The Project Mandate

The Project Mandate is the trigger for the Starting Up a Project process. It is the formal expression of a request to start a project — authorising the initial investigation and appointment of the Executive and Project Manager. Without a Mandate, a project cannot formally begin.

What PRINCE2 Says About the Mandate

Notably, PRINCE2 provides no format or content recommendations for the Project Mandate. The method acknowledges that mandates come in many forms — a board decision, a strategic initiative document, a regulatory requirement, a customer contract — and does not attempt to standardise these external triggers.

This is intentional: the Mandate reflects the commissioning organisation's way of working, not the project management framework. PRINCE2 simply requires that one exists.

Why Organisations Should Standardise Their Own

While PRINCE2 provides no template, organisations benefit enormously from creating their own standardised Mandate format. A consistent Mandate template captures the information needed to develop a Project Brief efficiently — problem/opportunity statement, preliminary scope, known constraints, expected timescales, and the name of the sponsoring executive.

A good internal Mandate template also serves as a portfolio governance tool: it creates a consistent basis for comparing and prioritising project requests, and it ensures that anyone requesting a new project has thought through the basics before consuming project management resources.

What Comes After the Mandate

The Mandate triggers Starting Up — it does not initiate the project. Project commencement occurs only after Starting Up is complete and the Project Board has approved the Project Brief, Outline Business Case, and Initiation Stage Plan. The Mandate is the beginning of the conversation; the Project Brief approval is the commitment to invest.