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As an already well proven project management method, the latest updates are evolutionary not revolutionary. Anyone who is familiar with PRINCE2 6th edition will likely be able to align their projects to PRINCE2 7 with little trouble, and we hope this post may provide some pointers where and how to align your projects to PRINCE2 7.
If you wish to learn or gain certification in PRINCE2 join a PRINCE2 7 Foundation or a PRINCE2 7 Practitioner course.
Following user feedback over the past years, PRINCE2’s authors embarked on a review of PRINCE2 with three simple goals in mind:
Key to the review, was not to ‘break’ an approach that works and works well across many different environments, but to improve its overall use and appeal and ensure it retains its leading role as the method of choice for successful project management.
An additional core element ‘People’ has been added with some title changes.
If you are familiar with PRINCE2 6th edition, you may recall it consists of 4 integrated elements, as shown below:
The core focus of the new People element is to further emphasise the importance of people in the success of any project. We’ll discover the People element in more detail later in this post.
PRINCE2 6th’s ‘Themes’ element has had a name change to ‘Practices’ and the ‘Project Environment’ element is now referred to as ‘Project Context’. In summary PRINCE2 now has 5 integrated elements.
Quick view of core elements comparison:
| PRINCE2 6 | PRINCE2 7 |
|---|---|
| Principles | Principles |
| People (new inclusion) | |
| Themes | Practices |
| Process | Processes |
| The Project Environment | Project Context |
PRINCE2 6th edition describes six aspects of project performance. These six aspects act as performance targets for PRINCE2 projects, they are what the success of a project is assessed against. Within PRINCE2 7, a seventh target, sustainability has been added to reflect a principal performance expectation of today’s organizations and their projects.
The targets of project performance:
| PRINCE2 6 | PRINCE2 7 |
|---|---|
| Benefits | Benefits |
| Cost | Cost |
| Time | Time |
| Quality | Quality |
| Scope | Scope |
| Risk | Risk |
| Sustainability (new inclusion) |
Sustainability can mean different things to different organizations, in many cases it will relate to a project’s environmental impact or how the project will adhere to organizational sustainability objectives and commitments, though it may also relate to a product’s whole-of-life costs and its ongoing resilience. Sustainability can also relate to some or all of the United Nations 17 sustainability development goals.
PRINCE2 is a principles based approach, and PRINCE2’s well-established principles remain relatively unchanged, with some minor changes on how they are described and because of this changes to some of the Principles titles, as highlighted in green have been made.
The inclusion of ‘relationships’ to the PRINCE2 6th principle ‘Defined roles and responsibilities’, emphasises that in PRINCE2 7 there is now an increased focus on the importance of People in the success of a project.
The People chapter in PRINCE2 7 is the largest single addition to PRINCE2.
The core message of this chapter is that “people are central to the method”.
The people element was not sidelined in PRINCE2 6th, as the Organization chapter within PRINCE2 6th describes in some detail project roles, role responsibilities and also outlines key relationships.
This new People chapter now places greater emphasis on developing cohesive relationships within the project team and across project and organizational boundaries to achieve successful change, as all projects will deliver some level of change.
To support and drive successful change, the chapter describes three people focus activities:
‘Leading successful change’ starts with describing change management and introduces a management approach new to PRINCE2, the change management approach. This new approach document forms part of the project Initiation documentation. Its purpose is to help project teams consider and plan the means to shift the business and its people to a ‘target state’.
‘Leading successful teams’ focus is on ways of working, team constraints, working across boundaries and culture, team capabilities and cohesion.
The focus of ‘communications’ is on the management of communications across the project ecosystem.
People who have completed PRINCE2 6th training will likely find most of the content within PRINCE2 7’s Practices chapters familiar. The aims of each practice chapter, core concepts and techniques are maintained. Some of the language is simplified and some terminology refinements have been made to improve usability.
The practice chapters now list additional ‘supporting techniques’ with a brief description for each. Each practice chapter also now includes a table describing the relationship between the practice and PRINCE2 7 principles (something we always covered in our PRINCE2 6th training).
A key addition to this chapter is the introduction of a sustainability management approach, which also forms part of the project initiation documentation (PID). Its purpose is to define, actions, reviews and controls to ensure PRINCE2 7’s new performance target of sustainability is achieved.
Guidance on project management roles and responsibilities generally remain unchanged.
This chapter now includes a five step organizational design and development technique to support the creation and management of an effective project team and linking the Organizing chapter to the People chapter.
This chapter also includes work break down structures (WBS) and its use for organizing work packages to teams. The chapter introduces three new PID management products: commercial management approach, project management team structure and role descriptions. The latter two were described in PRINCE2 6th edition but not as formal management products. The purpose of the commercial management approach is to define procedures and responsibilities for effective commercial management (example, market engagement, contract management).
All the tried and tested plans elements of PRINCE2 are still here – stages, product-based planning, planning levels – with the planning procedure having a few changes in detail.
Namely, the ‘identifying activities and dependencies’ step, is replaced with a step now titled ‘organizing work packages’, with a focus on grouping the delivery activities for each product into work packages.
Some key terminology changes, and where relevant their equivalent PRINCE2 6th term as shown below:
| PRINCE2 6 | PRINCE2 7 |
|---|---|
| Customer’s quality expectations | User’s quality expectation |
| Requirement: “A need or expectation that is documented in an approved management product” | |
| Quality criteria | Quality specifications |
The 7 edition also provides further guidance on describing quality specifications into quantitative and qualitative measures.
The Quality practice now includes a product register with the purpose of tracking the status of products.
Updated to reflect the latest edition of ‘Management of Risk (M_o_R 4)’, but no major changes when compared to PRINCE2 6th edition.
Issues can now be divided into five categories:
The change control approach is now referred to as the issue management approach.
As digital & data play a more important role in today’s management of projects, this is reflected by the inclusion of a digital & data management approach. Its purpose is to describe how digital technology will be used to support the project and how data and information will be managed across the project ecosystem.
Another notable change is a reference to a sustainability tolerance.
The seven PRINCE2 process retain the same names and relationships between them, with some slight changes to some activity names within the processes.
Process activity responsibility tables are now presented as RACI tables: Responsible, Accountable, Consult, Inform, replacing PRINCE2 6th: Producer, Review, Approver.
The PRINCE2 7 update has resulted in the project initiation documentation (PID) now including four additional approach management products (project documents). They are:
It is important to emphasise, PRINCE2 is not a document-based approach. PRINCE2 has always and continues to encourage its users to apply documentation appropriate to the project’s context, scale, complexity and risk level. PRINCE2 projects can be managed with minimal documentation, in other cases the requirements of the project may compel the need for comprehensive documentation.
What is a PRINCE2 project log?
Using a project log has gained greater emphasis in PRINCE2 7. It is a collective of PRINCE2’s registers and logs:
An important driver for many people who complete PRINCE2 training is to attain a PRINCE2 certification. With over 2 million people today holding a PRINCE2 qualification, it is seen as the world’s leading project management method.
The two certification levels are Foundation and Practitioner with their associated training adopting the certification titles:
The aims of each exam is generally the same:
Changes to PRINCE2 exams:
| PRINCE2 Foundation exam (edition 6) | PRINCE2 Foundation exam (edition 7) |
|---|---|
| 1 hour, multiple choice exam | 1 hour, multiple choice exam |
| Closed-book | Closed-book |
| 60 questions | 60 questions |
| Pass mark 33 of a total of 60 marks (55%) | Pass mark 36 of a total of 60 marks (60%) |
| PRINCE2 Practitioner exam (edition 6) | PRINCE2 Practitioner exam (edition 7) |
|---|---|
| 2.5 hour, Objective style multiple choice, scenario-based exam | 2.5 hour, Objective style multiple choice, scenario-based exam |
| Open-book (official PRINCE2 manual only) | Open-book (official PRINCE2 manual only) |
| 68 questions | 70 questions |
| Pass mark 38 of a total of 68 marks (55.8%) | Pass mark 42 of a total of 70 marks (60%) |
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