PRINCE? There are other flavours than vanilla
Yesterday I met with a client and we explored was was for me very familiar territory. His organisation had invested recently in some PRINCE2(tm) training and was looking for options to sustain this investment. I sensed he wanted to go beyond the confines of an exam-oriented programme.
Although accredited, exam-based PRINCE2 training has its merits - and from long experience I am one of its strongest advocates - it does have its limitations. Because it is exam-based, it means that delegates are coached in a somewhat purist application of PRINCE2, what we call "Vanilla PRINCE". The syllabus is designed to test a comprehensive, generic understanding of a Method documented in a fairly large book. Likewise an exam project scenario is designed with enough complexity and scale so that all aspects of PRINCE2 can be applied, and therefore examined.
However, for many generalist business managers this is far too much. It is overly complex. They need a much lower entry level to project management that empowers them to manage projects may never amount to more than $50,000 in budget, a few people in the team, and a few weeks to execute. For example, PRINCE2 says that you need a project board; but what if such a project only merits a single Project Sponsor? That suggestion would border on heresy to the PRINCE2 purist; at any rate, they would get a bit twitchy.
Large numbers of managers across the world are being trained in 'the Full Monty' of PRINCE2, on accredited exam-based courses. And they are being sent on such training because it is a known commodity of some repute.Yet, they may feel that they are being coached to pass an exam rather than being equipped with something that is immediately practicable and applicable.
In response to this we have developed other flavours of PRINCE2; non-accredited, but PRINCE2-compliant learning solutions for these kinds of people.
- Foundations of Project Management which integrates general skills with using Microsoft Project
- Practical Project Management, for a hands-on emphasis, learning by doing, and
- Complete Project Management for an immersion in comprehensive project management principles and techniques.
These are some of the solutions you can find on our company website. These may not be the PRINCE2 commodity exam-based courses organisations so often opt for, but they do equip people very often far better to deliver every day projects very successfully.
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