risks involved.

A PRINCE2 plan is a document describing how Wayne and by whom specific target or set of targets will be achieved. A plan must contain enough detail and enough information to confirm that the targets are achievable. Plans are the backbone of the management information system of any project and a project's plans must always be kept in step with the Business Case. Plans require the approval and commitment of the appropriate level of management.

What is planning?

Planning is the act all process of making a plan. Planning is essential for small and huge projects. One of the very important factor is to always allow a sufficient time for effective planning. The PRINCE2 approach to planning is product-based.

The period of time for which accurate planning is possible is called the planning horizon, it is generally not possible to plan an entire project in detail at the very start. PRINCE2 recommends three levels of plans. A plan satisfying the needs of the three levels of management.

• Project plan

• Stage plans

• Team plans

Project Plan

This is not a plan for the whole project it's just a plan for an initiation stage and this plan is created during the starting up project process.

Team Plan

Team Plans are created by the Managing Product Delivery process. This state's how the project's time cost scope and quality performance targets are to be achieved. It shows the major product activities and resources required and it provides the Business Case with the planned project costs and timescales. It identifies the major control points including management stages and milestones. The Project Plan is used by the Project Board to monitor progress.

A team manager produces a team plan to cover the work which need to execute one or more work packages. Team Plans are actually optional and PRINCE2 does not prescribe the format or composition of a team plan. Note that in some situations the Project Manager may not look at the detail of the team plan for reasons of confidentiality. Team managers may create their team plans for the next stage in parallel with the Project Manager preparing the Stage Plan for the next stage. To both the recognize that team plans are optional and also important to recognize that the tick lee in IE complex supply a user customer relationship.

It may well be that some of the work done on the project is being done in a confidential environment and therefore the project manager may not find out exactly how the work is being done.

Stage Plan

A Stage Plan is required for each management stage. Stage Plans are similar in content to the Project Plan. But a Stage's Plan has enough detail for the Project Manager to manage the stage on a day to day basis. The Stage Plan for the next stage is produced towards the end of the current stage. Now to say the important thing here is the level of detail that must be and not detail for the project manager to manage that stage. Individual stage plan have much more details at each stage plan it created tools at the end of the preceding stage. Because it's only at that points that will have enough information to make a detailed stage plan. Within the stage the team plans will actually plan for the individual activities during the stage to work on specific products and perform specific TOS. An exception plan is basically a stage plan that is produced to replace a stage plan

Exception Plan

An Exception Plan shows the actions required to recover from the effect of the tolerance deviation typically this will be when something has gone wrong. If approved the Exception Plan replaces the Project Plan or the relevant Stage Plan. Replacement of the Project Plan and weather it may require the approval of corporate or program management. Replacement of the Stage Plan requires the approval of the Project Board. Exception Plans are not produced for work Packages.