People
Why people get their own guidance
Projects are delivered by people, and most project failures are traced to behaviour, communication and change resistance rather than technique. The People guidance in PRINCE2 therefore sits alongside the principles and practices and is applied through all of them; it is not a practice and not a process, so questions that call it one are wrong.
The areas to know
Organisational change management - understand that change affects individuals differently; people move through stages of reaction to change and need information, involvement and support to adopt it. Leadership and team management - adapt style to the team's competence and commitment (situational leadership); a project manager coordinates, while a leader builds commitment. Communication - communication is two-way and needs a sender, a receiver, a message and a feedback loop; barriers include jargon, culture, distance, filtering and assumed understanding. Stakeholder engagement - identify stakeholders, analyse interest and influence, and plan engagement; this is documented in the communication management approach.
Traps: treating People as a seventh practice; assuming communication has happened because a report was issued; assuming conflict is always destructive; confusing the project manager's people responsibilities with the project board's direction role.
Rule of thumb: match communication to the stakeholder - high influence and high interest gets active, regular, two-way engagement; low interest gets minimal, efficient updates.