The world of business is about marrying the big picture of strategic governance with the daily challenges of management. Successful organizations utilize well-defined methods, frameworks, and approaches for dealing with these challenges and prize qualified and experienced managers extremely highly for their ability to facilitate progress on different levels.
AXELOS Ltd is an organization behind many of the world’s most widely used professional frameworks, including PRINCE2, M_o_R, and ITIL 4. It recently announced ‘AXELOS ProPath’, a high-level progressive development structure designed to encompass several frameworks focused on project, program, and portfolio management within the AXELOS portfolio.
So, what exactly is AXELOS ProPath? And how does it relate to the need for organizations and practitioners to optimize their capabilities?
What is the purpose of AXELOS ProPath?
According to AXELOS, ProPath is all about helping people develop the skills they need to “deliver meaningful organizational change”. It sets out several clear certification paths for candidates and establishes titles that instantly verify a candidate’s qualifications within project management, Agile project management, and program management.
But why is this necessary? To put it simply, while project, program, and portfolio management may seem similar, they are actually fairly distinct. The skills, best practices, and experiences that make a candidate successful in one area do not necessarily transfer over; hence why AXELOS has developed individual frameworks to focus on them.
At the same time, ProPath also reflects the modern challenges of organizational change. Organizations must be prepared to evolve quickly yet holistically in order to remain competitive. This often requires staff members to go beyond their typical roles and responsibilities, as well as the long-standing silos of traditional project and program management.
The wholly modern frameworks that make up ProPath offer best practices that equip candidates and companies to thrive in this environment. Each framework is also popular enough to have thriving practitioner communities ready to offer advice and answer questions for ambitious candidates.
By following the ProPath certification scheme, candidates can easily structure their training. Each certification offers actionable advice, as well as insight that can give candidates an invaluable big-picture perspective for organizational management.
What qualifications does ProPath offer?
AXELOS ProPath sets out three distinct certification paths:
- ProPath Project Expert – This certification is focused on helping candidates achieve a holistic awareness of how traditional projects work, as well as consistent results, optimized efficiency, and maximized benefits. It also addresses risk management best practices for projects of varying sizes and levels of complexity. It includes PRINCE2, Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), and Management of Risk (M_o_R).
- ProPath Agile Project Expert – This certification focuses on Agile project management, marrying the control of traditional management with the flexibility and responsiveness of Agile. It also combines this with high-level program management to help organizations achieve, as AXELOS puts it, “unrivaled resilience.” It combines PRINCE2 Agile, Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), and Management of Risk (M_o_R).
- ProPath Programme Leader – This certification is focused on candidates who manage multiple projects and programs. It addresses this complexity, giving candidates the knowledge and skills they know to manage individual elements, along with risk and governance. It includes Portfolio, Programme and Project Offices (P3O), Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), and Management of Portfolios (MoP).
What qualifications are included in ProPath?
The ProPath certification path requires candidates to pass the practitioner certification exams for a number of frameworks. These include:
- PRINCE2 – PRojects IN Controlled Environments 2 is a best-practice project management framework. Its Principles, Processes, and Themes offer a structured yet flexible approach that can be applied to projects of any size, structure, or industry. Over the years, PRINCE2 has become the world’s most popular framework for project management.
- PRINCE2 Agile – This framework combines the structure and governance of PRINCE2 with the flexibility and adaptability of Agile. With Agile capabilities becoming increasingly important for organizations wanting to remain competitive, studying both traditional and Agile management is quickly turning into the preferred choice for prospective managers.
- Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) – MSP is a best-practice program management framework. It is designed to optimize alignment between programs, projects, and organizational strategy while also improving enterprise agility. Its Principles, Processes, and Themes help candidates create clear yet flexible program lifecycle roadmaps.
- Management of Risk (M_o_R) – These days, the world of business is more volatile and uncertain than ever. M_o_R is a risk management framework that helps candidates identify, assess, and control risks at all levels, from strategic planning to daily operations. This also helps to guide effective decision-making and optimize the odds of success across the organization.
- Portfolio, Programme, and Project Offices (P3O) – This methodology is designed to help candidates establish a structure for portfolio, program, and project management. It is also aligned with other frameworks within AXELOS ProPath, making it highly valuable for organizations practicing PRINCE2, MSP, or other relevant options.
- Management of Portfolios (MoP) – This portfolio management methodology offers principles, techniques, and best practices for choosing and executing projects and programs that are ideally suited to an organization’s strategic goals. It focuses on big-picture targets rather than individual initiatives and is a major help for decision-makers looking to optimize their ROIs and empower organizational transformation.
