[Peterw]

Originally Posted by aelle

I'm Prince 2 certified - Foundation and Practitionner - and didn't find it so useful. It's a lot of big fat common sense, and it's not applicable to all projects. It works well for stable, structured projects, not for new ventures like highly innovative industries, company creation... In a small team, a Prince 2 structure would be a huge waste of precious time. But if you don't know how much of that common sense you already have, sure, reading through a Prince 2 manual can be useful. Look for it in a business school library or second hand.

There's a wide gap between knowing the principles of project management and knowing how to apply them, because some things, like the ungoldy amount of communication you have to do, are counter intuitive or will even rub you the wrong way.
My advice is to practice, to manage a couple of projects, either at your job or on the side. Create a non profit, a club, offer to manage one (or part of one) that you've been active in... If you want to stay in the business sphere, maybe your local chamber of commerce needs someone to organize things? A local networking group? There are tons of opportunities waiting to be grabbed.

That's good to know because it's on my list of things to do to become a business analyst. I guess it's a bit like ITIL and a lot of other certifications - not very applicable in real situations but necessary to get the CV noticed