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The PRINCE2 Practitioner Exam is NOT Dumbing Down

May 29, 2007 @ PRINCE2(TM) Practice Blog from Patrick Mayfield

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It seems that the PRINCE2 Exam Board is now pretty committed to a radical change in the Practitioner Exam. This will see the end of essay-type questions in favour of a 'multiple reasoning' – as my colleague, Andrew Rock, calls it – question book, where answers can be verified and have the potential to be marked by computer.

Based upon Bloom's Taxonomy, a range of question structures will be applied to all the topic areas of PRINCE2 in the three hour exam. The question book will include one of several project scenarios, much shorter than the current Practitioner scenarios: that is, about two or three paragraphs. Further supplementary scenario information will be introduced at the start of question topic areas, where relevant. The Exam Board plans to release more scenarios than there are now.

One surprise is that the new-style Practitioner paper will be open book: candidates will be able to refer to the PRINCE2 manual during the exam. The argument that appears to have carried the day is that PRINCE2 project managers would have the manual to refer to in practice anyway.

When first proposed, many of us in the ATO (Accredited Training Organisation) community feared that this would lead to a 'dumbing down' of the Practitioner paper. The general consensus now appears to be a warm, but cautious, welcome for the new exam design. Far from dumbing down the Practitioner paper, it appears to many experienced PRINCE2 trainers that this is introducing a more challenging form of paper.

When will this type of exam be introduced? Well, the Exam Board is currently consulting ATOs with a choice of between September 2007 and January 2008. My colleagues and I in pearcemayfield would opt for the later date, simply because of the clash with the launch of the new version of MSP. Our materials won't need reaccrediting by APM Group, but we are looking at adjusting the sorts of exercises we currently include, particularly later in our PRINCE2 for Practitioner programme; perhaps to make them more like the new-style questions.

One of the most significant changes is that all areas of PRINCE2 will be examined in every paper. The level of detailed understanding of the PRINCE2 manual will be greater than in the case with the current paper.

Also, the exam structure for MSP also likely to adopt this pproach.These sort of changes will be made to the MSP Intermediate Exam. The new-style MSP exam papers are expected to appear from September.

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