How to: Preparation for the Prince2 foundation exam (part 2: books)

On the previous article on how to prepare for the Prince2 foundation exam I told you what chapter you have to study in order to pass the exam. In this article I’ll try to explain what books can help with the preparation.

First of all I must explain that I’m dutch and living in the Netherlands. This makes me a little biased. Since I prefer Dutch books over English books my advice also tends to go into that direction. Knowing that I hope my tips will help you in pointing a direction, reed the reviews in your country to check if the readers share my opinion.

The books I suggest for Prince2 are:

• Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2, Author: Office of Government Commerce, Publisher: The Stationery Office, ISBN: 9780113309467;
• Projectmanagement on basis of Prince2, Author: B. Hedeman, G. Vis van Heemst & Freddriksz, H., Publisher: Van Haren Publishing, ISBN: 9789077212837

The MSP bible comes in various languages. Although my training company provided me the dutch version, I prefer the english version.

Good news: I passed my practicioner exam!

On the 11th of july I had the Prince2 Practicioner exam new style. I must say I was a little bit nervous before doing the exam. After having done the exam I was not sure if I had passed the exam or not. There are just too many questions to get an idea which one I answered correct or which one not. After the exam I just confided in myself and the preparation towards the exam and wished for the best.

During my holidays I received an email with the good news: PASSED!

After this result I can write down shortly what I did in order to pass the exam:

1. I did my foundation exam in 2002. After passing the exam I gained a lot of project management experience AND Prince2 experience between 2002 and 2008.
2. I implemented project management according to Prince2 in 2 departments and supported many project managers doing their projects.
3. I selected a well known (for its quality) Prince2 trainer: ‘t Ruysdael. And fortunately I had a good trainer: Ruud Wouters.
4. During the course I rehearsed the foundation exam online, with the website provided by ‘t Ruysdael. Doing the foundation exam I got a clue about my weak spots in theory.
5. I started studying on my weak spots.
6. I practised the practicioner exam online with the website provided by ‘t Ruysdael. I also took the exam preparation course in order to get used to the type of questions and the way to analyse/answer them.
7. A good night of sleep before the exam.
8. Do the exam with good time management.

Well that’s all folks. I must say that I was very critical selecting the right training company. Some offer a Prince2 course in 3 days and I selected one with a little bit more of time. I didn’t want to get rushed and feel obligated to study too much besides my current job. That’s why the combined foundation/practicioner fast track from ‘t Ruysdael seemed ideal for me. After all it worked out fine.

I wish everybody good luck with their Prince2 exam, I’m very interested in your experience so why not leave a comment with your approach/result of the Prince2 training/exam. My next stop will be the MSP intermediate exam.