[Closed] Management courses

double post glitch thing

Perhaps the most important question is what do you want your career to be? Then you can find CPD courses to suit.

I did ILM L5 about 9 years ago and enjoyed it, found some parts challenging (mainly the correct way to create an academic report, bleurgh!) and picked up some usual things.

I've just put one of my team on the ILM L3 and she's enjoying the challenge and learning quite a lot. She's 28, doesn't manage anyone but the course is giving her good insight into leadership styles, change management and other relevant topics that I believe will support her in her development.

It's cheap, the online interaction seems to work well (but most of us are now used to the Teams way of working which helps) and it's certainly motivating her.

You can train people to be managers and/or project managers? Could someone please forward that to the ivory tower at my workplace please? We just seem to exhaustively employ the Peter Principle.

If you are interested Leadership courses are probably better than Management courses. There's a huge difference between Leadership and Management (I wish my management structure knew that)

Prince is a very specific PM methodology and the practitioner level course will only be useful if your whole organisation really uses it, and uses it properly.

Is it project management training that you want/need, or is it more operational “how to” management, people management techniques, or strategic planning/leadership.

I have done several CMI courses over the years and definitely found them helpful but the quality of the facilitator and often the cohort you may undertake it with is just as valuable.

Whilst you say formal management opportunities in your current company are limited are there any opportunities to manage a project or initiative etc that would put you in a position to lead and influence others and get some experience of “management”. Your coaching experience etc will definitely stand you in good stead.

Agree with everything that Robz and ElShalimo have said. A decent management/ leadership course will stand you in good stead pretty much whatever you decide to do, but Prince2 will only let you be a PM and then only in orgs that use it...

There will come a point where these courses become repetitive and get into diminishing returns but it doesn’t sound like you are at that yet.

Tbh if your employer is offering you the time and money to do the training grab it with both hands - plenty of companies don’t..

Thanks for the input all, some good food for thought.

Definitely agree with the PRINCE2 only being useful as a PM in certain organisations.

Also hadn’t thought of leadership vs management. I was probably thinking of bits of both when I wrote the OP. More research needed on that one.

Still new to the corporate world (I only left the bike industry 2.5 years ago) so keen to pick up as much as possible while it’s on offer.

The following is free training...

Always look after the interests of the people you work with - regardless of their position in respect to you (this includes clients)

Interested in experiences of what would be valued by future employers, and if the answer is sack off the CPD and get experience, how? Extra-curricular experience herding cats on a club committee (got that), coaching sport to youth and adults (got that) etc etc??

I think the extra curricular stuff is only relevant if you're a new grad and you have no work experience to fall back on. Unless your extra curricular activity is Non Exec Director of a FTSE 100 company etc. People rarely put it on their CVs and I don't ask about it in interviews.

I'd try and get as many varied courses as possible, if they're on offer, as you'll always pick up something useful and at the start of your corporate career, you won't really know what you want or where you want to be in 10 years time. NB I'm at the end of my corporate career and have just about figured it out ;-).

How about a senior leadership apprenticeship. If you are a small company the government will pay 95% of the course fee.

I think the extra curricular stuff is only relevant if you’re a new grad and you have no work experience to fall back on. Unless your extra curricular activity is Non Exec Director of a FTSE 100 company etc. People rarely put it on their CVs and I don’t ask about it in interviews.

I think it depends on the role and the job. I can think of lots of jobs where being the trustee of a charity, scout leader, sports coach/instructor, chair of a committee, etc would provide an opportunity to show skills that your current job might not. Like everything on your CV it should be there for a reason though, and preferably one that links to the requirements of the job!

No idea if this helps or not but "our" people used to benefit from a course that was called something like "financial management for non-accountants". It meant they could talk the language and present information in the way the decision-makers up-the-chain would expect which reduced frustration/conflict in general.