How to: Preparing for Prince2 foundation exam

Frequently I receive questions from people who would like to prepare for the prince2 foundation exam by selfstudy. Most of the times the questions are about example questions for the exam or for literature needed for the exam.

In three articles I will try to explain:

1. What is an approach for studying for the foundation exam using the OGC bible: Managing Successful Projects with Prince2?
2. What other books are recommended besides the Prince2 manual?
3. How can I prepare myself on the exam itself, what kind of questions can I expect?

This article is about studying the Prince2 manual. The other two articles will follow soon.

Foundation exam approach using the Prince2 manual

First of all. The Prince2 manual is originally written in English. It was no really suited for Dutch students with poor understanding of the English language. This has changed since the manual has been translated in Dutch in the beginning of 2008. So if you’re dutch and still have the English manual: go to the book store and buy the Dutch version (recommended!).

So now about the approach. You have to read the following chapters to begin with:

• Chapter 1: introduction.
  It gives you information why you should use a project management method and what benefits can bring Prince2. It also describes the structure of the manual and how you should use it.
  In chapter 1.5 you’ll find the guidelines what to read based upon the experience you have.
• Chapter 2: introduction to Prince2.
  Read this whole chapter and memorize the 8 Prince2 processes, the 8 Prince2 components and the 3 Prince2 techniques.If you can draw the Prince2 process model (figure 2.5), and tell where the prince2 products are created/updated you are already halfway. Another important figure is figure 2.6 where you can see the relation between the processes, components and techniques.Also understand the project life cycle in figure 2.1.
• Chapter 3: Introduction to processes.
  Understand figure 3.1 that there are 4 management levels to take into account. Also understand the way how they interact.The following chapters (chapter 4 - chapter 11) will have the same structure so study for each process and sub process at least:
  - the fundamental principles;
  - the context;
  - the process description (not necessarily the summations);
  - scalability can be interesting;
  - hints and tricks are important for the practitioner exam;
  - highlight who is responsible for each process/sub process.
• Chapter 12: Introduction to the Prince2 components.
  Introduction for the 8 Prince2 components. Read the next components chapters and try to understand the basics of each component. What does it contribute to project management based on Prince2?
• Chapter 13: Business Case. Understand 13.1: What is a Business case? Understand the headlights of 13.2: What should a Business case contain (see also Appendix A.2 for the product description). Read chapter 13.3 and see how a Business case is developed and who is responsible. In chapter 13.4 you can see the relations between the Business Case and the Prince2 processes, a quick read will do.
• Chapter 14: Organisation.  Another important Prince2 component.  Read 14.1 since it gives you an overview of the components with the important aspects. 14.2 and 14.3 is very interesting but reading it quickly will do. You should be able to recognize the Prince2 organisation roles and tell what responsibilities each role has.
• Chapter 15 Plans.  Prince2 has 3 levels of planning. Project plan, stage plan and team plan are the levels. For all 3 levels there can also be an exception plan depending on the exception that occurs. 15.1 till 15.3 are worth a good reading since it contains the basics of the component plans. 15.4 and 15.5 are interesting but a quick read would do (in my opinion).
• Chapter 16: Controls. A difficult to read chapter. I would prefer another structure to the chapter. Understand that every chapter and red paragraph is a control starting at chapter 16.3. So first read 16.1 and 16.2 to get an overview of the controls and understand how they help the project management team. Then understand that there are controls for: 1. a controlled start, 2. a controlled progress and 3. a controlled close.  Also understand why Prince2 uses stages, what they are and how to use them, chapter 16.6.
• Chapter 17: Management of Risk. 17.1 deserves a quick read the same as 17.2 for the risk principles. Chapter 17.3 tells us that the risk management cycle is based on: 1. risk analysis and 2. risk management. read 17.3.1 and memorize table 17.1: suitable responses to risk. 17.4 until 17.8 are interesting but more for the practitioner exam. Try to explain figure 17.5.
• Chapter 18: Quality in a project environment. The first 3 paragraphs are necessary to read. From the other paragraphs you need to understand the headlines.
• Chapter 19: Configuration management. Chapter 19.1 and 19.2 must be read. 19.3 is nice to know. 19.4 is a must while 19.4.1 - 19.4.5 must be scanned on headlines. 19.5 must be read and most of exams contain a question about 19.5.1. 19.5.2 again can be read on headlines. This is also the case for the further writing in 19.5.3, 19.6 and 19.7.
• Chapter 20: Change control. Read 20.1, 20.2 and 20.3. other parts (20.3.1 and further) are nice to know.
• Chapter 21: Introduction to techniques.
  The manual describes 3 techniques. After reading chapter 22, 23 and 24 you should be able to understand the technique of product base planning (chapter 22), the steps in change control (chapter 23) and the responsibilities in the quality review technique (24.4.2).
• Reading the manual you will find a lot of Prince2 words. If in doubt you can use the glossary for the definitions.
• Appendix A. Will give you a detailed product description of each Prince2 product. Impossible and not necessary to learn. From some products like project brief and business case it is very handy that you understand what it is about and what the product contains. this information can be read in the chapters.
• Appendix B: describes the project management team roles. Worth a quick read in order to get the responsibilities in the project management team right.
• Appendix C: Risk categories. Nice to know.
• Appendix D: HEY! that is my checklist. Check the automated version on http://www.healthcheck-online.com
• Appendix E: Project document management. Understand that there are 3 kinds of files: Project files, Stage files and Quality files. Try to understand the difference.

With this article I tried to explain my vision on what is handy in the preparation process for the Prince2 foundation exam. Of course APMG has its own information at http://www.prince2.org.uk/Qualifications/FoundationExamination.asp 

Feel free to comment on this article. Help me to improve it in order to help other people passing their exam.

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