Organizing Practice

The correct approach is for the Executive to appoint a deputy with appropriate authority to act on their behalf during periods of unavailability.

This solution aligns with PRINCE2 7 principles and guidance on Project Board roles:

The Executive role carries specific accountabilities that cannot be delegated away entirely - including ownership of the business case, ensuring value for money, and maintaining strategic direction. However, PRINCE2 explicitly recognizes that Board members may need support through deputies when availability becomes constrained.

A deputy Executive arrangement provides:
- Maintained accountability structure with the Executive retaining ultimate ownership
- Appropriate seniority and authority for business case decisions
- Continuity of decision-making without delays
- Clear governance with someone who can approve budget variances and strategic changes
- Preservation of the three Board perspectives (business, user, supplier)

Why the other answers are less appropriate:

Delegating to the Project Manager contradicts PRINCE2's fundamental principle of defined roles and responsibilities. The Project Manager is accountable to the Board, not part of it. Business case ownership and strategic decisions require Board-level authority. Even with expanded tolerances, the Project Manager lacks the organizational seniority and business perspective needed for these decisions, and this would blur the critical separation between project direction and project management.

Having the Senior User assume business case responsibility conflates two distinct Board roles. The Senior User represents user interests and requirements, not the business investment perspective. This would compromise the balance of Board perspectives and create confusion about accountability for business case ownership.

Accelerated approval mechanisms don't address the fundamental problem of insufficient availability. With only 2-3 hours monthly for a 24-month project with multiple remote locations, even streamlined processes cannot provide the timely decisions needed. This approach creates bottlenecks and doesn't resolve the Senior User and Senior Supplier concerns about delays affecting delivery schedules and vendor commitments.

The primary concern relates to how the proposed arrangement impacts the fundamental project management structure and delivery oversight.

The correct answer identifies the core structural issue: creating coordination gaps that obscure dependencies between validation activities and other delivery streams. In PRINCE2 7, the Project Manager has explicit responsibility for day-to-day management and coordination of all project work. The proposed arrangement bypasses this coordination mechanism by having scientists work autonomously and coordinate dependencies directly with suppliers. This creates several critical problems:

1. The Project Manager loses visibility of critical dependencies between validation timing and equipment installation schedules, particularly calibration sequences and environmental stability testing

2. When dependencies are managed outside the Project Manager's coordination mechanisms, there is no single point of integration to ensure all delivery streams remain aligned

3. Quarterly milestone reports to the Project Board cannot provide the timely dependency information needed for effective delivery management

4. The Project Manager cannot fulfill their responsibility for integrated delivery oversight when critical coordination happens through parallel channels

This represents a structural flaw that undermines the Management by Stages principle and the Project Manager's ability to maintain control over project delivery.

Regarding the other options:

The option about duplicate coordination channels focuses on conflicting technical guidance, but the primary concern is not about conflicting guidance - it's about the fundamental loss of integrated oversight and dependency visibility that occurs when coordination bypasses the Project Manager.

The option suggesting this demonstrates appropriate recognition of specialist expertise misinterprets the situation. While specialist expertise should be respected, PRINCE2 7 does not support autonomous work arrangements that bypass project coordination mechanisms. Specialist work should be managed through appropriate Team Manager appointments or work package arrangements that maintain Project Manager oversight.

The option about transferring accountability focuses on stage completion verification as the primary concern. While accountability transfer is problematic, the more fundamental issue is the coordination gap that prevents effective dependency management throughout delivery, not just at stage boundaries. The Project Manager's ongoing responsibility for coordination and integration is compromised well before stage completion becomes an issue.

The primary accountability of the Team Manager role is accepting, executing and delivering Work Packages to agreed quality, time and cost constraints while managing team resources and reporting progress.

This is the correct answer because it captures the complete scope of the Team Manager's accountability as defined in PRINCE2 7. The Team Manager is specifically responsible for:

• Accepting Work Packages from the Project Manager
• Executing the work assigned within those Work Packages
• Delivering the products/outputs to the agreed specifications
• Working within the defined quality, time and cost constraints
• Managing the team resources needed to complete the work
• Reporting progress back to the Project Manager

This reflects the operational nature of the Team Manager role, which focuses on day-to-day delivery of assigned work.

The other answers are incorrect for the following reasons:

The second option incorrectly emphasizes coordination with Project Assurance and specialist quality criteria as primary accountabilities. While Team Managers work with quality criteria, coordinating with Project Assurance is not a primary accountability, and the focus on specialist products is too narrow.

The third option incorrectly states that Team Managers have accountability for stage-level decisions and alignment with business objectives. Stage-level decisions are the accountability of the Project Manager, not the Team Manager. Team Managers work at the delivery level, not the strategic or stage level.

The fourth option incorrectly includes coordinating quality inspections across multiple teams and providing strategic guidance on resource optimization. Team Managers focus on their own team's work, not coordination across multiple teams, and strategic guidance is beyond their accountability level. The Team Manager role is operational, not strategic.