A Second look at PRINCE2® start and project start

The arrival of the (A.29) Project Mandate triggers PRINCE2® at the start of SU. It is not until after the work of SU at DP1 that we can be sure there is detail enough to start a PRINCE2® Project. Thus PRINCE2® starts with the arrival of the project mandate and the project starts with the approval of the (A.26) Project Brief granted by DP1 to enter the initiation stage.

The real work of the project starts with the approval of the (A.27) Project Initiation Document at Authorising a Project (DP2). This is when CS1 and MP1 kick-off specialist work on creating products.

The three documents ((A.29) Project Mandate, (A.26) Project Brief  and  (A.27) Project Initiation Document) and the work to create them traces the development of the (A.2) Business Case, (A.30) Project Plan and risks from possibly crude outline to definitely refined and robust business decision inputs.

There are three possible scenarios when the (A.29) Project Mandate arrives:

1.      It is so perfect, possibly being a full project brief or even a full project initiation document that SU and indeed IP take almost no effort or time to perform. The project fast-tracks straight to a combined DP1 and DP2 and then into CS. Specialist teams commence building products from CS1 onwards. This might be the circumstances if the project is part of a programme or was preceded by a Feasibility Study[1].

Or

2.    The project mandate is good enough to appoint people to post in SU1, 2 and 3, good enough to run workshops to define project goal & acceptance criteria in SU4. Good enough for use in SU5 to select candidate solutions and submit the entire information set for approval at DP1, The Project Starts at DP1 when the (B.1) Project Board authorises IP to create the Project Initiation Document which is the Board’s Terms of Reference (PMBOK users should be perfectly happy to call this the Project Charter).

Or

3.    When the project mandate arrives the situation is so unclear, either in terms of goal or the means to achieve it, or both that a perfectly constituted if minor PRINCE2® project, the feasibility study, is required. The feasibility study’s goal is crystal clear “Define the major goal with accompanying potential solutions and make a recommendation for the selection of goal, business case, and risk profile”. It is quiet possible that the resulting recommendation is how the perfect mandate in 1) above came into existence.

A feasibility study may be a major piece of work in its own right.

There are other ways to receive a perfect project mandate. For example when the project is the result of a previous PRINCE2® project’s closing work in preparing a set of (A.13) Follow-on Action Recommendations from open, impact assessed (A.28) Project Issues or the organisation’s mature use of standards ensures the (A.29) Project Mandate conforms to Appendix A of the PRINCE2® manual even though no project yet exists.

The (A.29) Project Mandate may be in any form. Completeness should not be confused with formality. A verbal or written project mandate is equally acceptable to PRINCE2® if it matches the needs and preferences of those involved in the project.

Next: Another Look At Planning