Below are the revision notes I used whilst studying for my Prince2 / Prince 2 practitioner exam.  There should help anyone studying for, or using Prince2.  Other supporting documents are available in the documents section on the left of this page.

 

My Prince2 Revision Notes

 Components (x8)

1 - Business Case (Reason for the project)

• Why is the project needed, what are the benefits
• Investment appraisal
• Timescales
• Risks
  
• The business case can change after the project SU
• The business case can change as projects change

2 - Organisation (Responsibilities)

• Designed and appointed during SU
• Reviewed during SB
  
• Project board - should be managers - 3 Interests need representing
• Business
• User
• Supplier

• 7 Roles
• Project executive - responsible for the project and owns business case.
• Senior users - represents users at management level
• Senior suppliers - Represent suppliers at a senior level, these can be in house suppliers too
• Project assurance - Can delegate, to ensure plans and business case, risks are realistic
• Project managers
• Day to day control of projects
• Executing an agreed plan
• Within defined tolerances of the board
• Only one project manager
• MUST NOT conduct project assurance
• Can be a team member
• Team managers
• Represent each team
• Agree work packages with the project manager
• Project support
• expert support staff, eg, admin, lawyers.

• Remember
• Roles are identified not jobs
• 1 project manager only
• Board may NOT delegate decision making roles
• PM must NOT perform project assurance.
• Project board is the voice to the outside world.

3 - Controls (Arrangements, Reporting, Authroisation, Escalation)

• Allows project to be steered, started and stopped
• Prince defines 26(!) controls

• 2 are time based,

§         Checkpoint reports

§         Highlight reports

§         The rest are used as needed

• Management by exception

                        Deliver what was agreed

                        Escalate as soon as it is believed these tolerances will be breached

                        provides support to management

o        Startup controls

§         Project startup

§         Authorising initiation (DPI)

§         Project initiation (PID) once approved acts as a contract

§         Communication plan, agreement on what info provided, to whom and when

§         Stage selection, length of time between partitions, determined by risk, ability to plan/control future, resources.

o        Controls for the doing phases

§         Tolerances - Level of allowed deviation without management deviation

§         Product descriptions - What is the product, who is it for, what are the quality criteria

§         Work package authorisation - Only way in prince to agree work with a team or supplier

§         Quality control

§         Project issues and change control

§         Risk log (results of risk analysis)

§         Checkpoint report, from team managers to project managers

§         Planning and re-planning activity

§         Daily log for the project manager

§         Highlight reports, periodic reports from PM to PB

§         End stage reports

§         End stage assessments

§         Exception report from PM to PB

§         Exception assessment PB review of the exception report

o        Controls for the end of the project

§         End project notification

§         Lessons learned report

§         Follow on recommendations

§         End project report - compares PID to actuals

o        Post project controls

§         Post project review

• Tolerances - Remember!  There are 6 types of tolerance :
• Time
• Cost
• Scope
• Quality
• Risk
• Benefit

4 - Quality (Set and meet expectation)

• Projects should actively define quality.  This helps to manage expectations from users/suppliers etc.
   
• There are 16 aspects of quality :
• External (5)

§         Project mandate

§         ISO 9000

§         Quality policy

§         Quality management policy

§         Quality assurance staff

o        Internal - project definition (6)

§         Customer quality definitions

§         Acceptance criteria

§         Project approach

§         Project quality plan

§         Stage quality plan

§         Project assurance

o        Internal - project doing (5)

§         Product description

§         Work packages, discrete pieces of work

§         Quality log, records actuals against expectations

§         Quality control, prove products meet defined criteria

§         Quality review

·         Remember!

o        Define quality

o        Only the board may change the definition of a product 

5 - Plans (Define project products and activities needed to meet them)

·         These contain

o        Deliverables

o        Activities

o        Dates

o        Costs

o        Resource requirements

o        Gantt charts

• Projects plans - major part of a PID

o        Stage plan

o        Remember!  Plans are the backbone of a project

6 - Risk management

• Risk analysis, identification and evaluation of risks, measures and countermeasures.
• Risk management
• If a risk occurs, it becomes a project issue.
• After risk analysis plans need reviewing
• Risk analysis is stored in the risk log
• Key concepts are
• Description
• Probability
• Impact
• Proximity (time)
• Owner
• Countermeasures identified
• Countermeasures in place
     
• Dealing with risk (PRACT)
• Prevent
• Reduce
• Accept
• Contingency
• Transfer 

7 - Change control

• PB Must approve changes are out of tolerance

• PM can approve / decline changes within this tolerance

• All changes are handled as project issues, these must be captured in the issue log and have their impact assessed.

• Change control should have a priority scale - suggested 5 levels

• A change authority may be defined with a change budget

8 - Configuration management (Tracking deliverables)

• Controls versioning, like visual sourcesafe or a document management system

• 5 Parts

o        Product submission baseline

o        Issueing copies, read only for testing

o        Product issue - controlled, copies for editing

o        Status accounting - records and reports

o        Verification - documents match actual products

• The configuration librarian maintains the issue log

Prince2 Processes

• SU - Startup - project preparation
• IP - Initiating a project
• DP - Directing a project - board steering

o        3 formal decision points:

§          DP1 - Authorising initiation, after SU decide whether to move to IP

§          DP2 - Authorising a project, review PID before commencing first doing stage

§          DP5 - Assessment of a project against deliverables.

o        1 general decision point, re-usable

§         DP3 - Authorising a stage / exception (End of stage or anything outside of tolerance)

o        1 Communication and governance point between stage boundaries

§         DP4 - Giving ad hoc direction, general comms, reporting, or advice.

• CS - Controlling a stage, work of PM when executing a plan
• MP - Managing product delivery, work of team managers who create products
• SB - Managing stage boundaries, PM preparation for end stage
• PL - Planning, define deliverable and create an activity plan.
• CP - Closing a project and review progress / issues, formal handover

Prince2 Techniques (x3)

• Product based planning
• Identify deliverables
• Define deliverable quality
• Work out relationships between the different deliverables
• Change control
• A technique for processing change control
• Quality review
• Review allegedly completed deliverables against quality criteria

Remember... Prince is :

• Considered to be project based
• Needs tailoring to projects
• Can be used in any environment
• Covers the life of the project