my PRINCE2 experience

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I had wished I could gain some project management skills without learning everything on the fly. My mentor, acting like a genie, granted me my wish by recommending me to attend the Projects In Controlled Environments (PRINCE2) Foundation because it's such a good course to take. According to him, PRINCE2 is like attending a graduate course in business school. That made me excited, so I signed up for the next offering as soon as I learned that there's still a slot available.

My mentor's assessment was spot on. The course, though it required quite a bit of brain rewiring, was excellent! The trainer, Mr Vincent Marsi, patiently and effectively walked the class through the complicated web of project management for three days. Imagine, I was lost the whole time during the first day of the class but by the time I was about to sit the Foundation exam, I was somewhat comfortable with PRINCE2-speak!

Of course, the most important aspect of the whole endeavor was harvesting what the course was all about. Here are some of the key points I learned:

1. The Project Manager is the center of the project universe.
Everything about the project appears to surround the Project Manager, according to the PRINCE2 model. He's there even before the project actually begins!
2. The project is like a Matryoshka doll.
Tasks in a project are like layers of an onion. At each management level, there are series of controls that the managers are supposed to implement to make sure that products agreed upon are delivered to the stakeholders. The terminology used at each level is somewhat different but the principle is similar. Thus, while a Project Manager sees the whole project as the Project, the Team Manager (who is working on delivering a component of the project) can view his set of objectives as the Project as well.
3. Leadership (in the world of PRINCE2 projects) is all about making informed decisions.
At the very beginning of the course, Mr Marsi informed us the PRINCE2 is not about developing "soft skills" (i.e., leadership skills, negotiating skills, communication skills); the course is all about what is needed, from a management perspective, to deliver a project. However, by being in a Manager role (whether at the project level or at the team level), a person is required to make certain decisions (such as to continue on or not and to report an issue or not). And that right there is how a person learns to become a leader.
In the end, it's just a matter of whether we apply the techniques we practiced during the course. That is still the best indicator of how much we have learned.

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