Project Board members may offer informal guidance or respond to requests for advice at any time during a project. The need for consultation between the Project Manager and Project Board is likely to be particularly frequent during the initiation stage and when approaching stage boundaries.
Ad hoc direction may be given collectively or by individual Project Board members. There are a variety of circumstances that might prompt ad hoc direction, including:
✔ Responding to requests (e.g. when options need clarifying or where areas of conflict need resolving)
✔ Responding to reports (e.g. Highlight Report, Exception Report, Issue Report)
✔ Responding to external influences (e.g. changes in corporate priorities)
✔ Project Board members' individual concerns
✔ Responding to changes in Project Board composition (which may also require corporate or programme approval).
It is also possible that corporate or programme management revises the project mandate in response to events external to the project, or instructs the Project Board to close the project.
The Project Board has two primary options should corporate or programme management decide to change the project mandate:
✔ Treat it as a request for change - asking the Project Manager to replan the stage and/or project
✔ Stop, and restart the project by triggering premature closure. This may result in additional costs compared to the request-for-change option.
✔ The Project Board may appoint Project Assurance to undertake some of the reviewing and assessing actions (e.g. inspecting a request for change to confirm that adequate impact assessment has been undertaken). When making decisions, it is important to consider the impact on all stakeholders (as identified in the Communication Management Strategy).
