Step 2: Introduce Project Mandate and the Executive Role


The first thing you should do, is to make sure the organization understands which projects are running and what it takes to start and stop/complete a project. Here are a few steps to get a project portfolio management process going, and then using it to introduce the first PRINCE2 pieces to your organization without them even noticing:

  1. Step 2 in Implemeting PRINCE2 - Project Mandage and Executive
    Make a public list of the organization’s running projects. We call this the project portfolio. If you are in a large Enterprise, you should ideally start with a list of the corporate projects. If your role in in a quite autonomous business unit in a larger enterprise, focus on your business unit.

  2. Get acceptance of the Project Manager and Executive project roles. Convince key stakeholder and the organization’s management team that these project roles are vital and have the names listed together with the projects. You can use research reports to "prove" the need of an Executive role for every project. One example is the CHAOS Manifesto. The transparency of who is running and owning which activity is you first added value to the management team of the organization.  

  3. Find the person who can make a decision on what goes onto the list, what leaves the list and how the list is prioritized. This person is the Project Portfolio Owner. It is probably your CEO, COO or leader of your business unit

  4. Set up a process for managing the list. You might have identified the owner of it, but this person would probably like to have input to the decision making process. Defining a portfolio board, with the executives of the projects and the portfolio owner all around the same table can be a good idea. Regardless, you need to establish a process where it is decided what is on the list and how it is prioritized. Do not accept to have multiple priorities 1 and so one. That will you bring confusion to the organization below.

  5. With a prioritized list of projects, you should provide the portfolio owner a tool to help bring structured input on the table when a project is requested to start. This is your opportunity to introduce the Project Mandate. Whomever wants a project on the list, need to file a project request in the shape of a draft Project Mandate.
If you get the above done, you have implemented two PRINCE2 roles, the Project Manager and the Executive, and the concept of a Project Mandate.

Continue implementing PRINCE2 - Step 3: Highlight Reporting

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