Practical Project Management for Prince2 Qualified Project Managers

Prince2 course?

Firstly, this is not "a Prince2 course". Prince2 courses teach how to pass Prince2 exams. Some also teach how to manage projects, some are essentially exam prep crammer courses.

This course is for people who may already have done the Prince2 exams, but who now feel they would like to attend a course that takes a practical approach to managing I.T. projects.

Prince2 is most suited to the administration of large projects being done under contract. However, Prince2 is flexible enough to be adapted to small projects though this flexibility is not always understood and the result can be that Prince2 is applied to the nth degree on small projects resulting in counterproductive bureaucracy which, amongst other things, can give "project management" a bad name.

This course explores how methods such as Prince2 can - indeed should - be scaled to the needs of IT projects (particularly those that involve software development or enhancement) such that large projects have enough controls but small projects are not smothered by unnecessary paperwork.

Project Management Training - a common sense approach

The course also tries to break out of the "follow the methodology blindly" mindset: things must be done exactly as the methodology says and furthermore nothing that isn't in the methodology can be done.

This course encourages a more thoughtful approach: you want a project role on your project that doesn't exist in the methodology manual? Sure, why not, if it will add value.

The course gets back to the principles that underlie methodologies and invites participants to be prepared to adapt their methodology to their project's needs. For example, if one understands what change control is for, what's it's really trying to achieve, it is relatively easy to devise a change control process that really fits your project, rather than adopt as-is a standard process that may not fit your project particularly well.

The thrust of this course is very much how to manage I.T. projects as opposed to teaching the terminology and procedures of a particular method such as Prince2.

Project Management Course - how to manage projects, not how to fill in the forms!

Taking a practical approach to project management, this course covers in a common sense way the topics you would expect in a comprehensive project management course:

• Project start up, initiation, definition
• Project lifecycle
• Project roles and responsibilities
• Project risk management
• Project estimating
• Project planning and scheduling
• Project assurance
• Project tracking and controlling
• Project status reporting
• Project issue management
• Project change management
• Project quality management
• Project post implementation reviews

For a fuller course contents list, course dates, etc see Project Management Course.

Project Management Articles:

So You Want To Be A Project Manager?

Risk Management in Software Development Projects

Quality Management in Software Development Projects

The Tale of Three Project Managers

Towards a Project-Centric World

Project Management Proverbs

Project Management in the Public Sector

I.T. Project Management Book