Is Prince2 any good?

A question about : Is Prince2 any good?

Im looking at developing my business analyst side of CV and thinking Prince2 project management stuff sounds ok, and am thinking about doing it

You can do a course for a grand which will get you the Foundation and Practitioner levels.

My question is, is this qual worth doing? Is college time necessary?

Best answers:

• To be honest there's mixed opinion about Prince II. I'm a project manager and in my 10 year career have never done it, nor been asked about it. However, now I'm pitching for new contracts it seems that more and more companies are asking for it - which baffles me slightly as some of them don't seem to know what it actually means! I'd be interested in other opinions here too.
• i guess it cant hurt? suprised not many others have responded?
• ive done it, purely for the cv though and it certainly helps though you need experience to back it up. If your looking at it as a qualification to move into Project Management then i think you may struggle. Not sure id recommend the intensive course, only 15% of our class passed both first time. Its a lot to remember especially if you dont work in a Prince2 environment. Having done Prince2 im still to come across any companies that actually use the full methodology to manage projects and development.
• I am a Prince2 Practitioner - am still qualified but have moved onto another career! My opinion is....
  I think it depends on many things, who you are, which sectors you work in, at what level, etc etc.
  As a contract senior PM working mainly in government and financial services projects my P2P certificate was vital - without it you are unlikely to even get an interview.
  Many PM's say that they can "do" P2 but are not qualified, this used to be accepted, but these days most agencies and employers are wise to it - you either have to be able to demonstrate where and how you used it (in detail!) or produce your certificates.
  You also used to be able to say you had the cetificates and no one ever really checked - now it is all on line and can be checked at the click of a mouse.
  P2P is a serious qualification - I had been using it for years and then when I decided to qualify I did a weeks intensive course to do F and P - it was the hardest week of my life!!! Far harder than passing my degree or anything else I have done. It is not "turn up, pay a grand and get qualified" the failure rate is pretty high (they have changed the strucrrue of the exam since I last did it so I am not too sure on it now)
  The P2P certificate will get you through the door, but having the certificate and actually using P2 in anger are totally different things - if you can't demonstrate use of Prince 2 on your CV and in practical circumstances then having the certificate will often get you no further.
  Foundation on its own is seen as no use at all - except for Junior/Trainee PM's who are working their way upwards....it would be very little influence for me to employ someone as it it just a multiple choice box tick - you know the words but you can't use the tools.
  My advice would be
  If you are not using Prince 2 in your role then having the certificates will not help much (unless you are a contractor looking for a P2 role)
  If you are looking to move to a role where P2 is used then you won't get a Practioner level role without having lots of experince using P2 in anger - so get your Foundation, work in a full P2 environment for 6-12 months and then think about doing Practitioner.
  If you tell me some more details about what you do, what level you are at and where you are looking to go to then I should be able to be a bit more detailed.
  HTH
  Puss
  xx
• Very good post from Pusscat.
  I'm Prince 2 qualified. The course is very intense - it might be a week but there's a lot to do in the evenings. I know people who have tried to pass it by self study but I don't know anyone who has managed it. I had a great tutor for my course and a couple of us got marks in the 90s but I think at least half the class failed. A couple didn't turn up for the practiitoner part.
  Like dwichmann - I've yet to come across companies that use it fully but there are a lot of employers who stipulate it. I'm not sure that I'd recommend it as an entry level to either project management or business analysis. For general project management I'm sure there are more effective courses. If you have a clear desire to work in public sector/large co then Prince 2 might be appropriate but I'm not convinced.
  What kind of business analysis are you looking to do?
• There is some free info and software available here.
  I've not really used it yet to comment on it's usefulnesss.
• I'm a programmer and have looked into project management a bit.
  It seems to be a public sector darling, almost every local authority seems to require it (at least on paper), while the private sector seem to barely mention it.
  I'd still love to get into project management, but seems such a mine field!
• I employ 28 project managers in my company and the majority of projects we deal for are with the NHS and local government.
  We can't win our contracts without PRINCE2 as we assume the senior supplier/customer relationship.
  I won't take anyone on without at least foundation level with the intent to do practioner.
  But then again 90% of my contracts are with public sector organisations, I can't comment on other sectors.
  Vader
• I have Prince2, and all it has been good for is a door opener.
• I Self Studied PRINCE2 Foundation and then Practitioner online at a selfstudy site and, I found the Foundation to be ridiculously easy the Practitioner a bit more challenging but NOT that difficult. With Self study I felt I was learning at my own pace and was receiving a education.
  The trick with long term learning is education and not training.
  Perhaps people who studied in class found it harder to learn as they attended a training course, yip listening and viewing PowerPoint from 9 to 5pm. If this is such a good method to learn why don’t we learn to drive in 4 days!
  Education is different from training. You normally don’t mind your kids receiving sex education lessons but would object to sex training
  Quote:
• Like the others have said, it gets you in the door, just don't expect any project you work on to follow it to closely.
• I agree that the public sector do focus on this - it's often listed in job specs. However I confess to despairing of project management skills within the bits of the public sector I've worked in, so I would suggest that if you already have other training/experience, focus on that and just read up on PRINCE2 (of course tell them how interested you are and that you plan to do it later). I also agree that very few places really know what it involves or use it fully. I just apply the bits that are of use to us and provide appropriately named reports to satisfy the commissioner that we are using it. Which is more than the senior manager who was harping on about it did - they appeared to think that completing a project initiation document meant they were using PRINCE2 to manage their projects
  I didn't find the practitioner exam anywhere near as hard as my degree - if anything I would equate it to a module exam. The good thing is that a lot of project management is common sense so it's reasonably easy to remember. I think it's perfectly possible to pass Foundation by self-study (I did one of the other OGC courses this way), but would recommend you get some advice or training for the practitioner exam as it helps with technique etc. I think some of the companies will supply self-training materials packs - the one I trained with did. I have done intensive courses for this and MSP and would recommend that because it saves on time and energy - you don't really need the stuff to stick in your memory after the exam, as you will always have the manual for a reference.
  Good luck
  Rosa xx
• I did the P2 course for my CV and then moved into a company that used the methodology.........havent made use of the course.
  Don't be put off by the people who say its hard, provided you are prepared to do a couple hours a night (and for Ј1200 for a weeks course i was!!) it will be simple. The foundation is multi guess and if you listen for the first 3 days it is common sense. The practitioner exam is open book just make sure you take some tabs with you to mark the relevant important pages, your lecturer will point these out if he/she is any good, and you will fly through the exam. Time is a factor in both exams as you will work from start time to finish time.
  Looks good on the CV if you want a project management job, shows some commitment.
• Fair enough, maybe passing P2 was not as hard as my degree - badly phrased point!
  What I meant by that was that for that week I worked far harder than I ever did on my degree and that the amount of information to absorb in a short time was far more intensive.
  P2 is a professional level exam and is not simply a matter of turning up, paying your Ј1500 and getting a certificate, if that happens then the qualification is devalued.
  The last figures I can find show the national pass rate to be just over 60%.
  If I was interviewing for a PM (which I did a lot of) then if they had P2 Practitioner on a CV, I would ask them about the project in detail, the size, the products used,the reporting levels, the stage boundaries, the PID etc - so anyone who had only got the theory woud be caught out very quickly. I have worked with public sector organisations that have sent the whole department on a P2 course just for the sake of it!
  Hope that explains it better!
  Puss
• Simply it can be good for getting a job interview, but not very for project management, not that many projects really stck to it in practice.
• I am currently considering whether to go back to university but have also looked at courses such as the PRINCE2 and CIM course. i was wondering if I decided to go and do the PRINCE2 whether it would hold any weight without a degree or if I'm better off going back to university. Any help would be appreciated.
• With 25 years' IT experience and 10 years' or so PM experience, I did the Prince2 course because jobs seemed to be asking for it. Got the Practitioner, easy enough, just sat in the class for a week and did the exam, no revision needed ... but the jobs don't exist where I live.
  Jobs that do want it tend to be public sector - and I have no public sector experience, so they'd rather give any jobs to people with public sector experience.
  It all depends really where you live and your previous experience. But you can't do the course, stick it on your CV, get a job because you have it. There are still 100 hurdles to getting an actual job.
  I used to get Ј50k/year without it - now I can't even get interviews with it.
  I'd also say that I paid for the course myself (Ј2k) and booked a week's annual leave to do it. I was made redundant (no payoff) the week before and could really have done with that money to pay my mortgage instead .... and when I got on the course, I was the only f3ck3r paying for it - everybody else was public sector, using up their training budgets - and none had any idea what project management/Prince2 were and didn't need it in their job.
  Boy I was spitting feathers that week.
• and yet they call people on jobseekers allowance scroungers.