PRINCE2 (Projects IN Controlled Environments) is a structured project management methodology that offers numerous features and benefits for organizations seeking consistent project delivery. Here are the key features and benefits:
**Key Features:**
1. **Process-Based Approach**: PRINCE2 provides …PRINCE2 (Projects IN Controlled Environments) is a structured project management methodology that offers numerous features and benefits for organizations seeking consistent project delivery. Here are the key features and benefits:
**Key Features:**
1. **Process-Based Approach**: PRINCE2 provides seven clearly defined processes that guide projects from initiation through to closure, ensuring systematic progress throughout the project lifecycle.
2. **Principles-Driven**: The methodology is built upon seven fundamental principles that provide a framework for good practice and must be applied for a project to be considered PRINCE2-compliant.
3. **Tailorable Framework**: PRINCE2 can be adapted to suit projects of any size, type, or industry, making it highly versatile and applicable across various organizational contexts.
4. **Defined Roles and Responsibilities**: Clear accountability structures ensure everyone understands their role within the project team and governance hierarchy.
5. **Management by Stages**: Projects are divided into manageable stages with defined decision points, allowing for better control and review opportunities.
**Key Benefits:**
1. **Common Vocabulary**: Establishes standardized terminology across the organization, improving communication among stakeholders and team members.
2. **Continued Business Justification**: Ensures projects remain viable throughout their duration, with regular reviews of the business case.
3. **Focus on Products**: Emphasizes deliverable-based planning, ensuring clarity on what needs to be produced.
4. **Lessons Integration**: Promotes learning from previous experiences, incorporating lessons throughout the project lifecycle.
5. **Defined Management by Exception**: Establishes tolerances that empower teams while maintaining appropriate oversight and escalation procedures.
6. **Scalability**: The framework accommodates both small and large-scale projects through appropriate tailoring.
7. **Risk Management**: Integrates comprehensive risk identification and response planning throughout project stages.
These features combine to deliver projects more predictably, with greater stakeholder confidence and improved success rates.
Features and Benefits of PRINCE2 - Complete Study Guide
Why is This Topic Important?
Understanding the features and benefits of PRINCE2 is fundamental to the Foundation exam. This topic forms the basis for understanding why organizations adopt PRINCE2 and how it provides value. Exam questions frequently test your ability to distinguish between features (what PRINCE2 has) and benefits (what value it delivers). This knowledge also helps you appreciate the methodology's practical applications.
What are Features of PRINCE2?
Features are the distinctive characteristics that define PRINCE2 as a project management method. The key features include:
1. Focus on Business Justification Every project must have a valid business reason documented in the Business Case. This is reviewed throughout the project lifecycle to ensure continued viability.
2. Defined Organization Structure PRINCE2 provides a clear structure for project teams with defined roles and responsibilities, including the Project Board, Project Manager, and Team Managers.
3. Product-Based Planning Planning focuses on delivering products (outputs) rather than activities. This ensures clarity about what needs to be delivered.
4. Management by Stages Projects are divided into management stages, allowing for better control and regular review points.
5. Management by Exception Tolerances are set at each level, allowing managers to operate independently within agreed boundaries while escalating issues that exceed tolerances.
6. Tailoring to the Project Environment PRINCE2 must be tailored to suit the size, complexity, and environment of each project.
What are Benefits of PRINCE2?
Benefits are the positive outcomes that result from using PRINCE2:
• Common vocabulary - Provides a shared language for all project participants
• Proven best practice - Based on decades of experience from thousands of projects
• Widely recognized - Understood globally, making it easier to work across organizations
• Explicit recognition of responsibilities - Everyone knows their role and what is expected
• Controlled start, progress, and close - Provides governance throughout the project lifecycle
• Regular reviews of progress - Against the Business Case and plans
• Flexibility - Can be applied to any type of project
How PRINCE2 Features and Benefits Work Together
The features enable the benefits. For example, the feature of management by stages enables the benefit of controlled progress with regular review points. The feature of defined organization structure enables the benefit of explicit recognition of responsibilities.
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Features and Benefits
Tip 1: Distinguish between features and benefits. Features describe WHAT PRINCE2 has or does. Benefits describe the VALUE or OUTCOME of using those features.
Tip 2: Look for keywords. Questions about features often use words like 'characteristic,' 'element,' or 'aspect.' Questions about benefits use words like 'advantage,' 'value,' or 'outcome.'
Tip 3: Remember that business justification is both a feature AND a principle. If a question asks about features, business justification is valid. If it asks about principles, continued business justification is the answer.
Tip 4: Tailoring is a feature that ensures flexibility - a key benefit. Many questions test whether you understand that PRINCE2 is not a rigid methodology.
Tip 5: When answering scenario questions, identify which feature would address the problem described, then consider what benefit it would provide.
Tip 6: The benefit of 'common vocabulary' is frequently tested. PRINCE2's terminology enables clear communication across projects and organizations.
Common Exam Traps to Avoid:
• Confusing principles with features - they are related but distinct • Thinking PRINCE2 is rigid - flexibility through tailoring is a key feature • Forgetting that PRINCE2 applies to all project types and sizes • Missing that management by exception is about defined tolerances, not avoiding management