Introduction: All the themes and processes of the PRINCE2 methodology

are based on the 7 PRINCE2 Principles, namely, Continued business

justification, Learn from experience, Defined roles and
responsibilities, Manage by stages, Manage by exception, Focus on products
and Tailor to suit the project environment. These principles will be discussed
in details below.

7 Principles of PRINCE2 Methodology

PRINCE2 Principles are the guiding principles for efficient project
management practice defined by the PRINCE2 methodology. All these 7
principles must be applied to the project in order for the project to be
recognized as PRINCE2 project.

1. Continued business justification for every project, there should be valid

reasons to justify for the existence, these justifications must be documented and
continually reviewed and updated in the Business Case which needs to
be approved by the Senior Management
2. Learn from experience lessons learned from the running of the projects must
be reviewed, recorded and referred to during the life of the project as well as in
subsequent projects, these lessons learned must be produced as the project
progress so that immediate benefits can be achieved (~ unlike PMP where
lessons learned are created at the closing of project/phase)
3. Defined roles and responsibilities every PRINCE2 projects
have well defined roles and responsibilities that ensure appropriate engagements
and representation of stakeholder interests of:
the business (sponsors)
user
supplier (internal & external)
4. Manage by stages the project must be divided into at least
2 logical/management stages depending on the nature and complexity of the
project:
initiation stage; and
one or more further management stages
Within each stage, the plan-delegate-monitor-control cycle should be included
while the duration of stages can be tailored to the specific needs. At the end of
each stage, the status of the project needs to be assessed and the Business Case
and plans be reviewed for the viability of the project.
5. Manage by exception tolerances for the project objective have to
be established within the PRINCE2 project. These tolerances are meant to
provide limits of delegated authority of the management levels once the
limits are crossed, the next management level will need to be involved to decide
the next step. The 4 levels of management are:
corporate or programme management: the senior management of the
organization
project board: executive representative from the management + user and
supplier representatives
project manager: planning and day-to-day management of the project
team manager: perform the activities required to deliver the actual specialist
product
6. Focus on products the project team should focus on the definition and
delivery of products. The product definition includes: products purpose,
composition, derivation, format, quality criteria and quality method. Focusing on
products helps to avoid dissatisfaction among users and scope creep of the
project.
According to PRINCE2, a successful project is output-oriented but not
activity-oriented
7. Tailor to suit the project environment while PRINCE2 can be applied to
any industry, it is a generalised methodology that needs to be tailored in order to
be applied to different project environment, size, complexity, criticality,
capability and risk, etc.
The details of tailoring of the PRINCE2 for the project is to be documented
in Project Initiation Documentation (PID) during the initiation stage of the
project.