The basic methodology was originally developed from a method called PROMPTII, which was created by a company called Simpact Systems Ltd in 1975 (PROMPTII is short for Project, Resource, Organisation, Management and Planning Technique).

This (PROMPTII) was adopted by the CCTA (the forerunner of the OGC) in 1979, as the default method for all government information systems projects.

In 1989, Prince was created from PROMPTII and replaced it as the default method.

In 1996, a new version, Prince2, was published, having been contributed to by a consortium of some 150 European organizations.