Lean Six Sigma Black Belt & Prince2?

[CoolHands]

No it’s not a new xbox game, it’s a couple of business courses that I’d never heard of until googling, as I’m looking at an interesting job advert (Business Analyst) which is loosely connected to my current job & skills. So I’d need to gen up on these.

Anyone heard of them? Looks like you can do them quite quickly, 2 to 3 months.

[Ridealong]

Usually associated to project management and/or manufacturing/processing roles.

Prince2 Foundation 2-3 days course including the closed book 60 mins exam, Prince2 Practitioner 5-7 days course including the open book 120 mins exam - knowing/managing all aspects of a project. If you want to go higher then Prince2 Agile is the next step.
Something similar is Associate Project Management (APM), which has 3 levels of certification like Prince2 - APM PFQ Fundamentals, APM PMQ Qualification & APM PPQ Professional Qualification.

Six Sigma Black Belt is level 4, Level 6 is the highest level certification - is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement.
Something similar is Lean which has 3 levels of certification Bronze, Silver & Gold.

There is/was free basic courses on Linkedin, you can take a trial/free month of Premium Linkedin which should give you access to higher level learning courses but no certification exams are included.

[Mark83]

Passed the PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner in a five day classroom course. They've been no help in my industry and glad I didn't pay for them, c.£1000 five years ago. More suited to (local) government I believe.

The two APM courses mentioned were much more helpful and relevant to my career in construction and development. PFQ was two days in a classroom with multiple choice exam. PMQ was five days in a classroom with a three hour written exam.

Edited by Mark83 on Friday 10th June 07:48

[dundarach]

Mark83 said:

Passed the PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner in a five day classroom course. They've been no help in my industry and glad I didn't pay for them, c.£1000 five years ago. More suited to (local) government I believe.

As above, in local government, still pointless.

[sam greenock]

Mark83 said:

Passed the PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner in a five day classroom course. They've been no help in my industry and glad I didn't pay for them, c.£1000 five years ago. More suited to (local) government I believe.

The two APM courses mentioned were much more helpful and relevant to my career in construction and development. PFQ was two days in a classroom with multiple choice exam. PMQ was five days in a classroom with a three hour written exam.

Edited by Mark83 on Friday 10th June 07:48

I did the same as you - but it's got me plenty of work (I.T.) over the years - just for having it.

99% of I.T project managers I know across financial services have it - it's quite a simple, not overly-taxing course - quality of lecturer goes along way too though, especially if they have real world experience

[CoolHands]

Thanks guys, pretty much as expected. But having them probably removes a barrier to entry. Also the mention lean in the general blurb.

All the general management speak stuff to do with efficiency etc I guess.