Agile Concepts and the PRINCE2 Agile Approach
What you must understand
PRINCE2 Agile is not a hybrid in which one method wins; it is PRINCE2 with its principles, themes and processes fixed, and its products and practices tailored to suit agile delivery. Know the two-way marriage: PRINCE2 supplies governance, a business case, defined roles and management by exception; agile supplies iterative delivery, empowered teams and frequent feedback.
Be fluent in the core agile vocabulary: timeboxing, iterative vs incremental, empirical control (transparency, inspection, adaptation), servant leadership, self-organising teams, continuous improvement, and the Agile Manifesto value pairs. Know the eight focus areas (AgileSHAPE is the tailoring guide; the focus areas are the what to look at) and the Agile behaviours (transparency, collaboration, rich communication, self-organisation, exploration).
Traps
- Questions that suggest PRINCE2 principles can be dropped when agile is used. They cannot; only the how is tailored.
- Confusing AgileSHAPE (the tailoring framework: Assess, Agilos, ... actually AgileSHAPE = Start, How, Apply, Process, Evaluate) with the health checks.
- Treating agile as 'no documentation'. PRINCE2 Agile expects sufficient documentation for the audience.
- Misreading a scenario where the team wants to skip a stage boundary: governance still applies, but can be lightweight.
Rule of thumb
If a question asks 'what should the project manager do first?', prefer the answer that preserves a PRINCE2 principle (continued business justification, defined roles, manage by stages) while tailoring the artefact, not one that abandons governance.
Worked example
A team argues for no business case because 'agile delivers value continuously'. Correct answer: the business case remains, but is reviewed at each stage boundary and updated as learning emerges.