PROJECT BOARD CONTROLS

The Project Board manages by exception. Having approved a Stage Plan with the Project Manager, the Project Board will be kept informed by reports during the stage. The Project Manager will inform the Project Board immediately if any exception situation is forecast.

The major controls for the Project Board are as follows.

1. Project Authorisation

At the end of the initiation stage, the Project Board reviews the PID and the Next Stage Plan before deciding whether to approve the project and work on the next stage.

At this time, the Project Board may decide to authorise the project, cancel the project (or recommend its cancellation to the Programme Sub-Committee) or revise the project. The Project Board authorises work to proceed on the next stage on the basis of the information in the Next Stage Plan.

Once approved, the PID will be frozen and baselined as a reference document against which the final results of the project can be measured. Updated versions of the most volatile sections of the PID (Project Plan, Business Case, Risk Log) will be produced during the project and kept in the project files as an audit trail.

2. End Stage Assessment

The End Stage Assessment is a mandatory control point at the end of each stage at which the Project Board decides whether to approve the work to date and whether to provide authority to proceed to the next stage. At the end of each stage, the Project Manager will present an End Stage Report to the Project Board highlighting the following:

• Actual progress against the approved plan
• The impact of actual results on the Project Plan
• The plan for the next stage
• The impact this plan will have on the Project Plan and the Business Case
• A review of project risks

At this point, if it is not satisfied with any of the aspects of the assessment, the Project Board can decide to ask for a revision to the plan, change the scope of the project, stop the project, or refer the problem to the Programme Sub-Committee if it is beyond its remit.

3. Highlight Reports

The purpose of the Highlight Report is to provide the Project Board with a summary of the stage status at intervals defined by the Project Board, typically monthly.

The Project Board uses the report to monitor stage and project progress. The Project Manager also uses it to advise the Project Board of any potential problems or areas where the Project Board could help.

4. Product Checklist

The Product Checklist is used by the Project Board to monitor progress. It is a list of the products to be produced within a Stage Plan, together with planned and actual key status dates (draft ready, quality check, approval). As the stage progresses, the actual dates will be filled in.

The Product Checklist will accompany the Highlight Report to give the Project Board a summary of the current status of the stage products.

5. Tolerance

The Programme Sub-Committee should establish tolerances (for at least time and budget) for the whole project, and the Project Board should apportion these tolerances to each management stage. The Project Manager is required to operate within tolerance. If the Project Manager forecasts that tolerances are going to be exceeded, an Exception Report must be given to the Project Board.

The Project Manager will manage the project within the project and stage tolerances set by the Programme Sub-Committee and the Project Board. If the Project Manager forecasts that tolerances are going to be exceeded, an Exception Report will be produced identifying options for consideration by the Project Board.

6. Exception Reports

An exception is a forecast deviation from agreed tolerances. An Exception Report describes an exception, provides an analysis and options for the way forward, and identifies a recommended option. The Project Manager presents it to the Project Board.

7. Exception Plan

The Project Manager will normally produce an Exception Plan following an Exception Report at the request of the Project Board. For a Stage Plan exception, the plan will cover the period from the present to the end of the current stage. For a project level exception, the Project Plan will be replaced.

8. Exception Assessment

An exception assessment (sometimes called a mid-stage assessment) will be held between the Project Manager and the Project Board to review and approve or reject an Exception Plan.

9. Closing the Project

The Project Board can terminate the project at any time if it decides that the Business Case cannot be met or that the risks are too great. If the project comes to a normal close, the Project Board will ensure it is controlled by the following means:

• End project notification (advising all contributors that the project is coming to an end)
• Lessons Learned Report
• Follow-on Action Recommendations
• End Project Report
• Post-Project Review Plan

10. Monitoring the External Environment

The Project Board will monitor the environment outside the project and bring to the notice of those concerned, such as the Project Manager, any changes that affect the project.

Key products (documents) that should be produced to manage and control the project, including the suggested contents for each document. The project manager should bear in mind the advice on fitness-for-purpose: the level of detail required for a given project will be commensurate with the scale of the project; it would be a waste of time and effort to produce a full set of documents for a 30-day project (where an agreed Project Mandate and a simple Work Package would probably suffice as the project control documents).

This should also provide advice on the information that should be provided to manage and control the project. The document names and headings should be thought of logical groupings of information. For example, for a given project:

• A feasibility report may not be required, for example, if the purpose of the project is to produce a new version of an existing application;

• The PID constitutes a project brief, project plan, business case and risk log;
• If the project has only one delivery stage, there will not be any stage plans or related stage control documents.

The project manager should also bear in mind that the PID should contain sufficient information to allow the Project Board to give approval for the commencement of the project and for the project manager to start working on it. It does not need to explain in detail what will happen if everything goes according to plan; rather the PID should be an exposition of what could or should be done if and when the project deviates.