PRIMS
One data chain, from activity to decision.
PRIMS keeps a development program's results framework, workplan, budget, procurement and risk in one system. A task is updated once, by the person doing the work, and every summary above it is calculated from that record.
- Activity. Tasks, indicators and spending, recorded where the work happens.
- Delivery. Project and control teams see progress against the plan.
- Decision. Management reads the same numbers, rolled up.
What PRIMS stands for
Five words, each one a promise the system has to keep.
How delivery, spending and schedule stand against the plan.
What the program has achieved against its indicators and targets.
One record feeds every view. Nothing is typed twice.
Built around the decisions managers have to make.
A working instrument with roles, rules and a record of every change.
PRIMS for Development Program
PRIMS is built for the way development programs run: a results framework to answer to, a fixed budget, a fixed end date, and regular reporting to a funder. In that setting, spending below plan is as much a warning as spending above it, and the system reads it that way.
One chain, five links
Each link uses the data of the one before it. Nobody re-enters a number further up the chain.
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Project Logic
Define the results
Objective, outcomes and outputs, each with its indicators and targets.
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Planner
Plan and do the work
Every task carries its output, indicator target, budget forecast, risk and progress notes.
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Roll-up
Summaries calculate themselves
Tasks roll up to milestones, activities and projects. No one fills in a summary by hand.
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Control
Check and correct
Data quality checks, escalation rules, a monthly control report and a quarterly reforecast.
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Dashboard
Decide
The dashboard and the reports to the funder are generated from the same records.
What is inside
Nine modules over one database, grouped the way a program moves: set up, execute, control, and read the result.
Project Logic
The results chain, indicator reference sheets and targets, and the Indicator Tracking Table calculated from task data.
Planner
The workplan as a tree, grid, board and timeline, with dependencies, baselines, key dates and a roadmap.
Risk
A risk register scored on a 5 × 5 scale, with mitigation actions and links to the tasks each risk affects.
Procurement
Packages scheduled from the workplan, a procurement plan with locked amendments, contracts, deliverables and payments.
Quarterly reporting
The quarterly disbursement request package, generated from program data, reviewed, then locked on submission.
Governance
Project charter, responsibility matrix, delegation of authority, change requests, quarter plans and lessons learned.
Program control
Workplan validation, daily monitoring, absorption and earned value analysis, control reports and reforecast scenarios.
Escalation
Rules that raise overdue work, slipping indicators and expiring contracts to the people who must act on them.
Dashboard
One overview and five lenses (delivery, results, finance, procurement, risk), plus a presentation mode for meeting rooms.
Rules the system does not bend
These are built into the database, not left to procedure.
The task is the source of truth
Work is recorded at task level. Milestone, project and program figures are always calculated from tasks, never typed in separately.
No parallel reporting
If a report or document is needed, the system generates it from its own data. Nothing is prepared outside and imported back.
What is recorded stays recorded
Progress notes cannot be edited or backdated. A submitted report is locked, and any later change needs a stated reason.
Access follows the role
Each person sees and edits what their role in a project or function allows. Each program's data is kept apart and belongs to that program.
Access is by invitation
PRIMS is for the staff of programs that use it. Sign in with the account your program administrator gave you. A new account has no access until an administrator assigns it a role.