Behind the scenes: Start Up Health Check explained

http://www.healthcheck-online.com contains various Prince2 health checks. The biggest of them all is the complete Prince2 health check with 202 questions. In this article you can find the description of the Start Up health check. The Start Up health check is part of the complete Prince2 health check and contains 8 questions.

Starting Up a Project …
… is the stage where the project is being prepared. In this proces you’ll examine whether it makes sense to start a project.

In practice this is a short, sharp stage, where the project manager cooperates intensively with corporate management of the business executive (if appointed).

Starting Up has as trigger a given project mandate. The result of this stage is a project brief.

In this process the project team is appointed and a project brief (describing, in outline, what the project is attempting to achieve and the business justification for doing so) is prepared. In addition the overall approach to be taken is decided and the next stage of the project is planned. Once this work is done, the project board is asked to authorize the next stage, that of initiating the project.

In the online Start Up health check you will find the following questions (Appendix D of OGC’s Prince2 manual (page 385 of the 2002 edition)):

Start-up questions

1. Was there a Project Mandate?
2. Was the Project Board designed/appointed before initiation was authorised?
3. Was a Project Brief produced?
4. Is the Project Brief to PRINCE2 standards?
5. Are quality expectations set?
6. Has the Project Approach been defined?
7. Was an initiation Stage Plan produced?
8. Was the initiation Stage Plan approved?
9. Was the Risk Log created?