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PRINCE2 Project Mandate – What is it exactly? 

 September 23, 2016

By  Dave Litten

PRINCE2 Project Mandate – What is it exactly?

There are a number of ways in which a potential project could be identified, and for this very reason they can be a wide variation in the information available at the time of project start-up. This is where the Project Mandate comes in.

PRINCE2 starts with an instruction, usually a document that it can sometimes be a verbal instruction from the organization and this is the Project Mandate

Programme or Corporate management produces this document which contains high level information about the project idea.

What triggers could launch a PRINCE2 Project Mandate?

The Project Mandate is effectively an authority to do the start-up work for your project with a view to running the project.

The Project Mandate can include a fair amount of detail of what the intended project is about and if it does, it can save a lot of work that you otherwise would need to do in start-up.

The reason for this is that the main work effort in the process “Starting Up a Project“ is to refine the Project Mandate into forming the Project Brief (Which in itself, is then refined and expanded to form the Project Initiation Documentation (PID) within the “Initiating a Project” process)

However, back in the real world, the Project Mandate usually contains very little information – and can even be as simple as just giving the name of the project!

So at the very least the Project Mandate should outline the project idea and name a manager who will be the executive and take responsibility for the Starting Up a Project process and then go on to direct the project overall.

What does the PRINCE2 Project Mandate contain?

PRINCE2 does not cover what should be in a mandate, and it may be that the format and content of a Project Mandate may already be defined within your organisation – but the following will give you a good idea of the type of information you would expect:

Reasons. A brief historical description of why the business need for this project came about. This will describe the problem, issue or opportunity that needs to be addressed by the potential project.

Project scope.  This should contain an outline of what the project is about and what it will deliver.  It should include any known constraints and articulate as clearly as possible the boundaries of the project

Roles and responsibilities.  This will name who is to be in overall charge of the project, the project board executive, and also the project manager is to be unless of course this is already being decided

Project objectives.  This lays down exactly what the project is expected to achieve.  Examples here might be a more efficient process, monetary savings, faster response for your customer help desk, and so on.

Key constraints.  This may have been mentioned within scope but if not, this describes anything that will limit the project, such as a fixed delivery date, and agreed maximum budget, integration with related business procedures, or the use of technology such as the use of an existing product

PRINCE2 has a special name for a trigger and the Information it contains – The Project Mandate.

The Project Mandate is provided by the responsible authority for commissioning the project.  This is typically Corporate or Programme management within the organization.  The term Project Mandate applies to whatever information is used to trigger the project, and it could be a feasibility study, the receipt of a request for proposal in a supplier environment, in fact just about anything.

The Project Mandate provides the terms of reference for the project and must contain sufficient information as a minimum to identify at least the prospective executive of the project board and the subject matter of the project.

This Project Mandate is refined to develop the project Brief during the “Starting Up a Project “Process which occur as pre-project.

The Project Mandate may include an outline business case even if it is a rather sketchy one, that the organisation had previously worked on perhaps from a feasibility study for example

In summary then, the Project Mandate is an external product generated by the authority commissioning the project and this forms the trigger for the PRINCE2 Process Starting Up a Project.

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Dave Litten


Dave has spent 25 years as a senior project manager for USA multinationals and has deep experience in project management. He now develops a wide range of Project Management Masterclasses, under the Projex Academy brand name. In addition, David runs project management training seminars across the world, and is a prolific writer on the many topics of project management.

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