PRINCE2, APM and Other Standards#

PRINCE2#

PRINCE2 stands for PRojects IN Controlled Environments. It is a process-based method for managing projects, and it is widely used in UK government and in large organisations. It is built around a business case: a project that no longer has a justification should be stopped.

The principles#

PRINCE2 has seven principles, which must be applied for a project to be run under PRINCE2:

Continued business justification: there is a reason for the project, and it is checked throughout.
Learn from experience: the team looks for lessons at the start and records them throughout.
Defined roles and responsibilities: everyone knows what they must do, and who decides.
Manage by stages: the project is planned and controlled in stages, with a decision at the end of each.
Manage by exception: the board sets tolerances, and the project manager escalates only if one is going to be exceeded.
Focus on products: the work is defined by the products to be delivered and their quality criteria.
Tailor to suit the project: the method is adapted to the size, risk and context of the project.

Themes, processes and roles#

The method has themes, which are the aspects that are managed throughout, such as the business case, organisation, quality, plans, risk, change and progress. Later editions, including PRINCE2 7, keep the structure with some themes renamed and more emphasis on people and sustainability.

The processes follow the life of the project:

PRINCE2 processes#
Process	Purpose
Starting up a project	Check the idea is worth looking at. Appoint the project board and the project manager.
Directing a project	The board makes the key decisions: to start, to continue at each stage, to stop.
Initiating a project	Set out the business case, the plan, the risks and the controls in a project initiation document.
Controlling a stage	The project manager assigns work, monitors progress and handles issues and risks.
Managing product delivery	The teams build the products and report back.
Managing a stage boundary	Review the stage, plan the next one and update the business case.
Closing a project	Confirm that the products are accepted, hand over, and record lessons.

The project board has the executive, who owns the business case, the senior user, who speaks for those who will use the result, and the senior supplier, who speaks for those who build it. The project manager runs the project day to day within the tolerances set by the board.

Typical management products include the business case, the project initiation document, the stage plans, the risk register, highlight reports, exception reports and an end project report.

PRINCE2 and agile#

PRINCE2 is often thought of as waterfall, but it does not require it. The stages, tolerances and board decisions can sit above teams that work in sprints. AXELOS published PRINCE2 Agile guidance to show how the two fit together. The board sets the outcome, the budget and the tolerances. The product owner and the teams decide the detail within them. See Waterfall and Agile: Two Ways to Run a Project for the hybrid pattern.

APM#

The Association for Project Management is the UK’s chartered body for the profession. It provides:

the APM Body of Knowledge, which describes the knowledge that a project professional needs: context, people, delivery and the interfaces between them
qualifications and professional registration, including the Chartered Project Professional status
guidance on good practice, such as governance, planning and assurance

The Body of Knowledge says what a good project professional should know. It does not tell you how to run a particular project, which is why it is used alongside a method such as PRINCE2 or an agile framework and does not replace them.

Other standards#

The main frameworks and standards#
Name	Type	What it provides
PRINCE2	Method	A defined way to govern a project: principles, themes, processes, roles and management products.
APM Body of Knowledge	Body of knowledge	A UK description of the professional knowledge and practice of project management. It is not a method.
PMBOK Guide (PMI)	Body of knowledge	The Project Management Institute’s guide, common in the US and internationally. The recent editions are principle-based.
ISO 21502	International standard	Guidance on project management, at a high level, for any organisation.
The Scrum Guide	Framework	The official, short definition of Scrum. See Scrum and Jira in Practice.
Agile Manifesto	Values and principles	The four values and twelve principles behind agile methods.
Kanban	Method	Visualises the work and limits work in progress, to manage a continuous flow.

An organisation will often write its own project framework that draws on several of these, for example PRINCE2 for stages and approvals, Scrum for delivery, and the APM Body of Knowledge as the reference for the competencies of its project managers. Check the details of each against the current editions, which are updated from time to time.

A valuation control view#

For a valuation control team, a method like PRINCE2 supplies the governance that a regulated function needs: a business case, a named owner, approval to proceed at each stage and a record of decisions. The teams can then use the delivery approach that suits the work. The review points of the PRINCE2 stages are a natural place for the checks that valuation control cares about, such as whether the control meets its objective, whether the data is independent and whether the evidence is kept. See Good Practice and Standards.