PRINCE2 Project Product Description

What is this?

The Project Product Description is a special form of Product Description that defines what a the project must deliver in order to gain acceptance.

It is used to:

• Gain agreement from the user on the project’s scope and requirements
• Define the customer’s quality expectations
• Define the acceptance criteria, method and responsibilities for the project.

Why it’s useful?

This is a PREMIUM template as defined by the PRINCE2 Project Management methodology.

Whilst you can find this template in Appendix A of an official PRINCE2 manual, of course you may not have purchased a manual, or you may just prefer to have an electronic version of it.

How to use it?

This is a ‘vanilla’ template that accompanies the PRINCE2 methodology and is used as the basis for PRINCE2 exams.

Whilst you can use it in its vanilla format we recommend that you think about tailoring it (as suggested by the method itself) bearing in mind the following:

• Industry / organizational specific terminology
• Size / complexity of project
• If the project is part of a programme
• Any existing templates in your organization

The Product Description for the project product is created in the Starting up a Project process as part of the initial scoping activity, and is refined during the Initiating a Project process when creating the Project Plan.

Once the Project Board have authorise the project & approved the PID (containing the Project Product Description) it is subject to formal change control and should be checked at stage boundaries (during Managing a Stage Boundary) to see if any changes are required.

It is used by the Closing a Project process as part of the verification that the project has delivered what was expected of it, and that the acceptance criteria have been met.