6 Reasons To Use Your pm4success Subscription

The Inside PRINCE2 series continues with this look at pm4success.

Exam rooms for APMG exams like PRINCE2 can be daunting. The desks are clear apart from the papers you need. And somewhere on the desk is likely to be a leaflet for pm4success, the APMG’s website for exam candidates. In the stress of the exam, you could overlook the leaflet and forget to fill in the blanks to ensure you get access to the website. However, with over 1000 pages of content aimed at project and programme managers, it is worth remembering that you have free access to this site for 12 months after your exam.

Here are 6 reasons why you should log on to pm4success.

1:  Ask an Expert

You can Ask an Expert, or browse the questions that have already been asked. Those asked in the last 30 days are flagged as ‘new’ so you can see what’s been recently added. Questions are answered by people like the chief examiner, so you know you are getting a good quality reply. Some of the answers include templates or sample documents, so you get more than just a stock answer – you get a tailored response with useful additional material if they have something extra to share.

2:  Alchemy for Managers

You get a year’s subscription to Alchemy for Managers – which is very useful. Project management is also about good management, so brush up on all your basic (and some more advanced) general management topics. The year starts from the day you sign up to Alchemy, so it doesn’t run concurrent with your pm4success membership. This alone is worth logging on to pm4success for.

3:  OGC Resource Toolkit

There’s a guide to the OGC Resource Toolkit. The OGC website is extensive and difficult to navigate. pm4success provides direct links to the most useful entry points, documentation and briefings, which saves you time. It’s in flux at the moment as the OGC website is being updated.

4:  Mind Maps

There are Mind Maps to download for M_o_R, MSP and PRINCE2. You need to download Thoughtograph, a mindmap viewing tool to be able to view them. It’s not how I think or structure my notes, but for graphically-minded people it’s an aid to not having to build your own.

5:  Sample papers

There are sample exam papers available for PRINCE2, MSP, M_ o_R. Sample papers are a highly valuable resource. In order to get access to pm4success, you will have had to take one of those exams, but if you are thinking of taking another, you can get some exam practice in advance as part of your pre-course learning.

6:  Free

It’s free! There are over 1000 pages of content. While I found that some of it is not helpful at all (although it might be helpful to people at different stages of their career), there has to be something here you can use!

Will I renew my subscription?

No. Much of the content on pm4success is static, and while they do add new articles on a regular basis, it’s not enough to encourage me to pay the annual fee. The Ask an Expert feature is excellent, but the newsgroup is not very active and I’ll get the same benefit of discussion with my peers from forums on Gantthead or LinkedIn groups. Overall, it is a useful perk to have for a year, but not worth continuing after that.

Have you used pm4success? What do you think?

Tagged as: OGC, pm4success