Got yourself a bit confused about stages, teams and work packages in a PRINCE2 project and how they fit together?  Here is a bit of explanation, with a diagram or two, which may be rather clearer than the PRINCE2 manual.

stages

Well, this is the one you may have the least problem with.  This is a "bit of the project" which is sometimes known as a project phase.  But the important thing in PRINCE2 is to realise that the stages are management stages and not technical stages.

A management stage is a block of work that the Project Board is willing to authorise and resource in one go.  While the board sets aside, hopefully, all of the money and staff resource for the project, it actually authorises the Project Manager to use that resource a bit - a stage - at a time.  This brings huge control.

It is up to the Project Board, in a PRINCE2 project, to decide what those stages should be, and that choice will be influenced by quite a large number of factors.  It certainly isn't fixed for the type of project.  If anybody tells you "Oh in that sort of project you should have six stages" you will know immediately that they don't understand the PRINCE2 method.

The first stage in any PRINCE2 project is always the Initiation Stage.  This is simply a planning stage where the project is planned, and also the stage plan for the stage following the Initiation Stage.  This is so that if the Project Board approves the project at the end of the Initiation Stage - which will normally be the case - stage 2 can start immediately because the stage plan is in place.

Management stages in PRINCE2 are different lengths.  They depend on the nature of the work and the degree of control which the Project Board want to exercise, not on the calendar.

teams

The work of the project will be done by teams.  A team will usually be a group of people, but it might just be one person.  Each team will be led by a Team Manager - not much argument over who that will be in a team of just one person though.

Teams may come from within the customer organisation but some may come from outside supplier companies.  The important thing to realise though is that even if a team is from an 'outside' supplier company, it is nevertheless 'inside' the project.  All project teams are exactly that, project teams.  They are in the project and under the direct control of the Project Manager.  The products that they are developing will be shown as internal on the product planning diagrams and their work to build those products will be on the activity plans such as Precedence Networks and Gantt Charts.

Several teams may be working alongside each other in a stage, and in PRINCE2 there is no limit on the number of teams involved.  Each team working in the stage will work through one or more work assignments - blocks of work given to them by the Project Manager.  In PRINCE2 (as well as some other project management standards) these work assignments are known as Work Packages.

work packages

A Work Package then, is an instruction from a Project Manager to a Team Manager to build one or more products (or deliverables).  In many cases, it will be to build a single product, but sometimes it makes sense to build two or three products together.  For example, in the project to refurbish an office complex, it may be sensible to allocate the 'mains wiring', the 'lighting wiring' and the 'network wiring' products to the cabling team in one go.

The Work Package itself is simply an instruction pack.  It tells the Team Manager what is to be built and how it is to be done.  It will include things such as progress reporting requirements and any constraints on how the work is done.

PRINCE2 training

For great training on other aspects of PRINCE2, why not think about a PRINCE2 Practitioner course with Inspirandum.  Unlike very many PRINCE2 training companies in the market place that focus on 'exam cram', we make sure that you fully understand all aspects of the method and how to use it well on projects.  But a really good understanding leads to great exam results too, so we give you the best of both worlds.  Please click on the link in the side panel to find out more about our public and 'in-company' delivery of PRINCE2 Practitioner training.

All of our PRINCE2 courses are fully accredited.

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The number of stages isn't fixed for particular types of project.

Watch out for people who say it is, because it shows that they don't understand PRINCE2
                    

An team from an 'outside' company is still 'inside' the project.

a work package is a work assignment - an instruction to build one or more products together.

Please click for details of our PRINCE2 Practitioner course

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