A project is:

"A management environment that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to a specified Business Case."

Overview

PRINCE is a generic, tailorable, simple to follow project management method.  It covers how to organise, manage and control your projects.  It is aimed at enabling you to successfully deliver the right products, on time and within budget. As a Project manager you can apply the principles of PRINCE2 and the associated training to any type of project. It will help you to manage risk, control quality and change effectively, as well as make the most of challenging situations and opportunities that arise within a project.

• A PRINCE2 project has the following characteristics:
• A finite and defined life cycle
• Defined and measurable business products
• A corresponding set of activities to achieve the business products
• A defined amount of resources
• An organisation structure, with defined responsibilities, to manage the project.

Alpha uses PRINCE to provide greater control of resources, and the ability to manage business and project risk more effectively, which provides benefits to:

• project managers
• directors/executives (senior responsible owners) of projects, and
• organisations

PRINCE (which stands for Projects in Controlled Environments) was first developed by the UK government in 1989 as the standard approach to IT project management for central government.  Since then, the method has been enhanced to become a generic, best practice approach suitable for the management of all types of projects, and has a proven record outside both IT and government sectors.  PRINCE2 has been widely adopted and adapted by both the public and private sectors and is now the UK's de facto standard for project management.  There is also a rapidly growing international interest.  PRINCE2 is designed to incorporate the requirements and experiences of existing users around the world.

Alpha uses PRINCE2 in our projects to give common systems, procedures and language.  This will enable Alpha to make fewer mistakes, to learn from those that we do make, and ultimately save money and effort.  The PRINCE2 method is non-proprietary and easy to learn, and embodies established and proven best practice across the wide cross section of organisations who have contributed to its evolution since the 1980s.  By adopting PRINCE2 as the project management method, we are benefiting from lessons learned by other organisations. 
In summary, PRINCE2's formal recognition of responsibilities within a project, together with its focus on what a project is to deliver (the why, when and for whom) provides your organisation's projects with:

• A common, consistent approach
• A controlled and organised start, middle and end
• Regular reviews of progress against plan
• Assurance that the project continues to have a business justification
• Flexible decision points
• Management control of any deviations from the plan
• The involvement of management and stakeholders at the right time and place during the project
• Good communication channels between the project, project management, and the rest of the organisation
• A means of capturing and sharing lessons learned
• A route to increasing the project management skills and competences of the organisation's staff at all levels