Revising the Start Up Process

In your revision for the process, be sure that you understand the areas covered in the following checklists. If you can’t tick any item with confidence, you need to go and look at that subject area again.

At Foundation level, you’re not required to know all the activities in every process, but you’re required to know them in some. Watch out, because Start Up is one of the processes where you do need to be familiar with the activities.

Revision checklist – Foundation

The purpose statement for the process – make sure you can recognise it to be able to identify missing words and know which process the statement belongs to.

The place of the mandate as a trigger to Start Up, and who provides it – corporate or programme management.

The management products in use in the stage: the logs, Project Brief, Project Product Description (PPD) and Outline Business Case within the brief and the Initiation Stage Plan. Make sure you know what they are.

The activities making up the process, so you can recognise them as belonging to Starting Up a Project, know what is going on in each and are aware of the overall sequence of activities.

The definition of a stakeholder in PRINCE2, and the point that the Executive is appointed from among the stakeholders.

Where in the process people are appointed to project management team roles.

The use of the project management team structure to record who’s doing what in the project (which person has which role or roles).

Who’s responsible for what in the process. For what is the Executive responsible, and for what is the Project Manager responsible, for example.

What comes immediately after Start Up: the Project Board will consider the brief and decide whether to authorise the start of the project and run the Initiation Stage (the first activity in the process Directing a Project).

Revision checklist – Practitioner

The contents of the Project Brief, including the component parts, and why they are needed at this point in the method.

Why stage planning is needed at the end of Start Up: to produce the Stage Plan for the Initiation Stage.

The purpose and use of the management products used in Start Up, and the sections within each one, so you can quickly spot where something is wrong with faulty examples provided in the exam in critique-style questions.

How the activities within Start Up will be varied to meet the needs of a particular project. For example, if good information has come in on the mandate, there’s less work to do to produce the Project Brief.

The roles in the project management team (although there’s more on organisation in Chapter 12).