Continued business justification
A PRINCE2 project must have a justified reason to start and a justification that remains valid throughout, verified at every stage boundary. If it stops being justified, the project should be stopped.
Why it is like this
Most project waste is not spent on projects that were wrong at the start — it is spent on projects that stopped being right and had nobody authorised to notice.
Not to be confused with
A business case written once at the start. It is a living document, reviewed and updated at each boundary, and the board's authorisation at a boundary is precisely a re-decision to continue.
In practice
A competitor launching the same product mid-project is a trigger to revisit the business case, not a reason to accelerate delivery.
Source: Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2, 7th edition (PeopleCert, 2023) — PRINCE2 7, §3 — principles: continued business justification. Read on .
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Predict Check yourself
Halfway through, the expected benefit disappears but the project is on time and on budget. What does the principle require?
Show the answer
Raise it at the stage boundary so the board can decide to continue or stop — the justification, not the schedule, governs.
Premature closure is an explicitly acceptable outcome in PRINCE2. On-time delivery of something no longer wanted is the failure the principle names.