{"id":13499,"date":"2026-05-05T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deltaagile.com\/?p=13499"},"modified":"2026-05-24T13:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T11:21:10","slug":"pm%c2%b2-the-european-commissions-project-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deltaagile.com\/en\/pm%c2%b2-the-european-commissions-project-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"PM\u00b2 – The European Commission’s project approach"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Large corporate systems often tend to standardise project approaches. Sometimes this is justified and simplifies processes, but sometimes it is driven by mistrust and a desire for control. Outcomes depends on circumstances such as diversification of product and service portfolio, geographical spread, regulatory frameworks and availability of resources. PM\u00b2<\/span><\/p>

Public administrations and international organizations face all of the aforementioned challenges and add some of their own, such as local support for initiatives, differing political interests, and corruption.<\/p>

In such an environment, the introduction of a single project methodology (despite the benefits it can bring) is a very challenging task. On one hand, such a methodology needs to establish a solid hierarchy of decision-making and accountability. On the other hand, it has to recognise that we are living in the 21st century and that management of successful technology initiatives is practically the antithesis of hierarchy and reporting. <\/p>

The European Commission became aware of these challenges almost twenty years ago and sponsored the development of a project methodology called PM\u00b2 (PM square)<\/em>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Evolution of the methodology<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Waterfall phase<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The development of PM\u00b2 started in 2007 within the European Commission as an internal approach for IT project management. The reason was the need for a single, pragmatic and lightweight methodology adapted to the complex institutional environment of the EU. Which was not adequately covered at the time by either PRINCE2<\/a> or PMBOK<\/a>. The first version of PM\u00b2 was presented in 2008 and then piloted in selected European Commission projects in 2009, supported by in-house training. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Agile add-on<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In 2014, the European Commission introduced Agile@EC (later PM\u00b2-Agile), which added agile principles to the existing PM\u00b2 framework for managing technological development projects. It was only with this addition that PM\u00b2 actually became suitable for managing IT projects – which is what it was intended to do from the start. In practice, at this point the operational PM\u00b2 approach split into two branches: <\/p>