PRINCE2 methodology is flexible, effective and efficient way for a team to wrap up a project in time. Customizing this methodology can help various businesses achieve their full potential.
What is PRINCE2?
PRINCE2, stands for PRojects IN Controlled Enviroments. It’s a flexible, process-based method that allows teams to wrap up projects effectively and efficiently.
It was first introduced by UK government, as a methodology for executing government projects. Since then, it has been gaining massive appeal worldwide and become an integral part in private and public sectors for project development, especially in countries like Germany, Spain, South Africa, Belgium and the United States.
The Importance of PRINCE2
The nature of project development, especially in the IT industries, makes projects highly unpredictable. PRINCE2 will help you address the common cause of the project failure, and order your project into defined steps to make it more organized, logical and easy to handle. In other words, it allows you to structure each stage of the project in details and tie up all the loose ends once the project finishes.
Benefits of PRINCE2
PRINCE2 has many benefits that allow the team to better plan and execute their projects. Here are just some of the benefits that PRINCE2 will bring to your projects and teams:
- Better Communication - by allowing the team to share a common vocabulary, the team communication will improve
- Autonomy - PRINCE2 allows team members to have complete autonomy over their work, while still working together on projects
- Flexibility - PRINCE2 can be used alongside Agile practices plus it is suitable for any kind of project
- Accontability - by defining roles in a project and assigning responsibilities, with PRINCE2 teams will always know who’s accountable
- Involving Stakeholders - PRINCE2 involves stakeholders, encouraging them to participate in the decision-making process
- Customizable - PRINCE2 allows customization for different project sizes
7 Principles of PRINCE2 Methodology
To better understand how PRINCE2 works, you need to become familiar with the 7 basic principles, the building blocks of this widely popular methodology:
- Continued justification of your business - unless there is a justifiable reason to run and manage the project (a defined customer and realistic benefits) the project should be closed.
- Learning from experience - PRINCE2 will allow your team to take part in the learning process, and continually upgrade their knowledge
- Clearly defined roles and responsibilities - each member of the team should have a clear insight into what they should be focusing on and what their teams are responsible for.
- Running the management in stages - the project is divided into separate stages and which are planned, monitored and controlled with the aim to record lessons learned and confirm is on the right track.
- Manage by exception - people on the team have the right amount of authority to manage and coordinate the project within the controlled environment. A project manager is in charge of delegating tasks and controlling the budget, the cost and the deadlines. In case certain, detrimental issues arise, project board enters the game and decides what the next step should be.
- Maintaining focus on the quality of products - teams continually check the product delivery, definition and the quality requirements
- The approach is adjusted for each project - PRINCE2 method is tailored to suit the requirements of each project (environment, size, complexity, importance, capability, and risk)
Project Roles in PRINCE2
Using PRINCE2 methodology members of the team take on different roles and responsibilities.
- Project board role - leads the project and oversees communication with stakeholders
- Executive role - bears the responsibility for project’s success
- Senior user role - specifies needs of users
- Senior supplier role - holds responsibility for the products’ quality
- Project manager role - manages the project daily and reports to the project board
- Team manager role - ensures production goes smoothly
- Project assurance role - ensures stakeholder’s and business’ interests are adequately managed
- Change authority role - holds responsibility for changes made within the project
- Project support role - setting up project files, often done by project manager
- Corporate, project management or customer role - starts and closes PRINCE2 projects and sets project-level tolerances.
Role of Project Board in PRINCE2 Framework
A project board in PRINCE2 framework consists of three roles: executive role, senior user and senior supplier. The board holds various responsibilities, such as approving plans and resources, communicating with and ensuring stakeholders are involved in the process, authorizing any deviation of the project, providing resources and allocating funds.
The project board works closely with the project manager to ensure that the project stays on track, and it’s the project manager’s role to ensure a timely delivery of the product that will meet quality criteria and fit in the budget.
7 Themes of PRINCE2
To run the project management sufficiently, managing all of its stages is not enough. If you want to be able to control your project, you need to have a deep insight into all of its aspects and address them accordingly.
When it comes to PRINCE2 method, there are seven themes every project manager needs to tackle to run the project smoothly:
- Business case: create and maintain a record of business justification for the project
- Organization: define the roles and responsibilities of each member of your team
- Quality: what quality requirements and measures do you need to focus on and what steps do you need to take to deliver them
- Plan: what steps you need to take and what techniques you need to use to develop the plan of the project
- Risk: clearly identify the risks and opportunities that could affect the project
- Change: how you as a project manager will evaluate and tackle the changes on the project
- Progress: measure how fruitful the project performance is and whether the project is making any progress
7 Stages of PRINCE2 Methodology
Finally, “projects in controlled environments” is a process-driven project management method.
There are seven processes and stages you need to go through when managing the project:
- Starting up the project - assembling the project team, creating the project brief, agreeing upon project approach and approving the next phase of the project
- Starting-Initiating the project - documenting the project plan, risks, project controls and the plan for the next stage
- Starting-Directing a project - controlling the project, giving ad-hoc direction and confirming the end of the project
- Starting-Controlling a stage - controlling each stage separately by assessing the progress, managing issues, reviewing status and taking corrective actions
- Starting-Managing stage boundaries - updating the project plan and deciding what to do with stages once they have exceeded the tolerance level
- Starting-Managing product delivery - managing the execution of the project work, while making sure that the deliverables live up to the expectations
- Starting-Closing a project - project wrap up including documentation and outcomes
Best Practices for Implementing PRINCE2
When it comes to customizing the methodology to suit the needs of an organization, PRINCE2 can be easily adaptable to larger and smaller projects, and therefore fit the needs of various organizations. It allows a framework for effectively communicating with stakeholders and provides clear project objectives. This methodology provides detailed documentation which is useful for robust risk management and allows teams to prevent facing major risks while managing their projects.
The Advantages of PRINCE2
PRINCE2 brings about many advantages when it comes to managing projects, here are the most important positive aspects of this methodology:
- Easy to Manage. PRINCE2 is easy to manage because it can be broken into several stages. This keeps your team's focus on delivering the positive outcome.
- Better Communicating. Improves the communication not only between team members but also between the team and other stakeholders which gives the team more control over the project
- Saves Resources. It allows the team to save a lot of their time and become more economical when it comes to using other resources and cutting down on some major costs along the way.
- Staying Flexible. The flexibility of this approach allows your team to make decisions and changes as the project develops, thus minimizing the impact of possible issues that may arise.
- Spotting Issues. It allows your team to recognize the deviations and possible problems at early stages and have a clear view of the lessons learned which they can use on future projects.
The Disadvantages of PRINCE2
Although PRINCE2 is suitable for most projects, and can be easily used for any type of project of any size, it still comes with a few shortcomings that you should have in mind before deciding on using this particular methodology. Here are some of the disadvantages of PRINCE2:
- Avoid Combining PRINCE2 With Modern Project Management Methodologies. PRINCE2 may not be tailored for some modern project management methodologies (such as projects in the software industry) because it does not offer the level of flexibility these methodologies usually offer.
- Complexity. PRINCE2 has many advantages and can cover an array of projects precisely because it is a complex methodology. This is also a disadvantage when it comes to using it in the day-to-day practice when working on projects.
- Emphasis on Documentation. Working on projects require diligently and meticulously creating the documentation that goes along with it. However, PRINCE2 places an emphasis on documentation which can become overbearing.
- Heavy Emphasis on Planning. PRINCE2 places a heavy emphasis on planning every step of the project, which can be great in some cases for certain types of projects. However, not everything can be planned in certain types of projects, so this can also be a disadvantage.
- Focus on Process Over People. Finally, PRINCE2 places an emphasis on processes that take place as the project develops, disregarding the people who make it all happen. It can be difficult to create a team spirit and positive team culture in such an environment.
PRINCE2 vs. Scrum
Both PRINCE2 and Scrum are recognized as effective project management methodologies, but they have their differences.
PRINCE2 is a methodology that carefully and meticulously documents and follows every stage of the project, with a focus on creating a structured framework. Whereas, Scrum is an Agile project management methodology that strives to make processes smooth which results in producing deliverables within short time frames. Scrum relies on iterative processes and might be more suitable for projects that need more flexible approach, or projects that are expected to change over time. Whereas PRINCE2 is more suitable for larger projects that will benefit from having a detailed documentation of the process. Depending on what the project needs, each of these methodologies can be a great solution for the team to thrive while working on their project.
PRINCE2 vs. PMP
Obtaining a PRINCE2 certification is a great way to kick-start a career in managing projects in controlled environments. PMP certification stands for Project Management Professional certification which is issued by Project Management Institute (PMI). Any of these certifications can help you start your career as a project manager, with a difference of the project management methodology and framework that will be predominantly used. Choosing one of these two certifications can be done by looking back at your personal experience and considering your preference for what kind of project management methodology you would like to use in the future. Definitely, both of these certifications are great to have, and you can even opt for earning both to move along your career path.
PRINCE2 vs. Agile
Just like Scrum, Agile is focused on iterations and is more agile than PRINCE2. Even though PRINCE2 and integration with agile can be possible, PRINCE2 on its own focuses more on creating a process-based framework, by using a structured methodology. PRINCE2 project management framework is prescriptive, with clear guidelines on the project’s process.
To bring out the best of both of the worlds Agile and PRINCE2 can be combined to ensure an approach that has all the benefits of a structured approach such as PRINCE2, and Agile methodology, which brings flexibility to the project. To achieve this and combine PRINCE2 with Agile, project managers can opt for PRINCE2 Agile certification.
PRINCE2 Qualifications
PRINCE2 project management qualification is the IPMA level C, which is an international recognition in project management. To become a certified project manager in PRINCE2 you can obtain PRINCE2 Foundation and PRINCE2 Practitioner certification, which gives you widely recognized qualifications to practice PRINCE2. While the certification obtained with PRINCE2 methodology training is not equivalent to university level education, it is respected in the project management professional field.
Manage a PRINCE2 Project with ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is a powerful project management tool that can be used to manage projects using various methodologies since it has many features and that can be used in managing various types of projects. PRINCE2 project management methodology can be used to conduct and oversee a project in ActiveCollab, by assigning different roles and tasks to members of the team. Project managers using PRINCE2 can create task lists and projects in order to organize their project in ActiveCollab. ActiveCollab allows project managers to fill in tasks with as much detail as necessary, and pull out reports on different aspects of the project at any point in time. Therefore, ActiveCollab can be a powerful tool to and prove to be an adequate PRINCE2 software for running projects.
