Prince 2..

Betamax-

Betamax-

Betamax-

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Islington, London
Has anyone taken courses in this? Is it worthwhile? etc etc..

Im looking to get some professional qualifications to add to my cv and to learn some transferrable skills whilst im working full time.

I think project management is something I want to go into but not entirely sure what direction I want to take my career. Im currently working in the Energy Industry for a supplier within the Buying Solutions government framework so I think it may be useful for progression by knowing a standised project format, but at the same time I dont know how useful it will be!

Any help would be appreciated. I want to crack on and learn something, rather whilst I dont have many responsibilities.

Cheers :D
 
Wow, lots of PRINCE2 threads recently! :D

I've got PRINCE2. Some companies really want it and it will get your CV noticed in the pile. If you want to work for many of the bigger employers (like Accenture, Nokia, BT as a few examples) they usually favour it.
 
Yeah it can't hurt, don't underestimate how hard the Prince2 Practitioner is, maybe I'm thick but it certainly wasn't easy!!

Hoping to do my PMP this year, another one for the C.V. ;)
 
I've got my Prince2 practitioner, it's a handy bit of paper to have I guess but I'd have never done it if work weren't paying.

I found the practitioner to be -way- easier than foundation. I barely scraped through foundation, but flew through practitioner with high marks. I did far more revision for foundation, too. The reason is that practitioner is an open book exam, you can take the text book in with as many notes and annotations on the book as you please (but no loose paper notes, they have to be ON the text book)
 
The main problem I found with the Practitioner was the amount of questions you had to answer, there was no time to look in the book annotated or not. Personally I found Foundation easy and Practitioner very hard but we all learn/take exams differently.

Practitioner was easily the hardest exam I took since Uni. It's not an exam you can rock up to and take, you really do have to do the reading an understand the concepts or you're sunk.
 
Over how many months does it take to complete the Foundation Prince 2? Is it at your own pace or within a restricted time/framework?
 
For foundation we just revised amongst ourselves in our own time. A whole group of us did it together at work. We then booked the exam and just turned up and took it.

For practitioner we all spent a day together annotating our books and revising and discussing the concepts together, then the next day an examiner came in, checked our books to make sure we hadn't just written the answers in it, but rather had notes etc. and we sat in an office meeting room and did the exam with him invigilating, he then took our papers away for marking. That day before was the only revision I did for practitioner, I did quite a few evenings worth for foundation.
 
Im going to be doing the foundation off my own back so I probably wont have anyone to discuss this with, do you think there is enough support out there for self study? Im hoping I can talk work to sponsoring me but its not really something thats offered to my area.
 
It's not really worth the paper it's written on these days. A lot of companies will prefer you to gain experience on the job.

It used to hold a much higher regards than it does now
 
Indeed, don't expect a Prince 2 qualification to get you a PM job. I think this is true of 95% of exams though, without experience they're not much use, it's not specific to Prince 2 (or its worth).
 
yea im not expecting it to get me a PM job straight away but i think it may be one of those things that might open doors later on down the line, with more experience.

ill ask about work and see what they say :)
 
Did foundation a couple of months back, a lot to take in but it's nothing that's too challenging, especially if you've been working with a project framework very similar to it for 3 years previously!
 
hmmm well i havent really done anything like that before so not sure how it will be but ill give it a go :) did you do the online based thing?? was it any good?
 
Betamax- said:
hmmm well i havent really done anything like that before so not sure how it will be but ill give it a go :) did you do the online based thing?? was it any good?
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I bought the book, booked 3 days off work and did 3 solid days of revision for the Foundation. One of the cheaper ways to do it.

More important than memorising everything is understanding the inter-relationships between the various principles, stages, processes....etc imo.
 
As said, it's not an easy ticket to getting a PM job, but it can help a lot.

Might be worth also looking at something like the APM certifications.

PRINCE2 is a specific framework whereas APM is a more general certification on project management, it's more about the people/soft skills aspect rather than how to specifically run the project. It also covers a very broad area of knowledge, but doesn't go too deep.

But depends on why you're doing it, if it's to get jobs that say you need PRINCE2, or you'll be working within that framework, then it's obviously the more favoured choice.
 
ok guys, thanks so much for your help/advice. i have taken it all on board and will ask a few questions in HR to see if I can blag some funding...

as ever, its brilliant to get some good sound o/c opinions, thanks a lot :D
 
As part of people 'retraining' at my place before it's shut down a shed load have been doing this.

They've had 3 or 4 weeks of trainers coming in and delivering the week long courses with a good handful of people doing it each time.

I'd estimate about 20% of the company have done it with most passing both foundation and practitioner, I know my boss got a 79 in his practitioner exam the other week.

One chap in my team also went on Firebrands new 3 day course, he passed foundation and failed practitioner. Said unless you've got some experience before hand 3 days intensive for both just wasn't enough time.
 
xibinim said:
Over how many months does it take to complete the Foundation Prince 2? Is it at your own pace or within a restricted time/framework?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't take months over it, I did it in 5 days via a structured course delivered by QA. Days 1-2 are foundation, day 3 is Foundation exam followed by more learning for next couple of days and then taking Practitioner exam afternoon of day 5.

I guess I did about 6 hours reading the book before the course (QA recommend 20hours, but the book is such a dry read I couldn't look at it for that long) and probably 1 hour each evening during the course revising what we had done that day.
 
If you do go for it I would strongly advise obtaining both the Foundation and Practitioner certification, many places now overlook candidates with just the Foundation as many of these are just those that attempted both but failed at the harder part.

Both can be obtained within a single week just ensure you can clear down some spare time in the evening to cover the homework and revision.
 
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