PRINCE2

caff · 25 Jan 2007 at 11:37

Anyone got experience of PRINCE2? Do you feel it's worthwhile?

I'm looking to get training in it - the best option seems to be to go for a 5-day practitioner course. Oh and if anyone knows a good training provider in London (currently considering SPOCE) please let me know.

krooton · 25 Jan 2007 at 11:48

Depends, are you looking to become a full scale project manager?

If not, it's isn't really worth the effort and cost.

kefkef · 25 Jan 2007 at 11:48

I have got the Practitioner qualification. It can be of a help, definitely looks good on a CV especially when applying for jobs in the public sector, but you will find things in the 'Prince2' world are very set and rigid, whereas in the real world it doesn't quite work out as they would like. The best quote is from the back of the Prince2 manual, the AA used a 'tailored' approach of Prince2 in there organisation, i.e. they picked out hte best bits they liked and ditched the rest. Some of the guidance and templates are quite handy also in the book.

Main thing is, will you be using it on a day to day basis, if not it is very easy to forget stuff, i use mine on and off most months mainly from a Senior User/Board exec level.

Berserker · 25 Jan 2007 at 11:49

Agreed. If you're going into project management, then possibly. If not, no.

All our project managers at work have just completed PRINCE2 courses of some description.

caff · 25 Jan 2007 at 11:56

I'm really interested in a more structured way of managing projects. At present my workflow is fairly thorough, but poorly structured. The company I'm with (half public sector, half commercial) uses Prince 2, but only certain aspects of it, i.e. project initiation documents. Plus it looks good on my CV

I'm a developer / IT support person by trade, but its got to the point where effectively I'm leading projects, so I thought this might be useful to get a better understanding.

Berserker · 25 Jan 2007 at 12:14

As has already been said, rigorous structure like PRINCE2 is for the textbooks only. The real world never works like that. Structured project/development methods have been tried since computers became popular, and with monotonous regularity, they've failed.

To open up some more options to you, here's something else you might want to look at:

http://www.controlchaos.com/

Been running this in our development team for the last year. We're still getting to grips with it tbh, but as sometimes happens, a conversation with our CEO over breakfast means it's now being rolled out company-wide.