PRINCE2® Course Selection

Guidance for Individuals

If you have no experience of project work the Foundation qualification may still be appropriate to you. Alternatively or in addition, you may find that a Project Management Fundamentals course run by Pathfinder meets your needs. (Details of this course are contained in the brochure “Management Training”. Please call us for a copy of this brochure and to discuss how we can best meet your training needs.)

If you work or expect to work in support of projects consider

If you work or expect to work as a project team member you will need to complete

If you work or expect to work as a team leader, project manager or project director you will need to complete both

If you work or expect to work as a senior manager making decisions about projects you will need to attend

You may also consider attending

Foundation and Practitioner Recommendations

If you have decided that you need the PRINCE2® Practitioner qualification, the Combined Foundation and Practitioner Course is the recommended option. This course is conducted in a single calendar week. The structure of this course is different from the separate Foundation and Practitioner courses. The five-day format provides the optimum structure and opportunities for understanding and learning the PRINCE2® method. The Foundation exam is conducted at the end of the fourth day. Candidates return to tackle the Practitioner exam on the fifth day. Candidates report the highest satisfaction levels with this course structure.

If you cannot attend the recommended course, the separate Foundation and Practitioner courses provide a viable alternative. However, it is recommended that you attend the Practitioner course as soon as possible after passing the Foundation exam. Statistics show that candidates who sit the Practitioner exam soon after passing the Foundation exam, have a noticeably higher chance of passing the Practitioner exam than those who attend courses scheduled further apart.

If you have decided that you need only the PRINCE2® Foundation qualification, attendance at the first four days of the Combined Foundation and Practitioner Course is the recommended option. As explained above the format of this course provides the optimum structure and opportunities for understanding and learning the PRINCE2® method. If you cannot attend the recommended course, the three-day Foundation Course is a good alternative. (However, candidates attending the three-day course frequently state that an extra day of learning would have been extremely beneficial.)

If you have decided that you need the PRINCE2® Foundation qualification but are uncertain whether to do the Practitioner exam, you can still sign up for the Combined Foundation and Practitioner course. If by the end of the third day of the course you decide you do not wish to sit the Practitioner exam, the Practitioner exam fees and other charges for the fifth day of the course will be refunded.

Guidance for Organisations

Many organisations that implement PRINCE2® make the mistake of only training project and support staff. Many implementations fail because senior managers do not understand their roles in a PRINCE2® organisation. It is essential that senior managers are properly trained. The Pathfinder Senior Management Seminar effectively and efficiently provides senior managers with the understanding they need.

PRINCE2® implementations can also fail because they are conducted in an ad-hoc fashion. This can result in an inappropriate and often overly bureaucratic project management system. LEAP (Lean Effective Application of PRINCE2®) is a unique course offered by Pathfinder. The one-day course will help you develop an effective, efficient and useable project management system by applying the Lean Approach to PRINCE2® implementation. The LEAP course is particularly effective when implementation teams attend as a whole and when followed soon after by an implementation workshop.