The PRINCE2 Agile approach: blending PRINCE2 with agile
Governance meets delivery
PRINCE2 Agile is PRINCE2 tailored for agile delivery. PRINCE2 supplies direction, accountability, boundaries and justification - the 'what' and 'why'. Agile supplies the delivery behaviours and techniques - the 'how'. All seven PRINCE2 principles stay intact; it is the themes and processes that are tailored, and only to the extent the environment allows. No new principles are introduced and no PRINCE2 process is abolished.
A central idea is what to fix and what to flex. Time and cost are fixed, and quality expectations are protected at the 'must' level, while the detail of scope (which features are delivered) flexes. Prioritisation uses MoSCoW: Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have this time. Direction is set through project board tolerances; the delivery team decides how the work is done.
The Agilometer is used during starting up and initiating a project to judge how much agile working the environment can absorb, and the result shapes tailoring: high scores mean more delegation and lighter documentation; low scores mean more formal control points.
Traps: watch for wording that treats PRINCE2 Agile as 'agile with a PRINCE2 wrapper', as a replacement for PRINCE2, or as requiring Scrum. Also note that 'Won't have this time' is a deferred priority, not a rejected requirement, and that flexing scope still requires board-approved tolerances.
Rule of thumb: PRINCE2 answers 'should we, who decides, and what are the limits?'; agile answers 'how do we build it and what is most valuable next?'