Project Management - PMQ / PRINCE2 / PRINCE2 Agile

[Hudhud35]

Hi,
I'm in a really niche project/programme management role within the CS. However i do not have any professional PM qualification.

My Manager is supportive of me gaining a qualification, and when I spoke with them they've suggested Prince 2 - however they admittedly trained when the course was initially released - so couldn't comment on suitability of other qualifications.

My aim is to stay within the Public/third/FE sectors as this is where all my experience is. - most jobs state they want Prince2, Agile OR PMQ - i think its more of a tick-box exercise than knowledge needs.

So what would mumsnet reccommend doing? The three courses i'm think of are:

PMQ
Prince 2
Prince 2 Agile

I have experience in managing projects in my field, so its purely to be able to get my CV through the first sift as most roles have it as an essential. I'm rather at a loss - i initially thought PMQ as Prince is rather outdated, however it seems a lot more work for i'm not sure much more benefit?

Prince 2 agile is best, you can use it in the public sector and outside.

If it's purely to get past the first stage of c.v. filtering, I'd do whichever is easiest/quickest unless you have a strong preference for one (which it sounds like you don't).

I'm private sector (Financial Services) and we tend to prefer PMP (definitely not Prince!) but more importance is placed on experience and achievements (and reputation!) than formal PM qualifications. Almost everyone wants you to have Agile experience but Prince Agile isn't favoured.

I recently did Google's Agile Project Manager course and that was great fun and very well done by Google (I've worked with Agile for years but thought it was worth a refresh while I was waiting to be onboarded onto my next project).

I’ve got both and I prefer PMQ - I think either will serve you well enough to get a foot in the door but the APM qualification is in my view more broadly practical.

Ultimately all of those sectors will have a range of maturity levels within each organisation, and perform differently in practice to the theoretical requirements.

In short I think there’s a whole heap of BS in the industry.

Oh and to address your point, yes APM PMQ is a hell of a lot more work. I do think that embeds the learning though. It just depends what you want from it, personal development or just a certificate.

I'm an IT PM in higher education - would recommend Prince 2 Agile as this seems to be the way things are going at least in this corner of public sector.