BlogKnowledge Train offers project management training for businesses as well as for individuals. Some corporate training courses involve providing PRINCE2 coaching, examination and certification for project teams, departments or even entire organisations. Others operate on a smaller, more tailored level, focusing on the development of project/programme management skills within the particular organisational context.
The clear advantages that corporate training have over sending individual staff on project management training courses are of course that everybody in the project team is working from the same set of assumptions, and using the same terminology and concepts. What is usually less recognised is the motivation that group training can bring to a project team. The opportunity to discuss issues within the project, especially outside of the workspace and in a classroom context, can be an invaluable means of airing concerns, building team support and enabling everybody involved to see things from a broader perspective.
There are times, on the other hand, when individual training courses are the best course of action. Apart from private individuals – particularly those seeking to improve their CV or further a project management career – businesses involved in project and programme management may need to quickly develop the skill-set of the project manager alone, or provide an incentive for an employee to take on the management of a difficult programme. In some cases, scheduling and budget requirements may constrain project team training options. If the organisation can only afford to release one or two individuals at a time for training purposes, then clearly group training is not such an attractive option. In this situation, block-booking a set of individual courses may be the most efficient and cheapest alternative.
Different training courses suit these various situations. A project team that needs to improve its management of a particular project may need a shorter project management training-course, such as the one-day Introduction to Project Management course, or the two-day Fundamentals of Project Management training course. Teams established for multiple projects, especially within an organisation that uses a particular project management methodology, may need a more formal training programme, such as the PRINCE2 foundation training course (3 days).
Project managers, meanwhile, are more suited to a higher level project management qualification, such as the PRINCE2 practitioner certificate, or the MSP programme management foundation/practitioner training-courses. These courses can be taught in-house, or on an individual basis in a public classroom, but frequently organisations will choose to book a number of PRINCE2 or MSP practitioner courses in advance, and then send project/programme managers (and potential project/programme managers) to the Knowledge Train classroom in rotation.
Management training and development is crucial to practical success. Within the field of project and programme management, this need is even more pronounced: as the plethora of project/programme management methodologies, best-practice guidelines and certificates grows, it is essential to make sure that your employees are not only skilled in project management, but also that their understanding of project management concepts is mutually aligned. Organisation-centred training can be the best solution to this.
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