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PRINCE2 For Dummies (For Dummies Series) Paperback – 20 April 2010

by Nick Graham (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 246 ratings
Whatever your project - no matter how big or small - PRINCE2 For Dummies is the perfect guide to using this project management method to help ensure its success.

Fully updated with the 2009 practice guidelines, this book takes readers through every step of a project, offering practical and easy-to-understand advice on using PRINCE2. It provides readers with a comprehensive guide to its systems, procedures and language so you can run efficient and successful projects.

PRINCE2 For Dummies:

Features coverage on all the updates to the 2009 version of PRINCE2

Covers every aspect of project management from planning and establishing roles to closing and reviewing

Allows readers to divide your project into manageable chunks, so you can make realistic plans and know when resources will be needed

Shows how to use the method when approaching the key concerns of project management

Contains a glossary of the main PRINCE2 terms
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  1. ISBN-10
    047071025X
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0470710258
  3. Edition
    2009th
  4. Publisher
    John Wiley & Sons
  5. Publication date
    20 April 2010
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    18.8 x 2.29 x 23.57 cm
  8. Print length
    392 pages
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Product description

From the Back Cover

Achieve business success with this leading project management technique

PRINCE2TM is a powerful project management method that helps users plan and control their projects effectively. Fully updated with the 2009 edition of PRINCE, this accessible guide takes you through the ins and outs of the method and shows you how to apply it effectively. Whatever industry you work in, and however large or small your project, this user-friendly advice will help you achieve professional success and stay in control.

  • How can PRINCE2 help you? &; discover how the method can make your life easier, with a proven and flexible approach

  • Be prepared &; get the green light for your project and map out the path ahead

  • Execute with care &; keep your finger on the pulse at every stage in the process

  • Assess risk and manage change &; learn how to plan your approach to make control and adjustment easy

"Successful projects are the result of people working hard, with discipline, using one common approach. This book explains PRINCE2 in a practical way using easy-to-follow language. If you use PRINCE2, this book is a must have."
&;Philipp Straehl, Managing Partner, VSM Consultancy

Open the book and find:

  • A clear, easy-to-follow explanation of the PRINCE2 method

  • How to create a watertight business case

  • Advice on running effective Project Boards

  • How to monitor progress with precision from start to finish

  • Powerful plans that help you check for completeness

  • The lowdown on PRINCE2 qualifications

  • A glossary of key PRINCE2 terminology

Learn to:

  • Revolutionise your project management with PRINCE2

  • Apply powerful planning techniques

  • Use PRINCE2 controls to monitor your progress every step of the way

  • Deliver quality projects on time and within budget

Go to Dummies.com® for videos, step-by-step examples, how-to articles or to shop!

About the Author

Nick Graham is a director and founder of the project consultancy and training company Inspirandum Ltd and is a member of the Association for Project Management and the Institute of Directors. A qualified teacher and project manager, Nick has long experience in the PRINCE2 method. He delivers project training for private sector and public organisations throughout the UK and worldwide.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ John Wiley & Sons
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 20 April 2010
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 2009th
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 392 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 047071025X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0470710258
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 703 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.8 x 2.29 x 23.57 cm
  • Best Sellers Rank: 69,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 246 ratings

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4.3 out of 5 stars
246 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find this book to be a useful guide that serves as an excellent companion to the official manual. Moreover, the book is clear and easy to understand, providing a rational and business-oriented explanation of the process. Additionally, customers consider it good value for money.

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Information qualityEase of understandingValue for money
30 customers mention ‘Information quality’30 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative and appreciate that it serves as a good companion to the official manual, with one customer noting it makes studying easier.

"Great book, I enjoyed the examples throughout and it made a dry subject easy to understand, the book easy to pick up and glance at in any down time..." Read more

"Very useful" Read more

"everyone should have access to these books, makes studying so much easier" Read more

"...themes and principles clearly and logically, using real world examples to illustrate key points...." Read more

27 customers mention ‘Ease of understanding’27 positive0 negative

Customers find the book clear and easy to understand, with a rational and business-oriented approach that provides a decent overview of the process.

"Very easy to read, and a good all round overview for practical use/ application...." Read more

"...Well worth reading cover to cover and I can't recommend this and The accompanying 'Passing the Prince2 Exams' enough." Read more

"Easy ready Filled with an abundance of project management methods...." Read more

"...This book goes through the Prince2 themes and principles clearly and logically, using real world examples to illustrate key points...." Read more

10 customers mention ‘Value for money’10 positive0 negative

Customers find the book offers good value for money.

"...All in all a very worthwhile purchase for anyone who wants to understand PRINCE2 better or simply for a bit more insurance to pass your exams." Read more

"...Book was almost brand new and unmarked. Great deal for a second hand price." Read more

"...Or at least I hope that is the case ... A worthwhile investment - especially if you're looking for something a little more stimulating..." Read more

"...Value you money, yes." Read more

Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • degus
    5.0 out of 5 stars work improver
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 June 2025
    Verified Purchase
    everyone should have access to these books, makes studying so much easier
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  • Jamzi
    4.0 out of 5 stars Helped me pass my exam without reading the official text..
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 August 2012
    Verified Purchase
    A few months ago I signed up for my PRINCE2 foundation exam. Unfortunately I never made it past page 22 of the official textbook I received as part of the course and I only completed an e-learning CD that I had. 2 days before the exam I took a practice test on the CD and failed the exam altogether(passmark 50% but they recommend you are regularly achieving 80% before you attempt the exam). I normally fare pretty well in exams so that was a bit of a shocker but nothing I didn't deserve after my lack of study.

    I set about practicing tests on the simulator the next day for a few hours and managed to get a regular pass but I was still in the 55%-60% range which didn't quite feel safe enough. The night before the exam I found this book on Amazon and downloaded it to my Kindle. That evening and the next morning I read through as fast as I could, I didn't quite make the end before my exam but it was obviously enough as I scored 70% which is a decent pass. This book isn't perfect for the "exam cram" situation as it is more of a practical guide for how to apply the PRINCE2 methodology and therefore occasionally disagrees with the teachings offered by PRINCE2 which can get confusing when you are only trying to learn PRINCE2, however this is probably also a good point of the book if you are using it as an accomponying book to the original text book and means it would be even more useful for the "Practitioner" level exam. The book did make me chuckle from time to time too and helped things snap into place by using examples that meant something to me rather than the dry info within the course itself. All in all a very worthwhile purchase for anyone who wants to understand PRINCE2 better or simply for a bit more insurance to pass your exams.
    10 people found this helpful
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  • hbw
    5.0 out of 5 stars Prince 2 : 2009 - Excellent for course preparation
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 November 2010
    Verified Purchase
    I decided to work through "Prince2 for Dummies 2009" before committing myself (and my bank account) to a formal course.

    Prince2 is a set of project management principles that can be applied to pretty much any type or size of project. It's not a project methodology and it's not a substitute for knowledge of specific business areas, organizations or people.

    This book goes through the Prince2 themes and principles clearly and logically, using real world examples to illustrate key points. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to find out what Prince2 is all about or who is preparing for a training course.

    Whilst a knowledge of the official Prince 2 manual is essential for anyone wishing to use Prince2, it's not necessarily the best place to start. I worked through the Dummies guide without having access to a copy of the (pricey) manual and this didn't cause any particular difficulties.

    "Prince2 for Dummies 2009" gave me the confidence to take a formal training course leading to Foundation and Practitioner exams (which I passed).
    14 people found this helpful
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  • Joseph Augustine
    3.0 out of 5 stars Peoplepieces: Is there ever an easy way to teach P2?
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 March 2017
    Verified Purchase
    I am not entirely sure Nick has fully cracked the art of simplicity with this book but then it does aim to be an accurate interpretation of a course syllabus on a subject matter notoriously 'process-tactic that could have led to a case of confirmation bias, i.e. a left-brain methodology for left-brain types in a left-brain descriptive style; but what about those who don't have the Myers Briggs judging preference gene of 'predict and control' - possibly 'perceivers' (like me) who like to surf a project instead?

    Part 1 covers: customer/supplier structural planning at three levels of detail (post-initiation, stage and team); 7 event and time-driven processes consisting of products, activities, and resources, before calling in 7 critical themes and 7 control factors:

    - business case (cost & benefits)
    - risk controls (risk)
    - organisational roles (comms)
    - quality controls (quality)
    - change controls (change)
    - progress controls: event/(time)
    - plans

    The themes are built on 7 principles and 3 levels of decision points: the board level (directing), the PM level for project and planning skills (managing) and the Team level of work packages (deliverability). An outcome can be a soft product, ie. a changed perception (versus the hard product).

    P2 defines the outcomes and deliverables upfront and assigns resources and activities to build up the actuals of the products. Each process along the waterfall sequence carries several activities and each activity adopts many management (wetware) products e.g. plans, reports, records, checklists, registers, packages, logs, descriptions etc. Each management product is supported by the infamous overload of tick-box documentation. For instance, taking a look at the break-down of a Product Description - a necessary part of the project's acceptance criteria produced during the Start-Up and Initiation processes - consists of an identifier, title, purpose, description (composition), derivation, format and presentation, development skills required, quality criteria, quality tolerance, quality method, quality skills required, quality responsibilities and so on.

    But wait... P2s Principles allow for tailoring to suit the project environment and flexible response to learning from experience. Nick is careful to assuage the doomsayers of P2's reputation by emphasising a defter lightness of approach in trimming the toolkit but never at the expense of resorting to "fire-fighting that can end up more time consuming than planning." The baseline is making the method fit around the project not the other way around is a welcome reminder.

    However, as a lapsed P2 Practitioner and practising Agile one this was kind of the big revelation. I had unfortunately cared to gloss over the degree to which P2 might loosely be defined as stream-lined without over-dilution? It brought to mind the often paradoxical debate I have often wrestled with between the two approaches: if an Agile practice is familiarly "learn to fail, or fail to learn" how does it interface with a "fail to plan, then plan to fail" P2 methodology?

    The meeting point is probably somewhere in the middle, to reach a more realistic place of 'sense and respond', and Nick points out you can alter the sequence of activities by asking "Is this a sensible change for this project?" i.e. is the adjustment better than the default; but as one might have guessed by now, never without a method, a justification, or an approval. You can overlap processes like the Initiation stage with the first stage, but slightly grudgingly lest the method is unduly stressed, only as a last resort when you need to move quickly. Further for good measure you can shift activities between processes, alter the sequence of activities within a process and leave out activities in trim mode.

    However, for me P2's Achilles heel is that it assumes it has the advantages of hindsight experience in producing excellent planning upfront documentation and this depends on having a very experienced team in place and more importantly a vested Board; otherwise, for all P2's noble aims a project's tactical planning tends to become wholly reliant on the experience of the stage and team levels operating as specialist products teams (internal/external) of reverse delegation. These guys become the real owners of the checklists. it is interesting to note that an Agile project backlog often works in a similar fashion being given the breath of life from encounters with failure from the ground up, not from the plan.

    Lightheartedly then P2 might be rebadged Pre-success Failure in Controlled Systems (PRICS) or maybe Planned Product-led Projects in Controlled Structures for Technical Deliverables using Processes and Activities through allocated Resources (PPPTDPAR). Then it would be a rather difficult acronym to digest, would it not...you get the point. Chose your project weapons carefully that suit your inclination I would say.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Really good book if you're going for your Prince2 Cert
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 November 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Really good book if you're going for your Prince2 Cert. Explains it in real terms and provides examples to relate to. Reading this before the Prince2 manual as recommended on forums. Sitting my exam next week and feel pretty confident I know my stuff. Book was almost brand new and unmarked. Great deal for a second hand price.
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  • Suzanna89
    5.0 out of 5 stars Prince for Dummies
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 June 2013
    Verified Purchase
    I brought this via my Kindle but would recommend that you buy the book rather than the kindle version, due to the details of the diagrams which need to be reviewed and digested.
    However the book is excellent, in that its simple and explicit, compared to the manual and makes everything 'bite size'.
    Read this before you read the manual.
    5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Alberto Cravidi
    4.0 out of 5 stars Prince2 for Dummies
    Reviewed in Italy on 29 May 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Il testo di Nick Graham e' interessante e puo' aiutare nella preparazione dell'esame di "Prince2 Foundation".
    Non e' del tutto esaustivo e l'impaginazione utilizzata non aiuta a focalizzare al meglio i concetti fondamentali e le nozioni da conoscere.
    Avrebbe bisogno di molta piu' grafica, possibilmente a colori.
    Report
  • Nika
    5.0 out of 5 stars Trockene Theorie als leichte Kost aufbereitet
    Reviewed in Germany on 22 June 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Dies ist mein erstes "for Dummies" Buch. Eigentlich haben mich
    die Titel immer abgeschreckt. Aber ich habe von vielen Leuten gehört,
    dass sie gut sein sollen also hab ich mir dann doch mal eines gekauft.

    Ich war sehr positiv überrascht. Das Buch gibt wirklich einen guten Einstieg
    ins Thema PRINCE2. Der Autor wiederholt sich zwar immer mal wieder in seinen
    Aussagen, allerdings auch nur um wesentliche Dinge zu unterstreichen.

    Der Aufbau des Buchs ist insgesamt in Ordung. Als Grundlage zur Zertifizierung sicher
    nicht geeignet, aber wenn man sich einfach mit dem Thema befassen möchte, auf jeden
    Fall leichter zu lesen und bei weitem nicht so trocken wie das Standardwerk des OGC.
    Kleinere Auszüge aus diesem findet man übrigens auch hier wieder.
    Report
  • Anne aime lire et tester
    5.0 out of 5 stars Parfait pour debuter
    Reviewed in France on 2 September 2010
    Verified Purchase
    Le produit en vogue à leur actuel dans le domaine du suivi de projet. Ce livre est très bien écrit pour presenter un sujet pas toujours très amusant à étudier. L'auteur maitrise parfaitement son sujet et tente de dépoussierer son aprentissage avec un éclairage personnel.
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  • Patrick D.
    5.0 out of 5 stars A must for Prince practitioners
    Reviewed in the United States on 7 July 2012
    Verified Purchase
    I studied PRINCE back in 1992 when on an NHS contract. Now I have to certify in PRINCE2 some 20 years later so this is a really good debunker allowing you to leave the manual on the shelf most of the time.
    Report
  • Eleonora Santini & Pierluigi Camilli
    4.0 out of 5 stars Buon titolo
    Reviewed in Italy on 19 February 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Titolo addirittura quasi piacevole da leggere per i toni sempre leggeri con cui si affrontano tematiche tutt'altro che leggere. Un buon approccio per affrontare il Prince2 può essere partire da qui piuttosto che dai manuali ufficiali
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