Yes, I am still on holiday. Yes, normal service resumes on Monday.

But I had to share this with you: an article from thelondonpaper, which, if you are quick, you can read online before today’s edition is posted. It’s page 30.

The article is entitled ‘IT is no longer just for nerds’ and it’s in the employment section. James Donald has written about how now everyone needs IT skills, so you should go out and get some. There’s a little case study from a kitchen designer turned graphic designer after a training course in Autodesk Maya. Mostly, it’s good, sensible stuff. But one of the talking heads is talking rubbish. I quote:

Andrei Batemay, curriculum development manager of Idea Store Learning, agrees that an IT course can help people unleash the power of their computer. “From web design in Dreamweaver and Project Management in PRINCE2 to handling images in Photoshop, spreadsheets and word processing, there’s so much you can do,” he says. “And those skills can mean a real career boost.”

Andrei Batemay obviously has no idea about what PRINCE2 actually is, or he would have realised that what he said is completely ridiculous. You can’t put PRINCE2 in the same category as Word, Excel or Photoshop. It’s not an IT system. It’s not even a system at all.

The Idea Store training catalogue has introductory courses in project management and Microsoft Project, listed under ‘Business and Finance’, not ‘IT and Computing’. They don’t offer a PRINCE2 course, although you wouldn’t expect them to, as they are a local authority training service.

However, you’d still expect that the spokesman had a clue about what his organisation was training. This reads as if you can do a PRINCE2 IT course and if you mention that to any project management recruiter, it’s as good as having ‘amateur’ stamped on your forehead in red letters.

10/3/08: Right to reply.

Read the comment from Andrei Batemay below.

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