How To Organise Plan And Control Projects Govuk

Summary

GUIDELINES FOR MANAGING PROJECTS
How to organise, plan and control
projects
NOVEMBER 2010
CONTENTS
Section 0: The Purpose of the Project Management Guidelines .......................... 3
What is a successful project? ...............................................................................................................3
Are projects different from the other work? ........................................................................................3
Why use these guidelines? ...................................................................................................................3
What these guidelines cover - and do not cover ................................................................................4
The project lifecycle ...............................................................................................................................5
Programme and Project Governance ...................................................................................................7
Scaling project management to suit your project ..............................................................................8
Using project management templates .................................................................................................8
Section 1: Starting up a new project ....................................................................... 9
The Project Brief ....................................................................................................................................9
Developing a Project Brief to suit the project context .....................................................................10
Defining project scope and objectives ..............................................................................................11
Defining the Benefits ...........................................................................................................................15
Designing the Project Organisation ...................................................................................................17
Section 2: Initiating the Project .............................................................................. 21
Project Initiation Document (PID) .......................................................................................................21
How the Project Initiation Document (PID)is used ...........................................................................21
Developing the Project Initiation Document .....................................................................................21
The Business Case ..............................................................................................................................22
Stakeholder analysis and management .............................................................................................24
Planning the project .............................................................................................................................27
The steps in planning ..........................................................................................................................27
Risk management - avoiding pitfalls and managing opportunities ................................................30
Approving the Project Initiation Document .......................................................................................33
Section 3: Running the project .............................................................................. 34
Control - the key to a successful project ...........................................................................................34
Creating the right environment for control .......................................................................................34
Breaking the project down into manageable stages ........................................................................35
SRO/Project Board controls …………………………………………………………………………………36
Project Manager's Controls ................................................................................................................37
Handling significant deviations from plan ........................................................................................38
Handling Issues, Problems and Changes .........................................................................................39
Changing the approach to project governance ................................................................................40
Document version control and configuration management ............................................................40
Summary of project controls after approval of the Project Brief ....................................................42
Section 4: Closing the Project ............................................................................... 43
Project closure checklist .....................................................................................................................43
Section 5: Realising the Benefits ........................................................................... 44
The Benefits Realisation Plan ..............................................................................................................44
Appendix A: Project Management Documentation templates ............................ 45
2
Section 0: The Purpose of the Project Management Guidelines
The purpose of these project management guidelines is to help you to organise, plan and
control your projects. They are designed to help you to maximise the potential for your
projects to succeed by helping you address each element of your project at the right time
and to the right level of detail for the size and complexity of your project
What is a successful project?
To be successful a project must:
• deliver the outcomes and benefits required by the organisation, its delivery partners
and other stakeholder organisations;
• create and implement deliverables that meet agreed requirements;
• meet time targets;
• stay within financial budgets;
• involve all the right people;
• make best use of resources in the organisation and elsewhere;
• take account of changes in the way the organisation operates;
• manage any risks that could jeopardise success;
• take into account the needs of staff and other stakeholders who will be impacted by
the changes brought about by the project

Are projects different from the other work?
Projects are different from the normal operation of the organisation in that they:
• have specific objectives to deliver new benefits to, the taxpayer, companies, the
general public, government, the sponsoring organisation, stakeholders and/or delivery
partners;
• may introduce significant changes to the way the business operates;
• create new outputs/deliverables that will enable benefits to be realised;
• have a specific, temporary management organisation and governance arrangements
set up for the duration of the project;
• are susceptible to risks not usually encountered in the day to day operational work of
the organisation;
• involve a range of stakeholders from different parts of the organisation and beyond;
• may use methods and approaches that are new or unfamiliar

Why use these guidelines?
Unfortunately projects sometimes fail to deliver, for a variety of avoidable reasons, e.g.:
• failure to take into account the needs and influences of stakeholders;
• failure to communicate and keep the stakeholders informed of developments;
• lack of attention to the impact of project work on the normal business of the
• organisation;
• producing expensive ‘Gold plated’ solutions when simple workable products would
suffice;
• failure to identify and deal with the many risks that can affect achievement of project
objectives;
• insufficient attention to planning, monitoring and control of the work of the project

3
This guidance will help you manage these sorts of avoidable problems. However, it should
not be regarded as set of standards to be followed slavishly in all circumstances. On the
contrary, there are many decisions you must take about the degree of management rigour
you feel is necessary to maximise the chances for success and minimise the likelihood of
project failure. This guide will help you make those decisions

What these guidelines cover - and do not cover
To help you manage your projects the guidance, which can be applied to any type of
project in the organisation and its delivery partners, provides:
• the ‘what, why, who, when and how’ of project management activities;
• advice on scaling project management projects of different sizes, duration and
• criticality;
• flowcharts and checklists to steer you through key project management tasks;
• access to templates for essential project management documents/forms

The following are not addressed in the guide, but are available from a variety of other
sources:
• general project management theory;
• the details of the PRINCE2 methodology (although the guide is fully consistent with
PRINCE2);
• instruction in how to apply generic project management techniques;
• the soft skills necessary for effective project management
4
The project lifecycle
In order to manage effectively it helps to understand the typical lifecycle of a project and how it
applies to your specific project. You need to decide how the management activities of the
lifecycle steps will be achieved, and precisely who will be involved. You must make sure you
understand your role in making these things happen in the right way and at the right time

Much of the project management effort across the lifecycle will be driven by the
owner/sponsor of the project (known as the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) ), and the
Project Manager. To achieve success they will almost certainly need to draw upon the skills
and experience of many others from within the organisation, its partners and suppliers

The BIS Project Lifecycle
While Step 3 - Running a Project is by far the most resource intensive part of the project, it is
the care and effort devoted to project start up and initiation that makes the most significant
contribution to project success. The following diagram summarises the project management
tasks at each step in the lifecycle

5
The SRO, or identifier of the potential project should:
Define and justify the need for the project
Starting up a Specify, quantify and agree desired outcome and benefits
new project Appoint a Project Manager and if appropriate set up a Project
Board
Ensure the reasons for the project and its TOR are defined in a
Project Brief
Ensure it is aligned with strategic/business plan
Authorisation to The SRO/Project Board must decide whether it is sensible and
viable to proceed into the initiation stage of the project
proceed to
project initiation
The project management team should:
Plan how to deliver the required outcomes and benefits
Decide how to manage relationships with key stakeholders
Initiating the Decide how to project manage the delivery process
Determine resource requirements and ensure they can be made
project available when required
Develop Business Case to enable the SRO/Project Board to
decide whether project is cost and risk justified
Document the understanding of the project and how it will be
managed in a PID
Approval of the The SRO/Project Board must assess PID (in particular the
Business Case) to decide whether the project is worthwhile,
Project Initiation viable, affordable and appropriate at this time

Document
The project management team should:
Mobilise the staff and other resources needed to build the
products and deliverables that will enable the required outcome
Plan, monitor and control the work and resources of the project
Manage risks and issues as they occur
Running the Maintain communications with those impacted by the project and
project its outcome
Report progress and issues to SRO/Project Board/Stakeholders
Decide ongoing viability in the light of experience and any
changes in requirements
Ensure deliverables are fit for purpose and will enable benefits to
be realised
The project management team should:
Evaluate the outcome of the project against the PID
Project closure Ensure that any lessons learned are shared with those who
might benefit from them
Release resources used by the project
Review any benefits achieved by the end of the project
SRO confirms The SRO should close the project and ensure that:
Plans exist for a post project review to measure to what degree
closure of the the benefits have been achieved in practice
project Determine the need for any improvements or modifications
Ensure that the project is handed over to a person who will
deliver the outcomes
The SRO should ensure:
Post project reviews are carried out to measure the degree to
Benefits which benefits have been achieved
realisation The Business Case is updated to reflect operational reality
Potential improvements/changes/opportunities identified in the
reviews fed into the strategic planning process for consideration 6
Programme and Project Governance
"Governance - the functions, responsibilities, processes and procedures that define how
the programme is set up managed and controlled" (source: OGC Managing Successful
Programmes)
Purpose
All projects involve decision-making and stakeholder relationship management at different
points in the project lifecycle and at a variety of different levels. The decision-making
element should ensure that a new project does not start or continue unless it is:
• Worthwhile
• Viable
• Affordable
• Good value for money
• Planned and controlled
• Within tolerances for acceptable risk
Governance provides the framework for such decision-making. The project governance
arrangements must be designed during Project Start-up and will usually be a tailored blend of
the basic requirements mandated by your organisation and any specific arrangements to meet
the needs of a particular project. The tailoring will depend on such things as predicted
benefits, cost, urgency, complexity, risk and type/quantity of stakeholders

What Project Governance involves
Project Governance provides a framework within which to manage and should cover:
• Initial and continuing justification of the project
• Setting up an appropriate management organisation
• Establishing a framework for decision-making (roles/responsibilities/authorities)
• Ensuring sufficiently thorough plans are prepared and updated as necessary
• Implementing a stakeholder management strategy
• Putting in place a quality management strategy
• Setting up and operating a project monitoring and control regime
• Managing uncertainties (threats and opportunities)
• Managing problems and changes
The basic Governance framework is established at project start up and results in a decision
being taken whether or not the proposal as documented in the Project Brief should go
ahead. This decision is taken by the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO), perhaps supported
by other key stakeholders as part of a Project Board, and is the formal start of the project

Governance arrangements should be reviewed and, if necessary, revised as the project
progresses

7
Scaling project management to suit your project
Each project must be considered on its own merits when it comes to deciding the degree of
rigour required for project management. The factors that will contribute towards your
decision on how extensively you will apply these guidelines include:
• Criticality to the work of the organisation and/or its delivery partners
• Value of benefits expected from the project
• Degree of risk
• Likely duration
• Amount of effort required to deliver
• Complexity
• Likely spend
• Multi-disciplinary requirements
• Source of funding
• Degree of impact on different parts of the organisation and beyond
• Requirement to involve external suppliers and partner organisation the project
Using project management templates
These guidelines are supported by a set of templates and examples to help you at all
stages of the project lifecycle. They are provided as separate `free-standing' documents in a
form that you may use and modify as required (i.e. Word or Excel format)

A list of all suggested templates is at Appendix A

The templates and these guidelines will be updated from time to time to improve usability
and bring in line with emerging best practice

8
Section 1: Starting up a new project
Start-up is triggered when a Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) agrees/decides to take
responsibility for a new initiative that might best be run as a project. The trigger may come
from business planning, an external driver (e.g. EU legislation, compliance requirement) or
identification of a significant problem that cannot be dealt with as a matter of routine

At the end of start-up a decision whether or not to move ahead is made. This decision is made
in the light of the information gathered during start up and recorded in a Project Brief. In
essence, the Project Brief says why the project is needed, what it must achieve and who
should be involved. There is no set method for conducting start up, in practice it will depend on
the size and complexity of the work and whether, for example, some form of feasibility study
has been done

By the end of project start-up all interested parties should be satisfied that the following
aspects of the project are clearly defined and understood:
• The reasons for the project
• Desired benefits and who will realise them
• Scope - what in and what's out
• Objectives - achievable and measurable (SMART)
• Background - why does this project need to be done and why now?
• Constraints that must be taken into consideration during the project
• Assumptions
• Any known risks
• Dependencies on other projects/activities/decisions
• Stakeholders (internal and external)
• Deliverables/outcomes
• Estimated timescale
• Estimates for resources required
• Lessons learned from similar projects and/or from people who done similar
projects
The Project Brief
Purpose
The Project Brief is an initial view of what the project is to achieve and will identify key
elements of the project and steps that will be followed to reach the objectives. It forms the
basis of agreement between the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) and the project manager
and team and sanctions moving the project forward so more detailed planning can be
undertaken

How the project brief is used
At the outset of a project there may be a mandate (often as simple as an email) from a
senior manager indicating what is required. Following further discussion and a review of
how to achieve the objectives it is useful to record this information in a project brief to
ensure buy-in from senior management and stakeholders before significant resources or
costs are committed

9
Completing the sections of the brief will ensure all key areas of the project have
been thought-through and buy-in obtained

Approval of the Project Brief is the official start of the project where the SRO/members
of the Project Board must confirm that they:
• understand and agree the terms of reference of the project
• are willing and able to commit their time to the direction of the project
• are willing to take joint ownership of the project
• are willing to provide the Project Manager with the time and resources
• needed to plan the project in detail and to produce the Project Initiation Document
(PID)

The degree of formality of this control will vary. The members of the Project Board or SRO
could use email to give the Project Manager authority to proceed to the Project Initiation
stage or, on a large project they might use it as an opportunity to meet (perhaps for the
first time all together in the same room) and ensure common understanding and
commitment to the project

Contents
The Project Brief will cover all the key areas of the project giving details of:
• Objectives
• Scope
• Deliverables
• Business Benefits
• Assumptions
• Constraints
• Risks
• Other Areas of Business Affected
• Major Dependencies
• Stakeholders Resources
• Outline estimates of time and cost
Developing a Project Brief to suit the project context
The Project Brief, giving details of what is expected from the project, should be
developed early on in the project's life and is produced by the project SRO or by the
project manager based on information received from the SRO

For small projects this will be a very short document often with only a few sentences
for each section; larger projects may require more detail to ensure the full scope and
complexity of the project can be understood and recorded

For further guidance on the contents for each section please refer to the
downloadable template

If the project will be short duration, well-defined and it is absolutely certain that it must
proceed then it might be appropriate to move straight on to production of the Project
Initiation Document (see Section 2: Initiating the Project) after a short, sharp start-up phase
but without the intermediate step of the Project Brief

10
Defining project scope and objectives
The relationship between a project's benefits, scope and objectives
Project objectives, scope and desired benefits must all be addressed when starting up a project,
and should be recorded in the Project Brief, and subsequently refined in the Project Initiation
Document (PID) during detailed project definition and planning

It is sometimes difficult to avoid some degree of overlap between what is defined in the scope,
objectives and benefits - j u s t try to minimise the repetition while ensuring you retain the
consistency, clarity and measurability of what you define. The figure below may help you gain an
understanding of the relationship between a project's objectives and the benefits arising from that
project. The scope of the project must be defined such that the objectives can be achieved and
that realisation of the desired benefits is enabled within the scope as defined. In this way they
provide a useful crosscheck against each other

Relationship between project objectives and benefits
What is meant by the ‘Scope’ of a project?
By defining a project's scope you are trying to do a number of things:
• ensure that the boundary between this project and other projects and
programmes is clearly understood and prevents gaps or overlaps in all the
work that is necessary to achieve higher-level objectives
• ensure that the work that the project must do, and what it is specifically
excluded from doing, are defined and agreed by interested parties
• create a baseline for subsequent change control so that the damaging effects of ‘Scope
creep’ can be minimised
When defining a project's scope there is usually no need to re-iterate the objectives or
benefits

Sometimes it is possible to express the scope as a list of deliverables, perhaps with some
covering statements of the sort shown below

11
Project A:
In scope:
Identification of areas of potential efficiency gains and production of a prioritised action plan

Out of scope:
Implementation of the action plan

Project B:
In scope:
Implementation the agreed elements of the XYZ efficiency action plan Specification
of required information systems enhancements
Out of scope:
Changes to information systems which will be carried out as part of project Z
Project C:
In scope:
Changes to existing legislation to meet EU requirement X

Out of scope:
Changes in Scotland or Northern Ireland
Project D:
In scope:
Changes to staff conditions of service for purpose P

Out of scope:
Staff that joined before date dd/mm/yy

You will find that spending time discussing and agreeing the scope with stakeholders during Project
Start-up is a useful way of managing the expectations of those who find it difficult to distinguish
between the 'Must have' elements of a project and the 'Nice to haves'. A Project Startup Workshop is
an effective way to achieve this

Setting SMART project objectives
The setting of objectives is a useful tool for management at all levels in an organisation. It
enables interested parties/stakeholders to agree at the start of a piece of work:
• What they are trying to achieve
• What must be done for the work to be complete
• How they will know that the work has been successful
• By when the work must be completed
Objectives will be set at different levels with increasing levels of detail and measurability as you go from
high-level mission statements down to a task level objective for an individual working as part of a project
team. Example levels are shown in fig 1 below. You may identify other areas where objective setting is
useful or it might be that some levels aren't appropriate to your project: e.g. not all projects are
part of programmes and not all projects are divided into workstreams

These guidelines are supported by a set of templates and examples to help you at all stages of the project lifecycle. They are provided as separate `free-standing' documents in a form that you may use and modify as required (i.e. Word or Excel format).

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do you stay organized in a project?

Create a project plan The first step to staying organized is getting organized. It may be tempting to push ahead, intending to organize things as you go, but good planning is essential. To lay the groundwork for a successful, organized project, invest the necessary time into making a good project plan.

How to make a project plan?

Taking all the information gathered in making your project plan, identify all the activities needed to carry out your project. In the case of complex projects, it may be helpful to organize these tasks in the form of a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), a project management chart visualizing projects, tasks, and their sub-tasks.

What are the rules for planning and organizing at work?

Rules for Planning and Organizing Rule # 1 Prioritizing Even though you can’t do everything at once, prioritizing helps you to figure out which tasks are the most important and which tasks can wait. If you know how to prioritize, you’ll be able to break up your work into smaller pieces.

What do you need to know about project management strategies?

After the project schedule and plan are complete, you need project management strategies and project management tools to communicate them to your team and to help everyone stay on track throughout the project.