guide to choosing a prince2 training course v4

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PRINCE2® is a registered trade mark of the Cabinet Office

How do I choose a PRINCE2 training course by Patrick Mayfield is licensed

under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at www.pearcemayfield.com.

How do I choose a PRINCE2® training course?

This guide is designed to help you find the right PRINCE2 training course.

Whether you are choosing for yourself or for your organisation, your choice will be a

significant investment of time and money. It may well be that you will never make this

decision again.

So it is important that you choose the training that is best for you.

About this Guide The PRINCE2 training market is complex and dynamic. Suppliers come and go, some with

good credentials, others with a poorer history.

This Guide is offered to anyone interested in PRINCE2 training as free advice. It is not

sanctioned or vetted by APM Group Limited, the Cabinet Office or TSO, the publisher. Its

contents are subject to a Creative Commons licence and is free for anyone to share and

reference.

pearcemayfield and the author assume no responsibility for any loss or injury caused by

actions you may or may not take as a result of reading this guide. When have taken our

best efforts to make sure it is accurate at the time of writing.

Accreditation - What does that mean? When people talk about 'Prince Training' they can mean a number of things. Usually they

mean accredited PRINCE2 Practitioner training. This normally takes the form of a three-,

four- or five-day course including two formal examinations.

Whether a PRINCE2 course and its supplier are accredited is important.

Why?

Most people want a formal qualification in PRINCE2; the training is merely a means to

that end. By going through an accredited training course and taking certain public exams,

you can get the PRINCE2 Practitioner Certificate. This entitles you to describe yourself as a

'Registered PRINCE2 Practitioner'.

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So what is accredited, exactly? The accrediting body for PRINCE2 training is the APM

Group Limited (APMG). APMG accredit:

the training course, it's design, whether it fulfills the curriculum set for the

examinations;

the training organisation, whether is has sufficient processes to handle the

administration, maintenance and delivery of the training in a professional

manner; and

the trainer, whether they have 'real world' experience, have sufficient in-depth

mastery of PRINCE2 to answer questions raised during a course and can

adequately bring the subject to life.

Once approved, the course becomes 'accredited' and is allowed to use the crown

copyrighted PRINCE2 material, such as text and diagrams from the PRINCE2 manual.

Once the organisation is accredited if becomes an Accredited Training Organisation

(ATO) and is allowed to use the PRINCE2 logo in its marketing material, run PRINCE2

courses, and to run PRINCE2 exam centres as part of their course events. (See the section

below.)

Once the trainer is accredited they become an 'Approved PRINCE2 Trainer'. An approved

trainer (you've guessed it) can deliver an accredited course alone, as well as invigilate the

formal PRINCE2 exams that may be part of the course.

Accredited Training Organisations You can find the current list of ATO's at

http://www.apmg-international.com/en/qualifications/prince2/prince2.aspx .

Note that www.prince2.com is not an official APM Group or Cabinet Office site. Don't be

fooled; it is merely run by one ATO that insists on keeping the domain name for its own

commercial reasons.

What about other organisations that are not ATO's but are advertising PRINCE2 training?

They are likely to fall into one of three categories:

Affiliates. Other organisations, such as Cardiff University, are affiliated to an ATO

( pearcemayfield) and offer courses and PRINCE2 services delivered by the ATO or

freelance trainers. These are known to APMG and are registered to operate as

affiliates.

Aggregators/Wholesalers. For example, Focus Training offer places on our public

PRINCE2 training events alongside those of other ATOs. The advantage here is

that you have greater choice of place and date for a public course, but the big

http://www.apmg-international.com/en/qualifications/prince2/prince2.aspx

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/learn/training/courses/project-management/

http://www.pearcemayfield.com/

http://www.focus-on-training.co.uk/

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“APM Group’s

accreditation leaves

some latitude for the

creativity of course

designers.”

disadvantage is that you may not know which ATO you are booking with and the

quality of what they will offer you.

'Grey market'. These are illegitimate vendors. They are not accredited, are

unlikely to have any external assessment of quality. They cannot offer a formal

exam as part of their course, and it is likely that they will refer you to a public

exam centre - separate purchase and additional risk. At the time of writing APMG

is energetically coming down on these vendors. If you find a course advertised on

e-Bay, for example, if could be dubious, unless it declares who the ATO or Affiliate

it is that's selling.

So are all accredited courses the same?

Definitely not.

APMG takes pains that its accreditation scheme leaves some latitude for the creativity of

the course designers. Accreditation gives a minimum quality assurance. (See the ‘Beyond

accreditation’ section below.)

Are all trainers the same? No, nor should they be. However, this also means that there is

a risk to investing in any accredited training event.

Seriously, when I was the first Lead Assessor of PRINCE2 training for APM Group, I found

adequate trainers, and great trainers. There were trainers that satisfied all the criteria laid

down, but I wouldn't employ them in pearcemayfield; for me, they lacked pizzaz and flair,

the ability to give a learning experience that inspirational

sparkle and so bring the subject to life.

I've talked at length with the APMG assessors, and they aim

to ensure through the assessment of trainers and materials,

that delegates can expect a repeatable experience from a

particular ATO.

Beyond Accreditation - What to look for

Class Sizes Perhaps one of the most disturbing developments in the ATO market in recent years has

been this issue. Certain ATOs are known to run accredited courses with in excess of

twenty or thirty delegates to one trainer. It seems this is the reason why you will find

some very cheap providers out there.

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“If you don’t ask

questions, I can get you

through the Foundation

Exam.”

As a general sociological rule of how groups behave, somewhere between a class size of

twelve and sixteen, the class stops behaving like a small group and becomes and

audience. Also people report being in a large class where others joined remotely via

Skype!

For reasons known only to itself, APMG have decided not to regulate maximum class

sizes. We feel such huge class sizes do two things to the PRINCE2 training market:

1. It makes the training experience less like training and more like being in a large

lecture theatre. There is little or no opportunity for you to ask questions. At the

beginning of one such event, it was rumoured that the trainer said, “If you don’t

ask questions I can get you through to the Foundation Exam.”

2. It commoditises PRINCE2 and its qualification. This kind of

sheep-dipping means people are taught by rote, and there is little

practical rehearsal of scaling and tailoring PRINCE2 to real business

situations, a feature strongly emphasised in the latest addition of

PRINCE2. Inevitably such organisations incentivise their trainers to

coach to the exam. So people leave with an impression that PRINCE2 is

rigid and monolithic. This is far from the truth.

So the casualty here is not just training quality but also the PRINCE2 brand reputation.

Advertised dates and locations If the class size issue isn’t bad enough, we have heard of something worse, something

quite illegal in the UK: it has been alleged that at least one ATO has advertised a

(cheaper) event in the same location and week as its competitors with no intention of

running that course. Instead, when you attempt to book, you are told the course is full or

has been cancelled, and they then attempt to persuade you to book on another venue

and/or date that they are running. As you can imagine, quite a few ATOs are outraged by

this practice.

Ways to check for this practice are:

Do a postcode search for the advertised venue. We found one instance where

the advertised venue was County Hall, in Oxford.

See if you get the above response to a course venue/date combination, and

probe with another venue/date combination.

In the UK, if you come across this practice, you can take the matter up with your local

trading standards officer.

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Materials If not all PRINCE2 courses are the same, how do you choose the best and avoid the

worst?

The materials they produce can give you a good indication.

For example, the course book; is it in full colour or is it tones of grey? If the latter, that's

good cost-saving by the training organisation, but it is unlikely to stimulate your learning

and help your recall in the exam. There is now quite a body of research that shows that

colour is important in both cognition and recall.

Also, what is the format of the course book? Is is simply prints of PowerPoint slides?

Again this is easy for the ATO to generate, but there are two problems for the learner

with this:

1. Where is the added value of written documentation?

2. What works for you as a visual in the classroom discussion and what is effective

as notes for reference some time afterwards are two very different things. They

should correspond, but what is a suitable design for one, is not for the other.

Talking of which, are the slides all bullet points? This is not a very clever use of a visual

medium in the classroom. Have you ever experienced 'Death by PowerPoint'? If so, you

know what I am referring to here.

More than that, many training courses have a design driven by PowerPoint. This is where

the trainer uses each new slide primarily as a prompt for what they are to say next.

PowerPoint is a useful tool but can produce fairly boring design for delegates, and boring

means loss of learning. Also, do you want to look at visuals that aid your learning or are

produced for the convenience of the trainer?

"This is all very well," you may be thinking as you read this, "but how do I find out in

advance what the material looks like?" Well, search for examples on their web site. Failing

that, call them and ask for illustrative samples. The reaction you get may tell you a lot.

Method Behind the materials, of course, is the method the training organisation uses to design its

materials.

As we mentioned above, default use of PowerPoint is likely produce a fairly dreary

learning experience. The sad reality in business is that some people have experienced

little else.

Some training organisations now use Activity Based Learning or Accelerated Learning.

Here the design changes from being focused on what the trainer needs to deliver in the

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“After all, your learning

is so much more than

the training event

itself.”

course, to what the learner needs. In this kind of design, sessions are designed around the

exercises and group work that stimulate learning. Emphasis moves away from lecture

mode to practical engagement with the subject by the delegates and the learning that

arises from that.

Another aspect of your learning is that it is so much more than the mere training event

itself. There is the pre-course work: setting correct expectations, pre- course study and

exercises to prepare you to gain the most out of the event. Some ATOs save costs by not

sending the PRINCE2 manual out in advance. This puts tremendous pressure on the

learner during the course.

After the course putting your learnings into practice will consolidate them into your

experience and perhaps become a habit or standard practice for you. Is there any support

from the training organisation to help you do this if you want it?

Then there is the whole area of evaluation of your

performance in projects. It may be that through no fault of

your own, you are not getting the results you want from the

training you have received. Where are the measures that

might indicate you need a different or supplementary kind of

coaching? Does the training organisation provide that?

In the learning and development profession this is all called the learning cycle. Your

training course is only part of it. Check to see whether the training organisation could

support you through your whole learning cycle, rather than just 'sheep dipping' you

through a training course and not caring what happens to you afterwards.

Professional Credentials of the ATO and its Trainers

Often a survey of the ATO’s web site and LinkedIn credentials of its trainers will give you

immediate reassurance of their subject matter expertise. Some, like pearcemayfield, have

been deeply involved in authoring PRINCE2 and similar references. This is likely to

indicate that the ATO is not merely checking off material or licensing it in, and then

contracting in freelance PRINCE2 trainers to deliver their event.

Referees A great way of finding out about these more qualitative matters is to ask someone who

has been through the training with this organisation previously.

Be careful about just accepting written testimonials on the training company's web site or

brochure. They should have these to give you some confidence, but they are no

substitute for asking to speak to an actual client of theirs about how they found the

experience. You will find out far more anecdotally about the service you are likely to

receive that by what the company presents to you in their advertising.

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The Life of the PRINCE2 Qualification In certain parts of the project management job market the formal PRINCE2 Practitioner

qualification has become a valuable credential. However, it does need to be kept current.

The qualification lapses after five years unless the practitioner takes a re-registration

exam. You can take the re-registration any time in the three- to five-year window from

the previous examination. A re-registration pass refreshes the life of your qualification for

a further five years.

Non-accredited training Of course, accredited PRINCE2 training may not be suitable for you or your organisation.

In fact, there are some very positive benefits for considering a non-exam based course:

1. Your organisation does not formally use standard PRINCE2 but uses a derivative

of it.

2. You need a workshop to engage your senior managers who are in governance

over projects managed the PRINCE2 way.

3. You do not need to be trained in all the aspects of PRINCE2 but merely in its

essentials.

4. You and your organisation have identified that you have a specific training need

within a PRINCE2 framework.

5. You and your organisation want to use an internal project as a case study, so that

you can take outputs from the training and immediately use them.

6. You may use a particular computer tool to support projects (e.g. Microsoft

Project) and want a training event that coaches you in both tool and the Method

at the same time.

All these are excellent reasons for considering the non-accredited route. Taking the

formal examinations out of the event does help you and the other delegates focus more

on the practical aspects of topics, how you would apply them on real projects, but

without the distraction of formal exams.

Some suppliers have developed helpful value-adding diagnostic tools and questionnaires.

All that has been said previously about checking the quality of the training organisation

still applies, though. The PRINCE2 and learning credentials of your supplier are just as

important.

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A Consumer Checklist Here is a checklist to help you choose the right course for you. It summarises most of the

rest of this document.

Is the course run by a PRINCE2 Accredited Training Organisation?

How many years has the ATO been providing accredited PRINCE2 training?

Does the ATO use its own course material or is it licensed?

Can the ATO guarantee you a maximum class size? If so, what is it? And will they

refund your fee if this is not met? Will they send you this in writing?

Does the course fee include:

o Food and drink? e.g. at lunchtimes

o Desks to write and work on, or just chairs with small ‘conference arms’?

Am I provided with pre-course material? If so, does the ATO tell me how much

time I need to set aside to complete this work?

Does the pre-course material include the PRINCE2 manual?

Are there modular solutions?

Does the price include the PRINCE2 manual and the Examination fees (Foundation

and Practitioner)?

Is the ATO able to provide me with recent pass rates at Foundation and

Practitioner levels?

Has the ATO had its own people involved in the development of the Method with

Cabinet Office and APM Group?

Will the course come with additional documentation (course book)? If so, can the

ATO provide me with a sample of its contents and format?

What design approach, if any, has the ATO used in designing its training?

How much group work and exercises is there throughout the course?

Does the ATO provide Activity-Based learning or Accelerated Learning?

Does the ATO provide PRINCE2 e-learning or distance learning solutions?

Can the ATO provide me with referees (people who have recently been on their

training)?

Can the ATO provide me and my organisation with full support throughout my

learning cycle?

Does the ATO also provide accredited training in MSP programme management

or other accredited subjects if I need it?

Does the ATO provide non-accredited training in PRINCE2?

Does the ATO provide additional diagnostics/questionnaires as parts of senior

management briefings in PRINCE2?

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About the Author I have tried to write this guide in what I hope is a personal, immediate and non-stuffy

style. So you may want to know who I am and what authority I have to pronounce on

these things.

I am the Chairman and founding director of pearcemayfield. pearcemayfield is a PRINCE2

and MSP Accredited Training Organisation, as well as an ATO in other qualifications as

well.

My original involvement with PRINCE was with the first private sector organisation that

used it, BT Yellow Pages, now Yell.com. I joined Yellow Pages in 1990, shortly after PRINCE

was published and set up their Project Management Office to support project managers

throughout Yellow Pages to use PRINCE well.

In 1992 the UK Government approached me asking if I would like to take part in a project

to develop the eventual successor to PRINCE, PRINCE2. My role was to bring a community

of practitioners together and regularly review what the authors were designing and

writing. PRINCE2 was launched on 1st October 1996.

APM Group retained me during the late 90's as their lead assessor: I went around

organisations that wanted to become ATOs and assessed them, their material and their

trainers.

In 1999 I left APM Group, seeking to build my own company and do PRINCE2 training

better.

Since then, I was invited back by the UK Government to help refresh Managing Successful

Programmes, which was published in September 2007. My colleague, John Edmonds, was

one of the author s of the 2009 refresh of PRINCE2.

I hope you have found what I have written in this guide helpful. If you have any

comments or suggestions for improvement, I would be delighted to hear from you.

My e-mail address is [email protected].

Good luck.

Patrick Mayfield

January 2013

mailto:[email protected]

guide to choosing a prince2 training course v4

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