PRINCE2® Foundation Project Management

Our highly flexible approach to course module delivery means you can study how and where you want.

Continued business justifications

• Every project should make good business sense, with a clear r1eturn on investment and a justified use of time and resources.
• The business case should be continually updated to ensure that it’s still viable.

Learn from experience

• Everyone involved in a project should take lessons from previous projects into account.
• You should keep a lessons log for this purpose.

Defined roles and responsibilities

• Everyone involved in project should know what they and others are doing, including who the decision-makers are.
• Roles should be separate from individuals, and individuals can take on more than one role.

Manage by stages

• Projects should be planned and controlled on a stage-by-stage basis.
• Moving on to the next stage should involve updating the business case, risks and plan, and making a detailed next-stage plan that incorporates any new evidence.

Manage by exception

• Managers should only intervene when there’s a problem.
• For each project objective, there should be defined limits that dictate when an issue should be escalated to a more senior management level.

Focus on products

• Everyone involved should know what’s expected of the product.
• All work should be based on the product requirements with a particular focus on quality requirements.

Tailor to suit the project environment

• The PRINCE2 framework isn’t rigid. It should be scaled and adapted to suit your project’s environment, size, complexity, importance, schedule and risk.

Starting up a project

• A project mandate is created that defines the purpose of the project, how it will be delivered, and who will be involved.
• A project brief is created based on the mandate, past lesson logs, and discussions with people involved.
• The project team is appointed, including an executive and project manager.

Initiating a project

• The project manager outlines how the following performance targets will be managed: time, cost, quality, scope, benefits and risk.

Controlling a stage

• Project managers break the project down into manageable activities known as work packages, which are then assigned to teams.
• The team manager is responsible for coordinating the daily work and communicating with the team members and project manager.
• The project manager oversees work package progress and intervenes when there are problems.

Managing product delivery

• The communication between the project manager and team manager is controlled through formal requirements around accepting, executing and delivering work packages.

Managing a stage boundary

• Project managers and the board review every stage. The board decides if the project should continue, and the project manager records lessons learned.
• The project manager plans the next stage, updates the project plan and business case, and reports the stage end or produces an exception plan.

Directing a project

• This is an ongoing process in which the project board manages initiation, stage boundaries, ad hoc direction and guidance, and project closure.

Closing a project

• The formal decommissioning of a project, including handing over the product to the customer, preparing benefits and project evaluation reviews, freeing up leftover resources, and identifying follow-on actions.

Business case

• What value will the project bring to the organisation?
• Is the project desirable, viable and achievable?

Organisation

• How will the project team's individual roles and responsibilities be defined?
• Does everyone understand their role and the roles of others?

Plans

• What steps will we take to develop our plans and apply the PRINCE2 techniques?
• How will we achieve our targets with regard to products, timescale, cost, quality and benefits?

Risk

• How will we identify and address uncertainties in our plans and environment?
• How will we control uncertainty and improve the ability of the project to succeed?

Quality

• What are the project's quality requirements, and how will we deliver them?
• How will we verify that the product is fit for purpose?

Change

• How will we assess and address change requests and unforeseen issues?
• How will we identify and control changes to the project baselines?

Progress

• How will we track and assess the performance of the project?
• How will we decide how and if the project should continue?