Prince 2..

Currently trying to get funding from my company for this and losing the battle unfortunately. Shame as I covered it at uni and have all the reading resources. Annoying given it is directly relevant to my work.
 
I did the foundation via the ILX e-learning course, and just took the exam a couple of months down the line which I scored highly on. I'm currently considering self funding the practitioner qualification via ILX as I think it will benefit me in terms of making the transition into a dedicated PM role.

My thread from a couple of days ago:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18250075

Currently i'm in a technical infrastructure role, and although I manage smallish service improvement projects internally within the team, the process we follow isn't as formalised as it could be as we're too busy doing the 'doing' in most cases.

I applied for an internal PM vacancy very recently, which I was rejected for as I currently do not have the level of PM experience they required. The trouble is, without the opportunity to prove myself within a PM role I'm not going to gain that 'experience'. That's why I'm hoping that gaining the practitioner qualification will make me a more attractive option for such a role in the future... I know that certification does not make up for experience in most cases, but it will certainly benefit me IMO.
 
Turbo-G said:
I did the foundation via the ILX e-learning course, and just took the exam a couple of months down the line which I scored highly on. I'm currently considering self funding the practitioner qualification via ILX as I think it will benefit me in terms of making the transition into a dedicated PM role.

My thread from a couple of days ago:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18250075

Currently i'm in a technical infrastructure role, and although I manage smallish service improvement projects internally within the team, the process we follow isn't as formalised as it could be as we're too busy doing the 'doing' in most cases.

I applied for an internal PM vacancy very recently, which I was rejected for as I currently do not have the level of PM experience they required. The trouble is, without the opportunity to prove myself within a PM role I'm not going to gain that 'experience'. That's why I'm hoping that gaining the practitioner qualification will make me a more attractive option for such a role in the future... I know that certification does not make up for experience in most cases, but it will certainly benefit me IMO.
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seems its a catch 22 situation... I think doing the additional practitioner course will boost your chances and remember its a transferable skill so you can look elsewhere and in any industry :)

thats my take on it anyway, im yet to do the foundation! hehe :)
 
Passed my Foundation, but have just found out I failed my practitioner. Bit gutted but was a hard exam.

Even hearder is trying to find out where and how to do the retake at a reasonable price.
 
HEADRAT said:
Argh bad luck, dont feel too bad I found it tough and only passed on my second attempt.

HEADRAT
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Thanks, I think I will give it another shot. We hada guy at work and it took him 4 attempts.

Was it expensive to resit?

I keep seeing places with one days training (aka revision day) and test but £400+vat
 
Heres a question for you experienced guys.

My University is offering the practitioners prince2 for £650. Is it worth at this price? Its a 5 day training course.

Obviously I don't plan to get a pm job straight off, but allow me to more easily drift into a pm job later in life. This would be combined with BSc Computer Science, MSc Advanced computer science.
 
Cheapest I found it was ILX for 99 quid for the foundation (which annoying I found AFTER I'd booked directly with APMG). The practitioner is 400 sheets if going direct with APMG but again noted that ILX offer it for 400 as well but with 2 days of training thrown in. As I'm paying for it all out of my own pocket it anyone else has suggestions for getting the practitioner for less please do let me know !
 
Here are my two negative cents.

The only person I know with a Prince 2 Practitioner is unemployed.

That may just be because he is no good at his job though, or at least was when he had one.
 
Prince2 imo shouldn't be seen as a single item required for success, it needs to be part of an armoury of experience and qualifications.

I've been an IT manager for ten years, did the classic route of computer science through uni before that. My company went bump on Friday. I'd been applying for jobs for a few months before which was an eye opener.

First problem encountered was that despite delivering some very complicated projects, to time and cost people won't consider my CV without the qualification stamp. Annoying as I value the experience far more than Prince2's view of the world.

Prince2 has become a necessary evil. I would not sit here and say I enjoyed doing it for one minute :)
 
Bear in mind as well that many companies, whilst looking for Prince2 practitioners, don't follow Prince2 in its purest form. I'm out of the PM game now (far too much stress) but was a practitioner for nearly 10 years. Both of the companies who I worked for insisted on Prince2 but their actual project methodology was a hybrid of Prince2 and their own internal processes.

I always felt that Prince2 was overkill for most small/medium projects and just added far too much overhead. However, I would certainly recommend doing the foundation and practitioner, if you can get your head round it then you can fit into most organisations.
 
I would agree with you reefoid, just applying the method to the two projects I did... I found I was tailoring the death out of the reporting to bring the volumes down.

On a positive note my result just landed this morning and it was a pass, so time to get booked in for the next one.

On a less positive note I have my meeting with the administrators of the company to see when I'm being made redundant at 1pm lol. Good luck to anyone taking this qualification.

P.S. - I didn't take any kind of training course to pass this last exam, it was just a case of getting the manual, studying it and applying it wherever I could in my work.
 
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Thanks to all that posted in this thread.

I am currently going through a bit of a think about my job at the moment, and given that I am a senior dev, I don;t actually do that much dev these days unless we need digging out of a hole. Instead I look after the releases of the software and the projects that make up a release.

Guessing that I am pretty much a PM in the loosest of terms, I am thinking it might be handy in actually taking one of these, a) to help me in case I decide to move ,and b) to maybe help me out at work.

Maybe taking a week off and going on a course might be an idea. Self funded of course, being that the employer doesn’t like the idea of paying for me. Tight lot!
 
Scrum course would probably suit more I reckon, unless you have done all of the scrum courses under the sun.

We recently took on some Kanban stuff, and it seems to be helping a whole load more.
 
Jedeye said:
Scrum course would probably suit more I reckon, unless you have done all of the scrum courses under the sun.

We recently took on some Kanban stuff, and it seems to be helping a whole load more.
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hahaha, that would be funny! We arent even running scrum at the moment. Still waterfall, but we are meant to be going to that at some stage.

Edit:

On a side note, is there an officially recognised scrum course then?
 
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links to where you can do just the exam for foundation please??? :)

I already have it, but a friend wants to do the exam, has studied themselves etc...
 
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