7 Themes of Prince2

7 Themes of Prince 2 Barry Hodge

Theme 1: Business Case
• “The purpose of the Business Case theme is to establish
mechanisms to judge whether the project is (and remains) desirable,
viable and achievable as a means to support decision making in its
(continued) investment.”
What that means in plain English
• Why is it worth doing the project? As the project continues you are
supposed to check that it is still worth doing. For example imagine
your project was to launch a new tablet that treated a disease. Then
while you were doing the project someone ﬁnds a cure for the
disease. There would be no point continuing with the project as it
would no longer be viable. Also as part of the business case you
need to conﬁrm whether the project can actually be done.

Purpose of Business Case is that the project is:
• Desirable (Worth doing)
• Viable (Still worth doing)
• Achievable (Is possible to do)
Prince2 States
“The business justiﬁcation is documented in a Business Case describing the reasons for the
project based on estimated costs, risks and the expected beneﬁts.”
What this means in plain English
It is WHY the project exists.
Rules of Prince2:
• A project should not start without a business case
• The project should be stopped or changed if the business case is no longer viable

4 Activities of the
Business Case Theme
• Develop – getting the right
information upon which decisions
can be made

• Verify – assessing whether
the project is (still) worthwhile

• Maintain – to update the
Business Case with actual costs
and benefits and current forecast
for costs and benefits

• Confirm – assessing whether
the intended benefits have been
(or will be) realized. Confirming
benefits will mostly take place
post project.

Contents of a
Business Case
A typical business case includes the following:

• Executive Summary

• Reasons – why the project is required

• Business Options – do nothing, do the
minimum, do something

• Expected Beneﬁts – achieved
outcomes

• Expected Dis-Beneﬁts – a negative
consequence of the project

• Timescale – how long it will take

• Costs – how much is it going to cost

• Investment Appraisal – when will the
project payback

• Major Risks – by doing this project

Theme 2: Organization
• “The purpose of the Organization theme is to deﬁne and
establish the project’s structure of accountability and
responsibilities (the who?).”
• This is identifying who the people are who make the
major decisions such as cost on the project. The project
manager answers to these people.

Project Interests
• Business – Is concerned with the
investment in the project. Appoints
an Executive to look after the
business interests

• User – Aﬀected by what the
project produces. A Senior User is
appointed to make sure the project
delivers the desired output.

• Supplier – Responsible for
delivering the project. A Senior
Supplier is appointed to represent
the project delivery team

• The Executive, Senior User and
Senior Supplier make up the
project board
The project exists in the middle
where the three interests overlap.

Four Levels of
Management
Project Board – Responsible for the overall
management and direction of the project.

The Project Board will:

• Communicate with stakeholder who are
outside of the project

• Approve resources and plans

• Approve the completion of each stage

• Authorize the start of the next stage

• Authorize any changes that result in the
project exceeding set tolerances

Project Manager – Responsible for the day to day
management of the project. Prime responsibility for
the project manager is to ensure that the project
does not exceed the set tolerances of time, cost,
quality and scope.

Team Manager – Responsible for the production of
the products that they have been assigned to do by
the Project Manager
The reason for having the four levels is to
separate the delivery parts of the project
from those that are making the decisions
about the direction of the project.

Theme 3: Quality
• “The purpose of the Quality theme is to deﬁne and
implement the means by which the project will verify
products that are ﬁt for purpose”
• Are people going to get what they asked for, will it meet
their needs and how will you know that it will.

Prince2 States Quality is:
• Meet business expectations
• Enable the desired beneﬁts to be achieved
The Prince2 Approach to Quality:
• Identify all the project’s products
• Include quality criteria within product description
• Implement and track quality methods throughout the project
To do this approach there is quality planning and quality control.
The ﬁrst two in the approach is covered by quality planning and the
second is covered by quality control.

Quality Planning is:
• Understanding the customer’s quality expectations
• Deﬁne the project’s acceptance criteria
• Documenting the customer’s quality expectations
• Documenting the project’s acceptance criteria in the Project
Production Description
• Formulating a Quality Management Strategy
• Writing clear Product Descriptions containing quality criteria,
quality tolerances, quality method and quality responsibilities
• Setting up the Quality Register

Quality Control is:
• Carrying out the quality methods
• Maintaining quality and approval records
• Gaining acceptance

Theme 4: Plans
• “The purpose of the Plans theme is to facilitate
communication and control by deﬁning the means of
delivering the products (the where and how, by whom,
and estimating the when and how much).”
• Who is going to do what and when are they going to do it

3 Levels of Planning
• Project Plan
• Stage Plans and Exception Plans
• Team Plans
Project Plan – shows at a high level what will be done and when
Stage Plan – a detailed plan about the stage that the project is at
Exception Plan – a plan to recover from a tolerance that has been
exceeded
Team Plan – an optional plan for team managers to allocate work
to team members

Theme 5: Risk
• “The purpose of the Risk theme is to identify and control
uncertainty and, as a result improve the ability of the
project to succeed.”
• Predict what might happen and do something to reduce
the chance of it happening

What is a Risk?
• Something that may happen that if it does will impact
on the project. If it is a negative then it is viewed as a
threat. If it is a positive then it is viewed as an
opportunity.
What is Risk Management Strategy?
• How the risks will be identiﬁed and managed during
the project.

Risk Management
Procedure
• Identify (context and risks)

• Assess (estimate and evaluate)

• Plan

• Implement

• Communicate

Identify
Context – Gather information about the
project to understand the specific
objectives that are at risk and produce a risk
management strategy for the project

Risks – Understand the threats and
opportunities that may affect the project’s
objectives

• Cause – Describe source of the risk

• Event – Describe area of uncertainty

• Effect – Describe impact on the project

Plan
Come up with a number of options for responding to threats and
opportunities
Threat Responses:
• Avoid
• Reduce (probability and/or impact)
• Fallback (reduces impact)
• Transfer (reduces impact and often only ﬁnancial impact
• Share
• Accept

Opportunity Responses:
• Exploit
• Enhance
• Share
• Reject

Implement
Ensure that planned risk responses are actioned, effectiveness
monitored and corrective action taken when responses do not
match expectations.
• Risk Owner – responsible for making sure the risk is
monitored and managed
• Risk Actionee – Individual assigned to carry out the work
Risk Budget
Money set aside in the project budget to fund the response to
risks.

Communication
Happens continuously both internal and external to the project
Risks are communicated as part of the following products:
• Checkpoint reports
• Highlight reports
• End stage reports
• End project reports
• Lessons report

Theme 6: Change
• “The purpose of the change theme is to identify assess
and control any potential and approved changes to the
baseline.”
• Get permission before doing something that has not
already been agreed.

Prince 2 states
• “The Aim is not to prevent change but to ensure that
every change is agreed by the relevant authority
before it takes place.”
• Make sure the Executive says yes before you do
anything.

Types of Issues
Changes are considered a type of issue. The types of
issues are:
• Request for Change – Changes to what has
previously been agreed
• Off-Speciﬁcation – Something that should be
delivered as part of the project but is forecast not to be
done
• Problem/Concern – Anything that the Project
Manager needs to resolve or escalate

Configuration Management
Configuration management is how products or items will be created,
maintained and controlled. There are 5 core activities:
• Planning – What level of configuration is required and how will it
be achieved
• Identification – Specifying and identifying all components of the
project’s products at the required level of control
• Control – Approve and baseline products and make only
authorized changes
• Status Accounting – The reporting of all past and present data
for each product through a product status account
• Verification and Audit – Conducting a configuration audit

Theme 7: Progress
• “The purpose of the progress theme is to establish
mechanisms to monitor and compare actual
achievements against those planned; provide a forecast
for the project objectives and the projects continued
viability; and control any unacceptable deviations.”
• To measure achievement against the plan and predict
how the project will continue to run

Progress Controls
Progress controls enable the next level of management to:
• Monitor progress
• Compare level of achievement with plan
• Review plans and options against future situations
• Detect problems and identify risks
• Initiate corrective action
• Authorize further work

Tolerances and Exceptions
Tolerances can be set so the project can run day to day without the need to
escalate to the next level of management if the plan is slightly exceeded.
There are six tolerance levels and these are:
• Time
• Cost
• Scope
• Risk
• Quality
• Beneﬁts
An exception is when something is going to exceed the agreed tolerance level.

Management Stages
Management stages are divisions within the project
where management decisions can be made by:
• Facilitating review and decision points
• Enabling decisions to be made before work starts
• Giving time for clariﬁcation
• Delegating authority to the Project Manager to
manage the next stage by exception (escalate if
tolerances are going to be exceeded)

Summary
There are 7 themes within Prince2 and they run through the project linking common
items together. A theme is different to a principle in that the principles are like guidelines
for the project whereas a theme runs through the project. The 7 themes of Prince2 are:
• Business Case
• Organization
• Quality
• Plans
• Risk
• Change
• Progress

7 Themes of Prince2

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