Introduction
In this video Rosie Boxall shares her thoughts on the PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner course she took with Knowledge Train.
She was looking to begin a career in program management and noticed that many job descriptions required a project management qualification.
She decided to pursue a PRINCE2 certification through Knowledge Train and found the training interactive and effective, as she could apply what she learned in her job immediately.
Rosie was delighted with the course, mentioning that she particularly enjoyed the case studies and was able to earn high marks on both exams on her initial attempt.
Watch the short video below, or download the podcast to listen on your device.
About PRINCE2
PRINCE2 is a project management methodology that stands for Projects IN Controlled Environments and is the second iteration of the PRINCE method.
PRINCE2 provide guidance based upon project management best practices that guide decision-making and helps determine clear responsibilities, the processes to follow, and when to make decisions throughout the project life cycle.
PRINCE2 is the most widely recognised project management certification and can be applied to any project, regardless of size or industry.
PRINCE2 qualifications provides numerous advantages, including:
- Enhancing your CV and increasing your chances of being hired by potential employers
- Boosting your skills and knowledge, which increases your confidence in managing projects
- Allowing you to communicate and collaborate with stakeholders using a standardised language
- Improving your project management abilities
- Providing a practical approach for outlining the steps to take, the order in which to take them, and who is responsible for each step.
PRINCE2 certification
PRINCE 2 certification consists of two levels: Foundation and Practitioner.
The Foundation level is an introduction to PRINCE2. It is suitable for individuals who assist project managers or have project management-related responsibilities but are not accountable for the project’s outcome.
The Practitioner level is the highest PRINCE2 certification. It is suitable for professionals who manage projects daily, such as change managers, project support staff, product managers, or business analysts.
Knowledge Train offers PRINCE2 training in both virtual classrooms and self-paced online formats.
Transcript
Here’s the full transcript of the video.
00:00:08 Sevcan Yasa: Hello, thank you so much for joining us today. Can we start by taking your name please?
00:00:13 Rosie Boxall: Yes, it’s Rosie.
00:00:15 Sevcan Yasa: Can you tell us a bit about the industry that you work in as well as your job role please?
00:00:20 Rosie Boxall: Yeah, absolutely. So, I work in higher education and have done for for many, many years, mostly in student support uhm and more recently I’ve just moved into a role that’s more of a programme management role. So looking after external grants and contracts and partnerships and the kind of projects within those that might look like a mobility scheme or a grant contract or something like that.
Why did you decide to take a PRINCE2 course?
00:00:53 Sevcan Yasa: Why did you decide to take a PRINCE2 course?
00:00:56 Rosie Boxall: So, I moved back to the UK from New Zealand uhm about six months ago now, and I’ve been working directly in student support in New Zealand uhm and when I came back to the UK, I found it quite hard to find even a similar role actually. So even though my previous roles, roles really and had all involved project management.
00:01:17 Rosie Boxall: I know I found that because it wasn’t specifically in my job title and because I didn’t have any qualifications in project management, it wasn’t necessarily getting recognised when I was applying for jobs over here and I found that lots of roles were asking for a project management qualification and so I started by doing an online certificate in project management, but just found it was really quite vague uhm and I didn’t feel like it was actually giving me a framework that I could take forward and use in the workplace or really talk about in an interview more than I kind of knew already.
00:01:52 Rosie Boxall: So PRINCE2 obviously globally recognised and importantly, for me, used both in the UK and New Zealand, and because I would like to go back in the future. So, it was really after kind of applying for a handful of jobs and uhm not getting anywhere and getting feedback that they were really looking for a specific qualification that I decided to use some of that time that I was job hunting to do my PRINCE2 qualifications.
How do you feel working on projects?
00:02:24 Sevcan Yasa: After taking the PRINCE2 course and now that you are in a programme management role, how do you feel working in projects and programmes?
00:02:33 Rosie Boxall: So, I actually found pretty immediately that what I’d learned in the course was kind of immediately applicable to what I was doing, so I was still doing a bit of freelance work over the summer for my previous employer and we were looking at a project to try and get some employability and career support stuff set up for the faculty and it had been a really kind of slow project and had taken a long time to get off the ground.
00:03:02 Rosie Boxall: And that kind of lots of people who it was kind of tangentially involved and it just wasn’t really going anywhere, and I was kind of able to do just use everything I’ve learned in the PRINCE2 course and just apply some real structure to the project and then just kind of move it forward like that. And it actually got it off the ground really quickly and meant that the core project team just knew what they were meant to be doing and actually what our timelines are and our kind of development stages. Uhm, so I kind of was immediately able to put it into practice on quite a low stakes project uhm and then as I was applying for new jobs and the job that I actually ended up getting had an assessment as part of the application, which was to plan a project essentially so you were given a kind of project brief and it was half an hour test where you had to plan out the kind of whole timeline of the project. The documents you would create, the kind of questions that you would ask to make sure it was set up in a way that would wouldn’t allow it to be successful, but I don’t think I could have actually done that had I not done the PRINCE2 course really. I would have been floundering. Uhm I had my textbook next to me, which was really useful and so I actually I really would credit the course that I did with contributing to me getting the job that I’m doing now.
00:04:21 Rosie Boxall: I find we we don’t use PRINCE2 as a kind of official framework in my current organisation, but just having that checklist for the kind of documents that you need for a successful project just means that I always have that to refer back to and I actually use the textbook quite a lot when I say making a risk register or an issue log or thinking about a communication management framework, just referring back and making sure. Kind of checking for my own benefit really, that even though we’re not using PRINCE2, I’ve done everything that is going to kind of enable that to be a successful project.
How was the process of moving to your new role?
00:05:04 Sevcan Yasa: How did you find the process for moving from a student support to a programme management role?
00:05:12 Rosie Boxall: So, within my student support jobs there was quite a lot of programme management, even if it – on project management – even if it wasn’t kind of defined as such within my job title. And so it wasn’t necessarily a kind of complete new new for me. And it was really about kind of moving, having it officially recognised within my my job and my kind of job brief and my job title and also having a framework that I can actually work to rather than it just kind of being everyone muddling along and uhm, just kind of doing kind of idiosyncratic faculty project processes.
00:05:54 Rosie Boxall: So, I would say it’s not been too much of a shift and that way, but I do feel much more like I’m moving. I kind of didn’t want to get boxed into student support as my, as my career and wanted the opportunity to be able to in the future maybe move into tech or kind of different uhm kind of different industries and I feel like working in this role, which is much more specifically programme and project management. I can definitely see how in the future I could take that elsewhere. So it feels it’s kind of, I seem more applicable and have opened up what project management and programme management is for me.
How was the PRINCE2 course?
00:06:36 Sevcan Yasa: How did you find the PRINCE2 course?
00:06:39 Rosie Boxall: I found it really, really great actually it was really interesting because I worked in higher education my whole career, but everyone was from such diverse backgrounds. We had so many kind of mini case studies I guess within the actual course, but I think made it really easy to pick up all the kind of theoretical information and then apply it very very quickly. And given that we just had five days.
00:07:05 Rosie Boxall: And it actually really helped pass me that my tutor was an academic themselves and so kind of understood the academic context of project management as well as all the other industries that we had.
00:07:20 Rosie Boxall: I thought it was because it was. I did the online course and I was quite apprehensive having come off what 2 or 3 years of online working uhm I really thought that staring at a screen from 9 to 5 was going to be really hard. But our tutor had definitely kind of put a lot of thought into her teaching and her, I guess pedagogy around how you structure an online course and we had kind of.
00:07:46 Rosie Boxall: It was really interactive, really broken up into little chunks, and she did a really good job actually of getting us to all talk to each other. Which I mean anyone that’s run an online event knows you can just kind of stare at us, see blank faces on your screen.
00:08:01 Rosie Boxall: And I pass. Ended up sitting one exam on the Tuesday and the other on the Friday and passed both of them in the 80s I think. So, I was really, really happy with everything about the course really.
How did you find out about Knowledge Train?
00:08:19 Rosie Boxall: I think it was just from online research really. I went through the official PRINCE2 websites kind of list of accredited courses and then I have to say one thing that appealed to me about Knowledge Train uhm was that the information was just there on the website for you to make your own informed decision. I found a couple of competitors were just really spammy and will call you and just kind of not give you the information you wanted. And so I just appreciated being able to make my own informed decision and not kind of treated like I was at a car sales shop or something.
00:09:01 Rosie Boxall: So yeah the. I guess I guess yeah it was just all that information on the website that the course just fit with what I want I needed. I needed to kind of have it turned around quite quickly, and so the fact it was within a week really appealed to me. And I liked that it was all instructor-led. I didn’t want to do a kind of part self lead and then part taught. I really just wanted to be in that classroom environment, but not have to come into London. That was a big benefit for me.
Do you recommend Knowledge Train?
00:09:36 Sevcan Yasa: Would you recommend Knowledge Train to friends, family or colleagues?
00:09:40 Rosie Boxall: Yeah, absolutely. Even in within my current role. I’m really keen to do Managing Successful Programmes uhm and I’ve kind of mentioned it to my equivalent within the team and we’re going to raise it in our in our performance reviews next year about potentially doing that together.
