The seven practices: an overview

If the principles say what must be true, the practices describe the aspects of project management that must be addressed continually, from the first idea to closure. PRINCE2 7 has seven practices: business case, organizing, plans, quality, risk, issues and progress. Earlier editions called them themes. Each practice has a purpose, key concepts, roles and management products, and each explains how PRINCE2 requirements can be met using a range of techniques. This lesson gives an overview of all seven, introduces the seven performance targets and shows how tolerances link the practices together. PRIN-130 and PRIN-131 cover the practices in depth.

The seven practices at a glance

Business case

The business case practice establishes mechanisms to judge whether the project is, and remains, desirable, viable and achievable. Desirable means the balance of costs, benefits and risks is favourable; viable means the project can deliver its products; achievable means the products can provide the expected benefits. The practice distinguishes outputs (the products delivered), outcomes (the changes that result from using them) and benefits (measurable improvements that matter to stakeholders), and it recognizes dis-benefits: negative outcomes that someone sees as a drawback. Benefits are often realized after the project closes, so the benefits management approach says how and when they will be measured.

Simple payback is another common measure: the time until cumulative benefits equal the cost. Here, 40,000 a year repays 100,000 in 2.5 years. PRINCE2 does not prescribe which measures to use; it requires that the business case be developed, maintained and verified.

Organizing

The organizing practice defines and establishes the project's structure of accountability and responsibilities: who is directing, who is managing and who is delivering. It covers the project board (executive, senior user, senior supplier), project assurance, the change authority, the project manager, team managers and project support. In PRINCE2 7, organizing also covers the wider set of relationships the project depends on, including stakeholders, users affected by change, and the communication needed to engage them. One person can hold more than one role, and one role can be shared, but some combinations should be avoided; for example, project assurance should be independent of the project manager.

Plans

The plans practice facilitates communication and control by defining the means of delivering the products: where and how, by whom, and estimating when and how much. PRINCE2 recognizes three levels of plan: the project plan for the board, stage plans for the project manager and optional team plans for team managers, plus exception plans when needed. Its distinctive technique is product-based planning: describe the final product, break it down into the products needed to create it, write product descriptions, and create a product flow diagram showing the sequence in which products are developed, before identifying activities, estimating and scheduling.

Quality

The quality practice defines and implements the means by which the project creates and verifies products that are fit for purpose. It begins with the customer's quality expectations and acceptance criteria, captured in the project product description, and continues through quality planning (deciding how each product will be checked and by whom) and quality control (carrying out the checks and recording results in the quality register). PRINCE2 also distinguishes quality assurance, which is independent of the project team and checks that the project is being run in a way likely to meet quality requirements.

Risk

The risk practice identifies, assesses and controls uncertainty so that the project is more likely to succeed. A risk is an uncertain event or set of events that, if it occurs, will affect the achievement of objectives. PRINCE2 treats both threats (negative risks) and opportunities (positive risks). The practice describes a risk management procedure: identify, assess, plan, implement and communicate. Responses to threats include avoiding, reducing, transferring, sharing, accepting or preparing contingency plans; responses to opportunities include exploiting, enhancing, sharing or rejecting.

Issues

The issues practice collects and assesses issues and controls changes to the project's baselined products. An issue is any event that has happened, was not planned and requires management action. PRINCE2 recognizes three types: requests for change, off-specifications (something that should be, or is forecast to be, provided but is not), and problems or concerns. Requests for change and off-specifications are decided by the change authority, which might be the project board or a delegated group, within an agreed change budget.

Progress

The progress practice establishes mechanisms to monitor and compare actual achievements against those planned, provide a forecast for the project objectives and the project's continued viability, and control any unacceptable deviations. It is where manage by exception becomes concrete. The board sets stage tolerances and receives highlight reports at agreed intervals; the project manager sets work package tolerances and receives checkpoint reports from team managers; and when a tolerance is forecast to be exceeded, an exception report goes up a level.

The seven performance targets and tolerances

PRINCE2 7 identifies seven aspects of performance that are planned, monitored and controlled: time, cost, quality, scope, benefits, risk and sustainability. Sustainability is new in the seventh edition and covers environmental and social performance targets, such as carbon emissions or waste, that the project must meet. Tolerances can be set for each of these.

How the practices work together

The practices are not separate procedures to be run one after another. The business case justifies the plans; the plans set baselines against which progress is measured; risks and issues affect plans and the business case; quality criteria define what the products must achieve; and organizing defines who makes each decision. A single event, such as a key supplier going out of business, touches almost every practice: it is an issue, it changes the risk profile, it may need a new plan, it may affect quality and the business case, and it may require an exception report. Practitioner questions often test exactly these connections.

Canadian public-sector projects may need to address requirements that fit naturally into the practices: official languages and accessibility requirements as quality criteria, the federal Greening Government Strategy or provincial climate commitments as sustainability targets, and privacy impact assessments as products managed under the plans and quality practices.

Management products in the practices

Each practice is supported by management products, documents or information sets that record decisions and status. PRINCE2 7 groups them broadly into baselines (such as the business case, plans and product descriptions), records (such as the risk register, issue register, quality register and lessons log) and reports (such as highlight, checkpoint, end stage and exception reports). The manual provides outlines for each, describing its purpose and typical composition. These outlines are not forms to be filled in blindly; they are checklists of what information is usually needed, to be tailored to the project. On a small project, several products might be combined in a single document or tool, while a large project might keep each in a dedicated system.

In the Foundation exam you should recognize the purpose of the main products, and in Practitioner you may need to choose which product should record a given piece of information. For example, an identified threat with its probability, impact and response belongs in the risk register, while a stakeholder's formal request to add a feature is an issue recorded in the issue register and possibly described in an issue report.

As you study each practice in the later courses, keep asking the same three questions: what is its purpose, who is responsible for what within it, and which management products support it? Those three questions organize the manual's material in a way that matches how exam questions are written.

Taken together, the practices give a project manager a complete checklist of what must be kept under control, while the processes, covered next, say when each is used and by whom.