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PRINCE2 2009 - Directing Projects with PRINCE2 part 7

Project Board duties and behaviours

Be accountable for the project

The Project Board is accountable for the success (or failure) of the project.

The Project Board is accountable, to programme or corporate management, for the success or failure of the project within the constraints defined in a project mandate.

Being accountable means accepting and demonstrating ‘ownership’ of the project.
The project Executive is seen as the focus of accountability for the project, and accordingly retains the ultimate decision-making authority.
However, projects require the interests of all three stakeholder categories (business, user and supplier) to be satisfied in order to be successful.
This means that there is an obligation on Senior User(s) and Senior Supplier(s) to ensure that the interests of their respective areas are safeguarded.

For instance, Senior User(s) are accountable for ensuring that the products of the project will enable the intended benefits to be realized operationally.
If this does not happen, the project may be considered ‘successfully’ completed for some, but the business benefits may never be realized.

Senior Supplier(s) are accountable for ensuring that the products of the project are reliable, properly integrated, can be maintained efficiently etc.
If this does not happen, the later stages of the project are likely to be fraught with problems, with repeated failures - or benefits might be offset by operational maintenance difficulties after project closure.

Consequently, it is part of the project Executive’s responsibility to ensure that the other Project Board members are selected carefully and perform their roles effectively.

Also, given that the project Executive has the ultimate decision-making authority, it is important that the Executive has the requisite level of authority in practice.
If other Project Board members are more senior in the corporate or programme management organization, it may prove difficult for the Executive to manage their contributions effectively.
This situation can arise on a programme if the Programme Manager also acts as the Executive on some projects but is out-ranked in the line organization by other Project Board members.

Project Board members are busy managers and they may feel insecure about being accountable for project work with which they may have relatively little contact.
In PRINCE2®, Project Board members exercise this accountability by ensuring that personnel with the right skills and experience are involved in the team and in Project Assurance roles.
The disciplines PRINCE2 uses to promote effective delegation and management by exception (see the section covering ‘Delegate effectively’) also serve to build Project Board members’ confidence and encourage them to accept accountability.

All references above are in Directing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 unless stated otherwise.

PRINCE2® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.

This product contains EVERYTHING in the publications:

Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 - 2005 edition
Managing successful Projects with PRINCE2 – 2009 edition
Directing Projects with PRINCE2.
plus:
The Complete Project Management package.

And much more besides - at a fantastic price.