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Issue Report

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An Issue Report is a description of one or more issues. It also contains an impact assessment of the issue(s). The report is usually created (first information is added) when the issue is first registered in the Issue Register. Basic information can be added like Identifier, Issue Type, Date on Which it was Raised, and Raised By. It can then be updated again after the issue has been examined, solutions proposed, and a solution chosen. An Issue Report is only created for those issues that need to be handled formally.

An Issue Report is first created when capturing an issue and can then be updated after the issue has been examined and when proposals are identified for issue resolution. The report can be later be updated to record what option was decided upon, and finally updated when the issues are closed. Note: Not all entries in the Issue Register will need a separately documented Issue Report.

The Issue Report describes an issue in detail. According to PRINCE2, an issue can be 1) request for change, 2) an off-specification, or 3) problem/concern. The procedure to follow for dealing with issues is defined in the Change Management Approach during the Initiation Stage and the name of this procedure is the Issue and Change Control procedure.

The five steps in the Issue and Change Control procedure are mentioned below and both Issue Register and Issue Report can be updated at each step.

Timeline Issue Report

Issue Reports are created and updated during the Controlling a Stage process by the Project Manager during the following activities

PRINCE2 Management Products

Sample Issue Report

Issue Report

This is a good example of an Issue Report (from the PEN sample project) and also shows the row from the Issue Register. As you can see, most of the effort goes into describing the Impact Analysis and the Recommendation. I have not included the different options in this example.

Source data for Issue Report

Format of the Issue Report

Content of the Issue Report

Quality croteria of the Issue Report

Some tips from Frank

discussion icon PRINCE2 wiki is open-source and published for free under a Creative Commons license.

discussion icon Written by Frank Turley (his LinkedIn profile)