P3.express uses a simple process, as shown in the diagram above. This process consists of 33 management activities in 7 groups. Click on any of the activities in the diagram to open its description, or simply start with the first activity, A01.

Principles

Work done in a P3.express project should follow the Nearly Universal Principles of Projects (NUPP). P3.express has itself also been designed to comply with NUPP.

Organization

There’s a management team responsible for the project management activities, with one or more team members, depending on the size and complexity of the project. The project manager leads this team and is accountable for the project management activities. This person reports to the external customer project manager (if any) as well as the internal sponsor, who is a senior manager responsible for the final outcome of the project, for funding and resourcing it, etc.

There are one or more production teams in the project. Each internal production team (one with team members from your own organization) is led by a team leader, who reports to their functional manager (if any) as well as project manager. Each external production team (suppliers) is led by a supplier project manager who reports to their internal managers as well as the project manager.

Documents

The following are the documents defined in P3.express:

• Project Description (template)
• Deliverables Map
• Follow-Up Register (template)
• Health Register (template)

The templates can be used as they are, or used as a guide to creating a customized setup.

It’s important to have a central place for your project documents, with scheduled backups, remote access, and authentication and authorization. If your organization doesn’t have such platform, you can use one of the following open-source, privacy-aware solutions:

• nextcloud
• Cryptpad

If the team is not co-located, you will also need a team chat platform. The following are a few open-source, privacy-aware options:

• element
• rocket.chat

It’s important to capture risks, issues, and change requests in the Follow-Up Register immediately. With this in mind, you need to set up the system in a way that makes access to the register as easy as possible, including access from your mobile phone. If it’s not possible, use a personal journal to record them, and then transfer them to your register as soon as possible. The following are a few open-source, privacy-friendly note taking applications you can use as a proxy:

• Joplin
• Standard Notes
• Turtl

Tailoring

You can make changes to P3.express to better match it to your environment. However, be careful not to harm the internal consistency of your system when doing so, and keep your system simple. It’s usually better to start with the original form of P3.express, and adjust it gradually in response to your needs, refining those choices by inspection and adaptation.

Perspective

If you have no external customer and no external suppliers, there will be only one perspective to the project; otherwise, each organization involved in the project will have its own perspective. Everything in P3.express should be seen from your perspective on the project; e.g., when you’re describing the justification of the project in the project description document, describe your own justification, and not that of the external customer. P3.express is not a single system to be used by every party involved in the project, but a system you use for managing the project within your own boundaries.

In addition to the documents, the perspective should also be considered when thinking about the roles. You may be the “project manager” from your own perspective, but you will be considered a “supplier project manager” from the customer’s perspective and a “customer project manager” from your suppliers' perspective.

History

The first version of P3.express was published in June 2016, followed by two minor revisions in 2018 and 2020. The draft of the second version of P3.express was published in March 2021 to garner comments from the public, and the final version was released in May 2021.

In December 2022, the first draft of micro.P3.express was published, which is a flavor of P3.express customized for micro-projects with 1 to 7 team members.