BIT Project Board closed the initiating stage of the one winner, one catalogue tender with the authorization to the project manager to start the delivery phase (also called the middle of the project).
In this post it is described how the  BPO has tailored the two most important activities of this stage.

Fig 1 describes – in Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) – the typical processes  of the middle stage.

Fig 1 – Main Processes of the Middle Stage

The processes  described in Fig 1 are performed in one week time (this time period is defined as a “sprint” in BIT).

Evaluation of Bid Answers.
The first process  is the review of the answers to the bid questions  of the previous sprint (as any). This is  a powerful source of change.  Sometimes it might even cause the pre-mature close of the project.  That’s why the project board wants to have the final decision to authorize the project manager to submit the bid questions to the tenderee.

Controlling Stage: initiating the Sprint.
The project manager reports  the bid answers in the related specific scenario.
The different scenarios are then delivered to the teams identified in the initiation stage.
For each scenario the Project Manager reports the external variables and the external assumptions, as defined in the previous sprint (or stage).
For example, in Fig 2  are reported the external variables, the relative assumptions and the related Bid answers supplied to the service team at the beginning of a specific sprint.

Fig 2 – External information for Service Team

Managing Delivery: define components of the scenario.
Together with the external information, the team receives from the project manager the variables that they must estimate. In Fig. 3 are reported (in green color) the variables that the service team must estimate.

Fig 3 – Variables to estimate for Service Team

In the Managing Delivery Process each team analyses the data requirement of their scenario and define the components that they need to quantify in order to supply the requested information.
Based on the scenario supplied by the project manager,  each team defines (in case of the first sprint) or reviews (for further sprints) the necessary components to estimate the requested variables.

Managing Delivery: Estimation and assumptions of the Components.
At the end of each sprint the team performs also the Monte Carlo simulation of their scenario.   They also explain to the product manager the assumptions adopted in developing the components.
For example, in the excel file  Service Model Components Scenario Sprint 1 are reported the components and the estimations performed by the service team at the end of sprint 1 (you need to download and install SIMULAR in order to read correctly the file).

Managing the stage boundary: Consolidation of the Scenario’s.
At the end of each sprint, the project manager consolidates the estimation supplied by each team (Fig 4 reports the estimation of the service team for sprint 1) in order to fill the two main deliverables for this project:
– the financial evaluation of the tender;
– the business case.

Fig 4 – Estimation Service Scenario at sprint 1

Directing the project.
At the end of each sprint, the project board analyses the updated business case and the financial evaluation of the tender.
Particular attention for:
1) the estimated margin of the project;
2) the possibility of the financial offer to win the tender.
If the project board decides to carry on the next sprint,  they review the assumption of each scenario and decided to submit further bid questions.   Together with the BPO and the project manager, they identify eventual modification of external variables for each scenario.

To know more:
Tailoring Prince2 to answer a public tender : managing the End of the Project