Project Initiation Documentation

It’s important to have a proper level of detail in the Project Initiation Documentation, otherwise:

• If it’s too detailed, there won’t be enough room for self-organization and adaptation in the delivery level and it would block adaptation
• If it’s too high-level, not enough governance would be created in the project, and there would be no benefit from using PRINCE2

PRINCE2 Agile provides the following recommendations for the Project Initiation Documentation:

• It should be more high-level to allow for self-organization and adaptation in the delivery layer.
• It might be simpler and shorter than usual.
• It might be informal.
• It might be presented on Information Radiators.
• It might be created in a facilitated workshop.
• It also includes the result of The Agilometer assessment.
• The project-level tolerances for time and cost might be set to zero to focus only on managing the quantity of what is delivered (see note below).

Note: the term “tolerance” is used in its common language form in PRINCE2 Agile, which is not compatible with PRINCE2’s definition of tolerance used with the Manage by Exception principle to show who should decide on corrective actions. Setting zero tolerances is not a way of fixing a target, while it’s incorrectly described so in PRINCE2 Agile. More on this in the Targets article.

See Also

• Initiating a Project Process

External Links

• Project Initiation Documentation in PRINCE2 wiki

Written by Nader K. Rad

This is (and will be) a work in progress: More details will be added in the future, depending on the feedback.

This wiki is developed and managed by an accredited trainer, independent of AXELOS. While aligned with their guidelines, it’s not an official resource.