Practices

PRINCE2 states that practices are the parts of the project that need to be continually addressed throughout the project lifecycle. Another way to explain is by saying that practices are knowledge areas, so each practice provides knowledge (how to go about) on a specific area of project management, such as the business case, planning, quality, etc.

Note: “practices” used to be called “themes” before version 7 of PRINCE2.

Quick overview

Consider the following question for a moment: what activities will you do at the start of the project to set it up, define it, and use it to monitor and maintain the project throughout its lifecycle?

To answer this question, we need to go through all practices:

• We need a business case to define the reason for doing the project and to check to see if this reason is still valid. This is covered in the business case practice.
• We need to know who is who, what they are doing, and what are their responsibilities. This is covered in the organizing practice.
• We need to create product description and then create a project plan to guide the project and produce the products. This is covered in the plans practice.
• We need to monitor how the intended products will match users’ expectations and then determine that the users will be able to utilize these products as expected. This is covered in the quality practice.
• We also need a way to evaluate and manage uncertainties. This is covered in the risk practice.
• Etc.

Timing

Practices are implied in activities you do at the start of the project to set it up and then use it to monitor and maintain the project throughout its lifecycle. We could also say that practices provide guidance on how things should be done during the project.

Tailoring

Practices should also be tailored to suit the project you are working on. This will depend on the project and the environment you are working in. For example, if you are building a lunar module, you have only one chance to get it right, so the quality and risk practices would be used in much detail.

List of practices

The following are the PRINCE2 practices:

• Business case
• Issues
• Organizing
• Plans
• Progress
• Quality
• Risk

Alternatives

To compare, a similar concept exists in the PMBOK^® guide (before version 7). It calls them knowledge areas, and they are as follows:

• Integration
• Scope
• Schedule
• Cost
• Quality
• Resources
• Communications
• Risk
• Procurement
• Stakeholder

Knowledge areas contain processes for planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. As you see, different project management resources have different ways of modeling the same concepts.

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Written by Frank Turley.

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