PRINCE2 benefits

Before you consider paying to take a PRINCE2 course, you need to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of gaining PRINCE2 certification.

Individual benefits of certification

As an individual getting PRINCE2 certification gives you several benefits.

1. Career boost

Many people can boost their career prospects by getting their PRINCE2 certification. It looks good on their resume and can set them apart from the other project management job candidates.

2. Salary boost

Getting PRINCE2-certified can also boost your earnings. According to indeed.co.uk in 2019, salaries of jobs in the UK requiring PRINCE2 ranged between £30-£75k.

3. Skills enhancement

By studying PRINCE2, for example by attending a PRINCE2 course, you can learn some important project management skills. These skills will enable you to take part in or manage projects in your company.

4. Confidence boost

Like learning anything new or gaining any new certification, your PRINCE2 knowledge can boost your confidence at work. That’s because you will have a wider and deeper understanding of project management then you had previously.

Benefits of PRINCE2 to your organization

The adoption of PRINCE2 offers many great benefits to an organization.

1. Best practices

PRINCE2 is based upon project management best practices. It is a proven process-based approach to managing projects. Its adoption avoids the organization having to re-invent the wheel of developing its own project management methodology.

2. Generic methodology

PRINCE2 is generic project management methodology. It can be used on any project and in any industry or sector.

3. Communication

The use of PRINCE2 promotes better communication amongst project team members and stakeholders by providing a common vocabulary for them to use on their project.

4. Accountability

By defining project roles and responsibilities, it makes the project management team members accountable to one another.

5. Output-focused

PRINCE2 focuses on what a project delivers and how those outputs (or deliverables) will benefit the organisation, for example by bringing operational improvements.

6. Adaptable

PRINCE2 is fully tailorable. As such, it can be adapted to suit the needs of every project within an organization.

7. Saves senior managers’ time

One of the core principles of PRINCE2 is that the project should be ‘managed by exception’ by senior managers. This does away with the need for regular progress meetings. Instead decision-making in PRINCE2 depends upon reports, which saves the time of busy senior managers.

8. Benefits-focused

Decision-making in PRINCE2 is based upon whether the project will be able to achieve its intended benefits. It therefore avoids a project becoming an end-in-itself.

9. Stakeholder involvement

The PRINCE2 methodology encourages the involvement of stakeholders in the project’s decision-making.

10. Continuous improvement

Applying PRINCE2 enables an organization to continuously improve its project management by reporting lessons learned and basing all its planning upon the proper evaluation and analysis of previous lessons.

11. Consistency

PRINCE2 uses a common language. This helps to promote consistency and re-use of project assets across other projects.

PRINCE2 advantages and disadvantages

Advantages of PRINCE2

Here are 10 important advantages of PRINCE2.

1. PRINCE2 is widely known.
2. It is easy to recruit people with PRINCE2 certification (especially in the UK, Australia, and Europe).
3. PRINCE2 is based upon project management best practices.
4. PRINCE2 is a full project management methodology.
5. PRINCE2 can be used on any project type or size, in any industry.
6. PRINCE2 principles can be applied universally.
7. PRINCE2 can be used with agile development practices.
8. PRINCE2 complements project management standards such as the PMBOK® Guide.
9. PRINCE2 certification is quick (compared with PMI-PMP®).
10. No prior qualifications needed to get PRINCE2 certification.

Disadvantages of PRINCE2

1. PRINCE2 only describes 2 tools and techniques (note that there are over 100 in the PMBOK®Guide).
2. PRINCE2 does not cover the soft skills required by project managers or sponsors.
3. It is too easy for organizations to run PINO projects (i.e. projects which are PRINCE2 IN name Only).
4. PRINCE2 requires senior management buy-in to be successful.
5. PRINCE2 requires experience to apply it well.
6. PRINCE2 has an unfair reputation that it requires lots of documentation.
7. PRINCE2 has an unfair reputation that it only supports a waterfall approach.

PRINCE2 benefits infographic