Project management refers to the act of originating, planning, beginning, controlling, and ending the work done by a team aimed at meeting the specified targets and goals to attain success within the specified time limit.  Over the years, people have developed a reliance on the essential elements of managing a project. Many different methodologies and frameworks realized in the new age to attain successful and organized projects that met changing management styles. Therefore, project management frameworks refer to the processes and subsets of tasks and tools used together with a managing team to obtain insight on the structural elements of the running project to initiate and work through all projects phases. They include PMBOK, PRINCE2, CCPM, lean, scrum and XPM.

PMBOK is a guide that illustrates a framework used in project management as the basis of understanding project management while PRINCE2 merges IBM’S MITP method with the innovative PROMPTII method. Prince2 highly focuses highly on the planning stages; hence it’s highly preferred. This paper seeks to analyze PMBOK and PRINCE2 critically as the main elements of the project management frameworks.

PMBOK is the critical knowledge required to manage a project and the areas involved are categorized into project start-up and integration, Scope, schedule and time management, the costs, quality, teams, and the communication structure. When managing integration, all activities are needed to be kept going in collective motion. Secondly, the Scope defines the parameter to be covered through a work breakdown structure. Thirdly, the management of time and schedule involves determining a project that a beginning and an ending date. Thus requires sequencing, resource allocation and estimating of the duration necessary to develop and control the schedule defined. On costs, the projects devour resources and hence require investment management with the aim of realizing value. Also, quality management allows the project deliverables to meet the set performance objectives and standards.  The teams involved in projects represents the human resource hence require finding the right side and manage their outputs. Lastly, without communication managing a plan becomes impossible. Therefore, the communication channel between the participants, managers, and stakeholders is necessary.

On the other hand, PRINCE2 centers on delivering and defining the products that meet the requirements precisely. This framework largely majors in the planning stages of the project. The team members come together and focus their attention on the definition stage of the product requirements, therefore, eliminating any changes that might occur down the line. The prince2 framework has seven principles, and they include: continued business justification, manage by stages and exceptions, learn from experiences, focus on products, define responsibilities and roles and tailor to suit the environment. The two frameworks are essential in that; they provide reliable guidelines for running a project t o achieve the set objections. However, limitations exist, prince2 focuses highly on producing the product rather than dividing the tasks while PMBOK cannot be applied in small projects since it requires too many processes also it is applicable in specific industries due to its initial requirement of naming the product thus does not allow for changes requested by clients.

In conclusion, the project management frameworks are crucial in the comprehension of the basic structure of project management. The choice of these frameworks lies solemnly on the hands of project managers, and they choose what works bests for the business or project at hand. PMBOK and PRINCE2 therefore, cover all the necessary knowledge areas in project management.Even though it experiences some disadvantages, the guideline is appropriately set and written to include all methodologies and frameworks such as PRINCE2 needed in project management.