What management products are for
PRINCE2 management products describe the information that will be required to manage the project. They are created solely to manage the project: to plan it, control it, report on it and make decisions about it.
They are different from specialist products, which are the products the project exists to deliver: the outputs that team managers produce and that together form the project product (a building, a system, a trained workforce). A plan or a report is never an output of the project in the business-case sense. It is a management product.
All seven practices should be applied on every project, varied according to the context. The practices are supported by management products, and in PRINCE2 7 almost all of the supporting information is organized into two containers: the project initiation documentation and the project log.
The project initiation documentation (PID)
The project initiation documentation (PID) brings together the information needed to direct and manage the project. It has three purposes:
- a sound basis for commitment: the project board approves the PID to commit to the project's direction, scope and timescale;
- a base document for ongoing assessment: it provides the baseline against which progress, issues and continued viability are assessed, and the basis for the ongoing management of the project;
- a single source of reference for the project.
The PID gives the direction and scope of the project and, together with the current stage plan, forms the "contract" between the project manager and the project board. Its contents include the project definition and project approach, the business case, the project plan, the project management team structure and role descriptions, the management approaches, and the tailoring of the method.
The management approaches inside the PID define the procedures, techniques, standards and responsibilities for a particular aspect of management. Examples are the change management, communication management, commercial management, benefits management, sustainability management, quality management, risk management, issue management, and digital and data management approaches. Earlier editions of PRINCE2 used freestanding "strategies" for some of these. In PRINCE2 7 they are approaches held within the PID.
Because the PID includes the project plan, the business case and the reporting arrangements, it is the best single product for giving the team a basis for managing the whole project.
The project log
The purpose of the project log is to capture the continually changing records of issues, lessons, products, quality, risk and other informal actions or events. It may be a single document or, more commonly, a collection of separate logs and registers:
- Daily log: other informal actions or events that need to be recorded.
- Lessons log: lessons from previous projects and lessons learned during this project.
- Issue register: formally managed issues.
- Risk register: identified risks (threats and opportunities).
- Quality register: a summary of all quality management activities that are planned or have occurred.
- Product register: a list of all products required by a plan and the status of those products.
Registers and logs therefore sit inside the project log. Approaches sit inside the PID. Questions often test whether you know which container holds what.
Worked example: which container?
A project manager setting up an office-relocation project has to decide where each piece of information belongs. One question sorts almost everything: does the item describe how the project will be managed, or does it record what is happening?
| Information | Where it lives | Why |
|---|---|---|
| How risks will be identified and assessed | PID: risk management approach | It sets a procedure, so it is an approach |
| A newly identified threat to the move date | Project log: risk register | It records one specific risk |
| What the executive and senior user are responsible for | PID: role descriptions | It describes the management structure |
| A formally raised request for change | Project log: issue register | It is a formally managed issue |
| A note that a supplier phoned to confirm a site visit | Project log: daily log | It is an informal event |
| The status of each product the stage plan requires | Project log: product register | It tracks products required by a plan |
| Planned and completed quality checks | Project log: quality register | It summarizes quality management activities |
| What went well on a previous relocation | Project log: lessons log | It is a lesson from an earlier project |
The pattern to remember: an approach in the PID says how a kind of item will be handled, while the logs and registers in the project log capture the individual items as they arise. For example, the risk management approach explains how risks are managed, and the risk register records each risk.
Putting it together
The PID is relatively stable: it is approved at the end of initiation and updated under control, for example at stage boundaries. The project log changes constantly as the project runs. The PID says how the project will be managed, and the project log records what is happening.