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Project Product Description

The Project Product Description is a special form of Product Description that defines what 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.

PRINCE2® Project Product Description to download PDF

PRINCE2® Project Product Description to download WORD

The Project Product Description should cover the following topics. 

• Title    
• Purpose   
• Composition
• Derivation   
• Development Skills Required    
• Customer’s Quality Expectations    
• Acceptance Criteria    
• Project Level Quality Tolerances    
• Acceptance Method    
• Acceptance Responsibilities    

The Project Product Description is derived from the project mandate, discussions with the Senior User and Executive – possibly via scoping workshops and the request for proposal (if in a commercial customer/supplier environment).
A Product Description for the project product can take a number of formats, including: Document, presentation slides or mind map; or Entry in a project management tool.

The following quality criteria should be observed:

• The purpose is clear
• The composition defines the complete scope of the project
• The acceptance criteria form the complete list against which the project will be assessed
• The acceptance criteria address the requirements of all the key stakeholders (e.g. operations and maintenance)
• The Project Product Description defines how the users and the operational and maintenance organizations will assess the acceptability of the finished product(s):
• All criteria are measurable
• Each criterion is individually realistic
• The criteria are realistic and consistent as a set. For example, high quality, early delivery and low cost may not go together
• All criteria can be proven within the project life (e.g. the maximum throughput of a water pump), or by proxy measures that provide reasonable indicators as to whether acceptance criteria will be achieved post-project (e.g. a water pump that complies with design and manufacturing standards of reliability)
• The quality expectations have considered:
• The characteristics of the key quality requirements (e.g. fast/slow, large/small, national/global)
• The elements of the customer’s quality management system that should be used
• Any other standards that should be used
• The level of customer/staff satisfaction that should be achieved if surveyed.

Creation, update and use

The Project Product Description 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. It is subject to formal change control and should be checked at the stage boundaries (during Managing a Stage Boundary) to see if any changes are required. It is used by the Project Manager at 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 has been met.