APMG, the accrediting board for PRINCE2 have announced a format change to both the PRINCE2 Practitioner and Practitioner Re-Registration exams.

These changes have come about as result of a candidate survey which highlighted some issues with the timings of each exam. If you would like to learn all you need to pass your PRINCE2 exams, try our PRINCE2 Training Courses.

The fully changed formats for each are as follows:

Practitioner Exam

• 8 questions
• 10 question items per question, each worth one mark, total 80 marks
• 2.5 hours (150 minutes) duration, no additional reading time
• 44+ marks to pass (55%)
• Open book exam (official PRINCE2 manual only)
• Trainer pass mark - 53 out of 80 (66%)

Practitioner Re-Registration Exam

• 3 questions
• 10 question items per question, each worth one mark, total 30 marks
• 1 hour (60 minute) duration, no additional reading time
• 17+ marks to pass (55%)
• Open book exam (official PRINCE2 manual only)
• Trainer pass mark – 20 out of 30 (66%)

These changes will take immediate effect from January 1st 2013 and will entirely replace the ‘old’ format of the exams. Read the rest of "PRINCE2 Exam Format Change"

Posted by Andy Trainer in News, Project Management on December 5th, 2012| No Comments »

Ensuring quality is upheld with PRINCE2 is an ongoing process which means it requires continuous auditing. You can learn how to do this on our PRINCE2 Training Courses.

When managing a project with PRINCE2, it is necessary to prove to the customer that along the way, all the necessary quality management was undertaken. As such it is important to follow the Quality Trail.

In this post we’ll outline each step of the Quality Trail, the resultant product and how to go about enacting it.

1/ Ascertaining Customer Expectations

Product = Project Mandate/Brief

Process = Starting up a Project (SU)

What needs to be done to make the end product adequate for customers and staff? Read the rest of "The Quality Trail – PRINCE2"

Posted by Andy Trainer in News, Project Management on November 26th, 2012| No Comments »

Applying PRINCE2 to smaller projects can be difficult because it was originally designed to cope with the larger, more encompassing side of Project Management.

As such, when undertaking smaller projects, some Project Managers have a tendency to disregard PRINCE2 principles and take a more holistic approach. More often than not, this will be of detriment to the overall success of the project, as regardless of size it is still important to adhere to accepted processes within Project Management.

On our PRINCE2 training courses, our trainers go out of their way to make sure that everyone learns how to tailor PRINCE2 to their own project environment.

The 2009 ‘refresh’ of PRINCE2 sought to give scope for the tailoring of PRINCE2 processes to projects of various sizes. As such, in this post we will discuss how to adapt key aspects of PRINCE2 to apply to small-scale projects and why this is so important. But first we’ll discuss the way in which you shouldn’t be managing small-projects. Read the rest of "Managing Small Projects in PRINCE2"

Posted by Andy Trainer in News, Project Management on November 13th, 2012| No Comments »

Scope creep is a project manager’s nightmare, which makes it an important part of our Introduction to Project Management course. In this post, our PRINCE2 and project management trainer Claudine gives a brief oversight of scope creep and how to manage it.

Firstly let’s clarify what scope is. It is the boundaries of what will be included or excluded from your project. For example:

• Features or functionality of a product
• Information or data included or excluded
• Organisations or stakeholders
• Procedures or processes

Managing scope creep is easier when using an established project management methodology like PRINCE2, which goes some way to explain why PRINCE2 Practitioner training is one of our most popular courses!

Why is it important to define scope?

One of the biggest gripes project managers have is of the “moving goal posts” or scope creep. This involves a large number of additions or changes to the requirements of a project, resulting in timescales and budgets to be exceeded. In addition, it also becomes difficult to plan and resource a project that is in a constant state of flux and transformation.

So it is important that scope is managed correctly so that the project manager is able to deliver a product within their objectives of time, cost, quality, scope, risk and benefit. Read the rest of "Managing Scope Creep on Projects"

Posted by Claudine in News, Project Management on November 6th, 2012| No Comments »

Once you have gained your PRINCE2 Practitioner qualification, or attended Intro to Project Management training and started working on projects, you should be considering the different ways to keep projects running smoothly. One of these is configuration management.

The term configuration management conjures up all sorts of questions for project managers, firstly;

• What is configuration management?
• Do I need it?
• How do I apply it?

What is Configuration Management?

Whether we realise it or not, configuration management exists all around us. For example, the make and model of your car or phone, the version of software you use at home or at work and the documents you use in your daily lives could be version controlled.

Essentially what configuration management covers is how we identify things that need to be version controlled, track these items by keeping records, using naming or labelling the latest versions and control the items by getting approval and ensuring that master copies are kept safe.

Do I Need It?

You mean there’s a better way to organise paperwork?

In a project environment, you will at the very least be generating a large amount of paperwork that as a minimum you will need to manage by configuration management.

Have you ever experienced that situation in a meeting when glancing across at a colleague’s collection of paperwork, you notice that they have a later or earlier version of the documentation you have?

If configuration were being managed in your project environment, this situation should not happen.

Ideally, you would at least manage your important documentation by ensuring that approved versions are baselined (approved) and then if changes are required, a new version number is generated. This provides a useful history to review where changes were made or for comparison at the end of the project to compare to the original objectives.

In addition, some projects may also create products or deliverables that would benefit from being managed through configuration. Consider the following questions:

• How will we identify these products?
• Where will we store the products?
• What storage retrieval and security will be in place?
• Who will be responsible for configuration management?

These questions lead me onto the next big question which is: Read the rest of "Configuration Management for Projects"

Posted by Claudine in News, Project Management on October 10th, 2012| No Comments »

Mike runs our PRINCE2 training courses. In this post he asks why projects often go wrong in the workplace when they go right all the time at home. Of course, if you’re struggling at home as well then find out how to Project Manage Your Life! We also run project management courses for those who don’t want to work within a specific framework.

Right People, Right Time, Wrong Location!

Everyone runs projects throughout their life… we can’t escape them and despite the regular bad press, most people either manage (or are involved in) successful projects. Many of these successful projects are based around the domestic environment, so why is it that when we work on projects at work the outcomes are so different?

Basically it all boils down to the people involved – and in particular making sure that the right people are involved at the right time, for the right reason. More important still is that everyone needs to know who else is involved in the project, and what each person’s role is on the project.

Before any decisions can be made on a project 3 key roles need to be defined…. the customer needs to specify their requirements, the supplier of the service needs to commit to supply the customer’s needs and someone has to oversee the justification and verify that the whole concept is worth doing. Read the rest of "Lessons from Domestic Project Management"

Posted by Mike in News, Project Management on October 4th, 2012| No Comments »

Claudine trains our MSP and PRINCE2 courses, with a wealth of experience in both project and programme management. In this post, she shares her tips for using risk management to reduce issues during projects and programmes.

Many of us are familiar with fighting fires and dealing with crises when we are managing projects or programmes, but what is the best way of handling them and can they be prevented?

The first step to managing these situations effectively is to have in place a risk management approach. Risks are uncertain events that if they were to occur could have a positive or a negative impact on your project or programme. By having in place an approach to manage these uncertain events, many can be mitigated and may never materialise as an issue.

Issues sometimes arise as a result of an event occurring which if identified early enough as a risk, could have been prevented.

So how are risks best managed?

Firstly, find out if your organisation has a standard approach to risk management, as a consistent approach should be used. If not, a few simple steps should be followed: Read the rest of "Reduce Project Issues with Effective Risk Management"

Posted by Claudine in News, Programme Management, Project Management on September 20th, 2012| No Comments »

When you come to us for training in PRINCE2, or to learn how to use Microsoft Project, we’ll teach you about using Gantt charts to plan and track the progress of your project.

But what do we know about where they came from? Here’s a little bit about Henry Gantt, the brains behind the Gantt Chart.

Henry Laurence Gantt

Henry Gantt was born in 1861 in Maryland, USA. He died in 1919 and developed the management tool that is the Gantt chart just after the turn of the century. He was educated at the Stevens Institute of Technology and became a mechanical engineer.

Gantt soon became known for his passion for economy/efficiency and for his sense of social responsibility. He was an advocate for the social responsibility of businesses and of applying scientific analysis to improve efficiency in industry. While he was a technician, he always strove to develop the most economical methods of production, and achieved a job role of “efficiency expert” at a textile plant in 1904. Read the rest of "Profile of Henry Gantt & the History of the Gantt Chart"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Project, News, Project Management on August 16th, 2012| 1 Comment »