Elements

The word ‘elements’ is used by PRINCE2® whenever there is a need to talk in general terms about what makes-up PRINCE2® in total. PRINCE2®’s elements are:

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Stages (use is mandatory: minimum of two).

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Processes of which there are 8 major (and 45 sub-) processes. The processes provide the rhythm along the progression of the PRINCE2® project’s timeline.

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Management product descriptions in appendix A covering (A.1) Acceptance Criteria to (A.36) Work Package.

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Ten roles (B.1) Project Board to (B.10) Project Support Office (PSO) as explained in the Organisation Component.

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Eight components which encompass three techniques:

  1. Business Case,

  2. Organisation (plus Roles in Appendix B),

  3. Plans (plus Planning (PL) process and the Product Based Planning technique),

  4. Controls,

  5. Risk,

  6. Quality (including the Quality Review Technique),

  7. Configuration Management and

  8. Change Control (as a component and a technique).

Vegetable soup

If you make vegetable soup then before the ingredients such as the carrots and tomatoes go into the pot they are clearly and discretely visible. Once the soup is made its red colour is clear indication that there are tomatoes in the soup. With the aid of a spoon it is easy to find a discreet piece of carrot and the peas but not any longer possible to isolate the salt, remove the water or see the ingredients as the separate items that the recipe called for to be prepared and combined.

PRINCE2® is a recipe book. It describes discreet ingredients that are a melange within the work context. Your challenge translating PRINCE2® to a practical tool is to move from ‘collection of ingredients’ to ‘soup’. It is the assimilation of explicit facts into implicitly understood behaviours that marks transition from knowledge to skill (see our home page white papers link to Observations on PM).

The PRINCE2® manual sets out the processes such as Appointing an Executive & Project Manager (SU1), Designing a Project Management Team (SU2) and Appointing a Project Management Team (SU3) as discreet ingredients. As the project is executed a single conversation such as “Hey Simon can you drop by my office this afternoon and bring Jane and Fred – we have a new product launch” has just performed the initial three SU sub-processes without necessarily finishing SU2 or SU3 in their entirety and may be without further paper-work at a level of formality sufficient for this organisation to be in control. SU3 may now (and often does) drag-on after PRINCE2® would tell us we have finished Starting Up a Project (SU) and we are into Initiating a Project (IP).

Next concept: The TimeLine View