Project Management Training – which one?

[Wilmslow]

I am not a project manager, but, there are a lot of PM aspects to my job.

I am aware of Prince2 and the APM, but, not sure which option to go for.

Live in the Cheshire / Manchester area, after not just the ideal course, but also a good provider.

Any advice, and experience of the course providers very welcome.

 

[Manic]

Did my Prince 2 Practitioner through QA (http://www.qa-iq.com/). I passed if that provides any sort of recommendation.

 

[Durbs]

I'm debating Prince2 as seen it crop up again and again within job searches. I'm going to do the self study http://www.prince2.com/prince2-foundation-elearning-i.asp course though and save a few bob over classroom training.

 

[norrahe]

Go for Prince2 Practitioner, if you are going to do it.

I came across courses via LinkedIn. I used these guys and they have a base in cheadle, they were very good and I highly recommend them. http://www.skillsolve.co.uk/cheadle.asp

If you are going to do the course be prepared for a lot of work, the week long course I did had over 20 hours prep before even doing the course itself.

You might also want to consider six sigma, but prince2 seems to be the more prevalent, again it is industry dependent.

Though P2 will not guarantee you a straightforward jump to pm roles.

 

[Bill]

durbs,

i did my prince 2 a whike back now, and understand the testing format has changed, it used to be some multiple choice, and open book essay. 1 thing that hasn't is that there are 2 qulifications, foundation and practitioner. The foundation is pretty simple, and you can get the Prince book off the shelf, check version as they change quite regular. You can also get practitioner past exams and are very much worth while. The basis of the practitioner exam is knowing and understannding the books, not remembering off by heart. Unless you are happy to cram a lot into a short amount if time, I would recommend taking them seperately.

There is also ISEB which is another PM qualification, don't know much about it, but its another option.

Good luck.

 

[opc]

There are two schools of courses.

Prince II is a methodology - it will teach you the processes required to run a project under the Prince II framework. It doesn't teach you about Project Management disciplines - e.g. planning, risk management, earned value management, stakeholder analysis etc.

APM (or PMI) qualifications are project management discipline qualifications - you will be qualified in (the way APM/PMI says) Project Management should be carried out - as per the disciplines not covered above.

If you want to do some training in order to become more marketable on the job market, I would do Prince II. If you want to add to your own repertoire of understanding/skills, then do APMP (knowledge based) then APM (practice based) Practitioner.

Ideally do both in the medium term.