PRINCE2 Suggested Role Description-Project Assurance

What is this?

On a project the Project Board may not have sufficient time to assure themselves that the project is being run appropriately and in acordance with any organizational standards.  If this is the case they can get help by delegating some of the ‘checking up’ to a trusted person / persons.  This is the role of Project Assurance.  There are three different Project Board roles, Executive, Senior User and Senior Supplier to covers the primary stakeholder interests.  Each of these Project Board roles can delegate responsibilities to different people, so there are three ‘flavours’ of Project Assurance – business, user and supplier. 

This role description covers the generic responsibilities of the Project Assurance role, but also responsibilities specific to Business Assurance, User Assurance and Supplier Assurance.

If the Project Board have sufficient time they can fufil this role themselves.

To avoid a conflict of interest, the Project Assurance role must of course be independent of the people / other roles whom they are actually checking!  This means that the Project Board cannot delegate this role to the Project Manager, or anyone who reports to the Project Manager!

Why it’s useful?

This is a PREMIUM Role Description as defined by the PRINCE2 Project Management methodology. Whilst you can find this role description in Appendix C of an official PRINCE2 manual, of course you may not have purchased a manual, or prefer to have an electronic version of it.

How to use it?

This is a ‘vanilla’ role description that accompanies the PRINCE2 methodology. Whilst you can use it in its vanilla format we recommend that you tailor it (as suggested by the method itself) to incorporate the following:

• Any relevant industry specific terminology 
• Organizational terminology & competencies 
• Align with Organizational role grades