Outline responsibility for each project will have been defined as part of the programme definition process as will the linkages with the PCT Senior Management Team and ultimately the Executive Director responsible for the overall programme. These linkages will define what can be decided within the management of each individual project and what needs to be referred up to senior management.

For each project there needs to be a Project Manager who is responsible for leading, managing and co-ordinating the project team on a day-to-day basis. In coordinating the team the Project Manager needs to ensure that:

• lines of reporting are kept as short as possible and very clear
• delegation and individual responsibilities for decision-taking are clearly established at the outset and understood by everyone involved in the project
• clear mechanisms exist for seeking and taking account of stakeholders' views.

Project phases

Projects have three distinct phases:
1. Preliminary - activities of start-up, scoping and defining what is required within a project plan
2. Running - managing the project, broken down into appropriate stages
3. Closure - the end of the project, together with assessments of how well the project was conducted and whether the expected benefits were achieved

1. Defining a project plan
The project plan provides a statement of how and when a project's objectives are to be achieved and lays out the major outcomes, milestones, activities and resources required on the project. It is used as a baseline against which to monitor project progress and cost stage by stage as well as providing planned project costs and identifying the management stages and other major control points.

The elements of the plan are:

• Project summary, giving a brief description of what the plan covers
• Project prerequisites, defining any fundamental elements that must be in place at the start of the project and any that must remain in place for the project to succeed
• External dependencies, identifying the elements that must be provided to the project so that it can continue but which the Project Management Team has no authority over and so cannot ensure delivery fits the project requirements
• Planning assumptions concerning availability of resources, skills/competency requirements etc
• The overall risk profile and how it will be addressed at each stage
• How stakeholders will be involved

These elements should be summarized in a written Project Plan, covering:

• Project level Gantt chart or bar chart with identified management stages,e.g. milestones and control points
• Descriptions of the service outcomes, defining what the project will deliver including the required quality level
• Who is responsible for each element of delivery and who else they need to involve
• The elements of the project level activity network including any dependencies
• Definition of the resource requirement
• Requested/assigned specific resources
• Project level tolerance, for both time and budget as triggers for contingency plans and escalation processes
• Contingency plans, explaining how it is intended to deal with the consequences of any risks that materialise

2. Running a project

The complexity and context for the project will determine whether the implementation phase of the project is carried out in a single stage or broken down into two or more stages so that appropriate levels of management control can be applied. In relation to the WSC it is likely that projects will have formal stages as these provide the Project and Programme Managers with the opportunity to review progress and make any necessary adjustments to timing or resources.

Monitoring and data collection needs to be put in place to assist the evaluation of each stage of the plan. Based on the information received the Project Manager needs to assess whether the project is still on course and continues to align with the overall programme, the risks are under control, the business case itself is still viable and this data informs the decision as to whether the next stage should be undertaken, modified or even if the project should be terminated. A summary of the data needs to be presented to the Programme Manager and any higher level issues identified. Inputs from other projects may also inform the next stage of the project.

Key techniques
Stakeholder management
Risk management
Quality Management
Benefits realisation

3. Closing the project
This stage of the project is concerned with ending a project in a controlled manner, whether this is because the project has gone to plan, or has been abandoned or failed. Crucial to this phase is the capturing of those things that went well and also those things that did not in a 'lessons learned' report. Each project should be evaluated to ensure that the outcome(s) really connect with the issues it was designed to solve. This evaluation should be systematic and related to the original project success criteria.