Project Board in PRINCE2: Key Roles and Responsibilities

PRINCE2 (Projects IN Controlled Environments) is a widely used project management methodology mostly found in Europe and especially the United Kingdom. This structured approach to managing projects includes something called the project board.

What is a project board in PRINCE2? That’s what we’ll answer first. Then we’ll explain who makes up a project board and their key responsibilities. There is a project board in PRINCE2 because it benefits the project, a topic that we’ll also get to.

What Is a Project Board in PRINCE2?

The project board is a group of key stakeholders who provide overall direction and governance for the project in PRINCE2. They are responsible for making high-level decisions, ensuring the project aligns with the organization’s goals and maintaining control over its progress.

In PRINCE2, the project board plays a critical role in overseeing the governance and direction of the project. They make key decisions, providing strategic direction and ensuring the project remains aligned with the organization’s objectives. It consists of senior stakeholders and decision-makers who hold the ultimate authority and accountability for the project’s success.

However, the project board is at a higher level than the project manager who has to plan, manage and track the work. While the project board is there to help and guide the project, first there has to be an approved project, plan, schedule and budget. For this, project management software is essential, regardless of the project management methodology used.

ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software flexible enough to work in any project management methodology, especially PRINCE2. It has multiple project views to plan and execute the project. Project managers can use robust Gantt charts to schedule tasks, resources and costs, including linking task dependencies to avoid costly delays, filtering for the critical path and setting a baseline to track progress in real time.

Once those plans are made, they’re shared across the software. Teams can open the project view that best serves their purposes, whether that’s the visual workflow of kanban boards or the powerful task lists that show priority or add attachments and comments to better collaborate. Even the project board can stay updated on progress by using the calendar view with its monthly summary. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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Who Makes Up the Project Board?

The project board in PRINCE2 is composed of three key roles that ensure the project receives the necessary direction, support and governance. These roles provide strategic oversight, make high-level decisions and ensure the project remains aligned with business objectives and user needs. Each project board member is distinctly responsible for ensuring the project’s success.

Executive

The executive is the most senior person on the project board and has ultimate accountability for the project’s success. This role is responsible for ensuring that the project delivers value to the organization by meeting business objectives and justifying the investment in the project. They are responsible for the following.

Ensures the project aligns with organizational goals and priorities
Approves the business case and ensures the project continues to justify its existence
Allocates resources and makes high-level decisions on issues such as project scope and budget
Acts as the main link between the project and the senior leadership of the organization
Ensures the project stays on track and can make tough decisions regarding project continuation, termination or change

Senior User

The senior user represents the interests of the users who will benefit from the project’s deliverables. This role is crucial in ensuring that the project’s outputs meet user needs and are deliverable within the agreed timeframe, cost and quality. They help with the following.

Represents the stakeholders or user community who will use or benefit from the project’s outcomes
Defines and validates the project’s requirements and ensures the project meets those needs
Monitors the project’s deliverables to ensure they are acceptable to the users
Works with the project manager to ensure user requirements are effectively managed throughout the project lifecycle
Approves the quality standards for the project deliverables

Senior Supplier

The senior supplier represents the suppliers or providers of the resources, expertise and technical capability required to deliver the project. This role ensures the project is technically feasible and that the resources provided meet the required standards. They are responsible for the following.

Ensures the technical quality and feasibility of the project’s deliverables
Provides the necessary resources, expertise and capability to meet project requirements
Supports the project manager by ensuring the project has access to the required technical and specialist skills
Ensures that the suppliers or contractors involved in the project adhere to the required standards and deliver the agreed-upon products or services
Helps to resolve any technical issues that arise during the project

Together, the executive, senior user and senior supplier form the core of the project board, providing essential governance, decision-making and direction to ensure the project’s success. Each role has a critical function that ensures the project meets its objectives, stays within scope and delivers value to the organization and end-users.

Project Board Key Responsibilities

Now that we know who makes up the project board and their individual roles and responsibilities, let’s look at the project board in PRINCE2 as a whole. It holds key responsibilities for overseeing the project’s direction, ensuring it remains aligned with business goals and making high-level decisions to guide the project to successful completion. They provide strategic leadership and governance and ensure the project is appropriately resourced, managed and delivering value to the organization. Here are its core responsibilities.

Project Governance

The project board provides overarching governance, ensuring the project adheres to PRINCE2 principles while maintaining alignment with organizational goals. It holds accountability for the project’s success by setting clear objectives, monitoring risks and ensuring appropriate controls are in place. The board enforces structured decision-making and maintains authority over project viability, scope and progress.

Governance also includes overseeing stakeholder engagement and ensuring their interests are considered throughout the project lifecycle. By maintaining visibility and enforcing accountability, the project board ensures the project remains justified and well-managed and can deliver expected outcomes within constraints such as time, cost and quality.

Decision-Making Authority

It also holds final decision-making authority over the project. It is responsible for approving key milestones, such as project initiation, stage transitions and project closure. When risks, issues, or changes exceed the project manager’s tolerance levels, the board makes high-level decisions to keep the project on track.

The project board ensures alignment with strategic priorities and provides direction when conflicts arise. This authority also includes making go/no-go decisions at critical points, determining resource allocation and approving major changes that impact scope, cost or timeline. By maintaining control, the board ensures the project remains viable and meets business expectations.

Project Assurance

The project board is responsible for guaranteeing independent project assurance and verifying that processes, risks and controls are managed. While assurance roles may be delegated, the board ensures compliance with PRINCE2 principles, including business justification, learning from experience and defined roles and responsibilities.

Assurance covers progress tracking, risk management and stakeholder engagement to prevent deviations from the plan. It also ensures that reports are accurate, that quality management processes are followed and that appropriate governance structures are in place. By maintaining oversight, the board safeguards the project’s integrity and ensures it is managed effectively and efficiently.

Resource Management

Securing adequate resources is a core responsibility of the project board. It ensures that financial, human and technical resources are available to support project execution. This includes approving funding, assigning skilled personnel and ensuring suppliers or partners meet their obligations. The board evaluates resource constraints and reallocates them when necessary to mitigate risks or address issues.

Effective resource management ensures that dependencies are met, schedules remain feasible and deliverables are achieved within scope. By maintaining control over resource allocation, the board ensures the project remains viable, cost-effective and capable of delivering the intended benefits.

Strategic Alignment

The project board ensures that the project remains aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives. It continuously assesses whether the project’s outcomes contribute to broader business goals and provide long-term value. If changes in corporate priorities arise, the board evaluates whether the project should continue, be adjusted or be closed.

This responsibility includes ensuring stakeholder expectations are managed and project outputs are relevant to business needs. By maintaining strategic alignment, the board helps prevent wasted investment in projects that no longer serve the organization and ensures that resources are directed toward initiatives that deliver maximum impact.

Benefits Management

The project board ensures that the project delivers tangible benefits as outlined in the business case. It reviews benefit realization plans and ensures that expected outcomes are clearly defined, measurable and achievable. Throughout the project lifecycle, the board assesses whether projected benefits remain viable and takes corrective action if necessary.

After project completion, it oversees post-implementation reviews to verify whether benefits have been realized and whether further action is needed. By maintaining accountability for benefits management, the board ensures the project contributes positively to the organization and justifies the investment in its execution.

Approving Key Management Products

The project board is responsible for reviewing and approving critical PRINCE2 management products, ensuring they are accurate, complete and aligned with project objectives. This includes approving the business case, which justifies the project’s existence, as well as stage plans, which outline the approach for each phase.

The board also reviews exception reports when project performance deviates beyond tolerance levels and makes necessary adjustments. Other key products, such as the project initiation document (PID) and end project report, require board approval to confirm alignment with business needs. By overseeing these documents, the board maintains control and ensures project success.

Benefits of Establishing a Project Board

Establishing a project board provides numerous benefits by ensuring effective governance, clear decision-making and strategic oversight throughout the project. With the right people in place, the project board helps align the project with organizational goals, manages risks and ensures that resources are effectively utilized, ultimately leading to successful project outcomes. Here are some key benefits of having a project board in place.

Clear project governance
Defined decision-making authority
Improved strategic alignment
Stronger risk and issue management
Efficient resource allocation
Enhanced stakeholder engagement
Better project assurance and oversight
Faster resolution of escalated issues
Increased accountability and transparency
Improved benefits realization
Structured approval of key project documents
Greater control over project viability and justification
Stronger support for the project manager
Reduced scope creep and uncontrolled changes
Better compliance with organizational policies and standards

Free Project Management Templates for PRINCE2

For those interested in more than understanding PRINCE2 but want to apply it as a project management methodology, below are some of the over 100 free project management templates for Excel and Word available for download from our site. These three free templates can help when working in PRINCE2.

Project Initiation Document Template

Use this free project initiation document template for Word to outline the project’s objectives, scope, deliverables, role and overall plan in PRINCE2. It provides a clear, structured foundation for the project by consolidating essential information into one place, ensuring that all stakeholders have a shared understanding of the project’s purpose and approach.

Business Case Template

In PRINCE2, the business case is a crucial tool that helps justify a project’s viability by outlining its benefits, costs, risks and expected outcomes. Download this free business case template for Word to ensure that projects remain aligned with business objectives and continue to provide value throughout their lifecycle.

Project Brief Template

Download this free project brief template for Word. This is a key document in PRINCE2 that provides a high-level overview of the project before it is fully initiated. It ensures that all stakeholders have a shared understanding of the project’s purpose, scope and approach.

How ProjectManager Helps Manage PRINCE2 Projects

To better manage a PRINCE2 project or any project, templates are only so much help. They can help write a project initiation document, business case and project brief, but once a project has been approved it needs dynamic planning, management and tracking. Templates are static documents that aren’t made for project management, project management software is. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software with multiple project views that allow everyone on the project team and project board to do their work with the right tools.

Stay Projective With Robust Resource Management

No matter how well-planned a project is, it’s the resources that execute that plan. First, resources are scheduled to Gantt charts. Our software allows project managers to set the team’s availability to make it easier to assign the right person for the right job at the right time. To oversee resource allocation across all projects, visit the color-coded workload page. This shows who is overallocated or underutilized and allows project managers to balance their workload without leaving the chart. There’s also a team page that shows daily and weekly summaries of team activity, which can be filtered by progress, priority and more.

Monitor Progress and More With Real-Time Dashboards and Reports

Resources aren’t the only things that have to be monitored and controlled. There are costs, time, tasks, etc. For a high-level overview of key project metrics, toggle to the real-time project or portfolio dashboards. There’s no setup required. They automatically collect live data and display it on easy-to-read graphs and charts. For more detail, generate reports with a keystroke. There are status and portfolio reports as well as reports on variance, timesheets, workload and more. All of them can be filtered to focus on key data points or a broader view of progress to share with the project board. Even our secure timesheets help track labor costs to keep the project on budget.