2.7 Principle 7: Tailor to Suit the Project

2.7 Principle 7: Tailor to Suit the Project

A common misconception among inexperienced project practitioners is that PRINCE2 is a rigid, bureaucratic methodology that requires massive volumes of paperwork, endless committee meetings, and heavy administrative overhead. If applied blindly to a small, internal, low-risk project, dogmatic process execution can indeed paralyze progress.

However, PRINCE2 is explicitly designed to be flexible. PRINCE2 Principle 7: Tailor to Suit the Project mandates that the framework must be adapted to fit the specific context, scale, risk, complexity, organizational culture, and delivery approach of each project.

PRINCE2 Principle Rule: PRINCE2 is tailored to suit the project context, environment, size, complexity, capability, risk, and delivery method.

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The Golden Rule of Tailoring

Exam Rule (Non-Negotiable): The 7 Principles of PRINCE2 are universal and non-negotiable. They CANNOT be tailored out, simplified away, or omitted under any circumstances.

If a project team decides to stop updating the Business Case or eliminates stage boundary reviews, they are no longer using PRINCE2. Tailoring applies only to how Practices, Processes, Roles, and Management Products are adapted to fit the project environment.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                         WHAT CAN AND CANNOT BE TAILORED                           |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  CANNOT BE TAILORED (Non-Negotiable)  |  CAN BE TAILORED (Flexible Adaptation)     |
|  * The 7 Principles                   |  * 7 Practices (Management Approaches)     |
|                                       |  * 7 Processes (Activity workflows)       |
|                                       |  * Roles (Combining responsibilities)     |
|                                       |  * Management Products (Format/Combine)   |
|                                       |  * Terminology (Matching company terms)   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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Environmental Drivers Influencing Tailoring

When adapting PRINCE2, the Project Manager and Project Board evaluate six primary environmental factors:

1. Project Scale and Complexity

• Small, Simple Projects: Combine startup and initiation phases, use a single combined PID document, hold informal verbal progress reviews, combine Project Manager and Project Support roles.
• Large, Complex Projects: Highly formal management products, separate stage plans, independent assurance teams, multi-tier Project Boards.

2. Commercial Context

• If the project involves an external customer purchasing products under contract from a commercial supplier, management products (such as contract change control and payment milestone stage plans) must be tailored to align with commercial law and procurement terms.

3. Delivery Method (Agile vs. Predictive vs. Hybrid)

• Predictive (Waterfall): Linear stage plans, formal sign-offs prior to technical phases.
• Agile Delivery: Management stages contain multiple agile sprints or iterations. Product Descriptions align with User Stories and Backlogs; Highlight Reports incorporate burndown charts and sprint velocity data.

4. Organizational Capability and Culture

• Adapting PRINCE2 terminology to match existing company vocabulary (e.g., calling the PID a "Project Charter" or calling Highlight Reports "Status Dashboards").

5. Multi-Project Context (Standalone vs. Programme vs. Portfolio)

• If a project operates within a broader Programme, some project roles (e.g., Change Authority or Project Assurance) may be fulfilled by programme staff, and the Business Case aligns with the programme benefits plan.

6. Sustainability Profile (PRINCE2 7 Focus!)

• Tailoring sustainability practices based on environmental risk (e.g., a heavy civil engineering project requires extensive environmental monitoring, whereas a minor software patch requires lightweight digital waste policies).

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Documenting and Approving Tailoring

Tailoring is not done arbitrarily during execution. The tailoring strategy must be planned upfront:

1. Drafting Strategy: During the Initiating a Project process, the Project Manager formulates how PRINCE2 will be adapted for the specific project.
2. Documenting in PID: The overall tailoring approach and adaptations to management approaches (Risk, Quality, Communication, Issues (and organizational Change Management)) are documented in the Project Initiation Documentation (PID).
3. Formal Approval: The Project Board reviews and formally approves the PID, baselining the tailored governance model.

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The Two Failure Modes: PINO vs. Heroic Bureaucracy

Misapplying Principle 7 leads to two dangerous organizational extremes:

[PINO Extreme] <=================== [HEALTHY TAILORING] ===================> [Bureaucracy Extreme]
(No principles,                    (Proportionate control,                     (Heavy templates, 
 no controls)                       business value focused)                    paralyzed delivery)

1. PINO (PRINCE In Name Only)

• Occurs when an organization claims to use PRINCE2, but ignores foundational principles (e.g., no Business Case, no defined roles, no stage boundaries).
• Result: Complete lack of control under a false sense of methodological security.

2. Heroic Bureaucracy (Over-Engineering)

• Occurs when a team blindly applies all 26 management product templates in full paper format to a minor, 2-week internal fix.
• Result: Wasteful overhead, team frustration, and delayed delivery.

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Comparison Table: Heavyweight Governance vs. Lightweight Tailoring