PRINCE2 Roles and Responsibilities

Under the PRINCE2 methodology, roles are adequately defined with responsibilities. Each role can be filled by multiple people, while one person can fill many roles.

The focus is on ensuring that the right people fulfil PRINCE2 roles and responsibilities. The process starts with identifying the skills, credibility, experience, availability, and commitment levels of everyone in the team. PRINCE2 has a specific Project Management Team that comprises the project board, project manager and other PRINCE2 roles and responsibilities. There are three main categories of stakeholders in a PRINCE2 project. It is crucial to have a set of roles and responsibilities for every project to be successful. 

The Project Board's roles and responsibilities focus on three primary areas of interest:

1) Business interest ensures value for money

2) User interest facilitates, supports, and maintains the project outputs to return benefits

3) Supplier interest supplies the skills and resources required for the products

Table of Contents

1) The Structure of Management in a PRINCE2 Project

2) The Roles in a PRINCE2 Project

3) The Responsibilities in a PRINCE2 Project

   a) The Customer/Executive

   b) The Senior User

   c) The Senior Supplier

   d) The Project Manager 

   e) The Team Manager

   f) Change Authority

4) The Management Stages in PRINCE2

5) Conclusion

The Structure of Management in a PRINCE2 Project

The main idea is to ensure that the senior management doesn’t have to supervise the daily development of the project. The leadership and direction of the project are kept separate from the output delivery. The resulting structure has four levels:

1) Corporate: They initiate the project, appoint the Project Executive, and define the project tolerances the Project Board will deal with within the project.

2) Directing: This is the responsibility of the Project Board. They are accountable for the success of the project. They need to approve the places, stage completion, and the initiation of the next stage. They also communicate developments and challenges with the stakeholders. Another primary responsibility is to authorise any discrepancy related to the project tolerance.

3) Managing: This is the responsibility of the Project Manager. They need to manage the project daily according to the parameters set by the Project Board. They must ensure delivery with adequate time, cost, risk, benefits, and quality.

4) Delivering: This responsibility is attributed to the Team Managers. They must ensure the delivery of all the project products while maintaining quality, timeline and budget.

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The Roles in a PRINCE2 Project

PRINCE2 methodology is structured to include processes and stage divisions to enhance performance. These are supported by specific roles that perform specific tasks already designated for them. Let’s look at the roles in a PRINCE2 project:

1) Project Board - The Project Board is made up of three sub-roles:

  a) Executive: The executive is responsible for business interest and has to take responsibility for the entire project.

  b) Senior User: This role is assigned to the team member(s) who serve the requirements of the final user and are responsible for the user interest.

  c) Senior Supplier: This role is assigned to the team member(s) who serve the requirements of the suppliers and are responsible for the supplier interest. 

2) Project Assurance - This role is responsible for ensuring the stakeholders are satisfied with the project. 

3) Change Authority - This role works on behalf of the Project Board in deciding the change requests.

4) Project Manager - This role also works on behalf of the Project Board to supervise the daily working of the project. 

5) Project Support - The Project Support body assists the Project Manager in all the tasks and duties of the project.

6) Team Manager - This role is assigned to the team member(s) who are responsible for ensuring quality in the production outputs of all the teams associated with the project.

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The Responsibilities in a PRINCE2 Project

Let’s discuss the PRINCE2 roles and responsibilities in more detail.

1) Project Board
Each of the roles associated with the Project Board has different responsibilities:

a) Executive: The PRINCE2 executive roles and responsibilities mainly focus on the business interest and taking up leadership and accountability for the project. They authorise the final decisions related to the project. The executive is responsible for the business interest and has to take up leadership and accountability for the project. They authorise the final decisions related to the project. The Corporate appoints them with the project's responsibility and the other Project Board members. They design and nominate the entire project management team, including other Project Board members and the Project Manager.

b) Senior User: The Senior User is responsible for the user interest. They have to specify the final user requirements and maintain communication between them and the project management team. They also have to ensure that the product delivers in quality and with ease of use. 

c) Senior Supplier: The Senior Supplier represents the interest of the members supplying, developing, designing, implementing, and facilitating the products and services of the project. They have to ensure the project criterion. 

2) Project Assurance
The Project Assurance role is responsible for ensuring the project performance and the production of products and services. It is usually ensured through the Project Manager. 

3) Change Authority
The role comes under Project Team Management. It is responsible for reviewing all the change requests related to the project. They can delegate responsibility to different levels if required under the change request. 

4) Project Manager
Project Managers are responsible for the daily progress of the project. They supervise the project on behalf of the Project Board and ensure all the required constraints are met. 

5) Team Manager
The Team Manager role isn’t really needed in small projects. But, Team Managers are required in projects when they are huge with lots of team members. Team Managers are responsible for handling teams in specific conditions or when they need a particular skill set. 

6) Project Support
The role assists the Project Manager. It is responsible for advising and guiding the project. Project Support can also help in risk management and project planning. This role is optional, but the Project Manager can choose to delegate some administrative responsibilities to this role.

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The Management Stages in PRINCE2

The roles and responsibilities in PRINCE2 go a little further. The entire project is divided into chunks which are referred to as Management Stages. The stages help divide the work among the team members. This facilitates the running and operating of the project under a planned and controlled environment. 

The management stages are a part of the PRINCE2 Project Board roles and responsibilities as they are supposed to decide the stages according to Decision Points. The Board assesses the success of each stage before planning for the next stage. They also determine whether the next stage will initiate or not. 

To ensure that the Project Board doesn’t have to possess too much of the workload, PRINCE2 states that there should be a minimum of two management stages:

1) The Initiation Stage

2) The Management Stage

If a project only has two stages, it’ll have an Initiation Stage and the Closing Stage.  

Conclusion

With the PRINCE2 methodology, a project is better controlled, and the work is equally divided among all the team members. There is a lot of focus on reducing the workload from the senior management. The predetermined set of roles and responsibilities further helps manage a project and ensure the project output delivers quality within the time and budget. 

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