Silicon Beach Training is one of the UK's leading providers of PRINCE2® Foundation Training and PRINCE2® Practitioner Training courses, with PRINCE2® Training in-company and at our training centre in Brighton.

What is Product Breakdown Structure (PBS)?

A product breakdown structure (PBS) is a fundamental part of project management and the PRINCE2® methodology.

A PBS is a tool used to assess, plan and display the outcomes required of a project. It is part of a product based planning technique and attempts to break down all components of a project - in as much detail as possible so that nothing is overlooked.

It is important to note that products may be physical or conceptual and may include tools required to manage the project e.g. test documentation, requirement specifications or safety certifications.

Product Breakdown Structure Example:

The image above demonstrates an example of breaking down the required components of a computer. 

As you see a PBS offers a clear, exhaustive and hierarchical structure of all deliverables.

Using questions in training is the most effective way to engage with your group and encourage participation.

Questions give you instant feedback on how well your sessions are going while keeping discussion moving forward.

There are a number of questioning techniques and each is useful for different purposes and situations. They are:

• General
• Pass On
• Question, Wait, Select
• Send Back
• Send Out

Before I go into each technique in more detail, I'm first going to run through why questions are important in good training sessions and what constitutes an excellent question.

We recommend that new and inexperienced trainers attend our 2-day Train the Trainer workshops. We will help you deliver more effective, engaging training sessions.

Below you'll find a comprehensive list of Social Media Tips,Guides, Plugins, Platforms, Analytics Tools, Apps and other great Social Media resources. This list is designed as a reference guide for delegates who have attended our Social Networking training or SEO training courses in Brighton, Sussex - but it would be mean of us not to make it available to everyone. We also provide creative courses like Photoshop Training and Leadership and Management Training like PRINCE2 Training and Business Analysis Courses. Enjoy...

Among all the other scandals of recent weeks came the revelation that Lloyds PPI complaints handlers were being trained to purposely reject valid claims. An audio recording of an in-company trainer was seized upon by The Times as evidence that the banking group had been engaging in less than ethical practices. The trainer told trainees to flat out deny or refuse claims, as most customers would give up trying to claim after an initial rejection.

Lloyds place the blame on the firm Deloitte who handled the whole program and another firm, Momenta, who was responsible for the hiring and training of the employees dealing with claims.

It shows that just as good training can have an immediate and lasting positive effect on businesses, bad training can have a severely negative one - something we emphasise on our Train the Trainer Course.

So how can businesses and individuals make sure they're getting the best possible training?

The Trainer's Responsibility

Much of the responsibility for quality training falls at the feet of the trainer; after all they're the ones delivering the training! Not only do they need to fully understand the needs of the client, they must find a way to communicate their message in an engaging and memorable way.

They also have a duty to not misinform. In the Lloyds case, it would appear that the trainer either gave false information to delegates or at the very least recommended methods that were in no way best practice.

Facilitation is a skill crucial in guiding a meeting to make a decision or think of a solution without providing it. Our writer John A G Smith uses his experience to explain why learning Facilitation Skills is so much better than 'B.A. Ping Pong'?!

The Rules of B. A. Ping Pong

It’s a game that every Business Analyst has played. Many do not even have a name for it and, of those that do, it’s usually unrepeatable in polite company. I call it ‘B. A. Ping Pong’ … although maybe that should be ‘wiff waff’?

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

The rules are very simple and any Business Analyst can play. Here’s how it works:

Mary runs our popular Train the Trainer workshops in Brighton - ideal for anyone who wants to run successful courses as a freelancer or in-house. While real world experience is essential for a good trainer, you also need to know how to teach people - otherwise your delegates won't learn anything. In this post, Mary runs through some of her top tips for making a great first impression as a trainer.

Setting the right tone is crucial for keeping learners engaged and involved right from the start of a training course. Of course, it also helps to have good trainers - find out why trained trainers are better at training!

Pre-Course Information

Contact your learners before the course to introduce yourself and give them an idea of how the day/s will run, this should answer some common questions – Will it be casual dress? Do they need to prepare anything in advance? Do they have any questions? Do printouts need to be in larger type?

Give learners an idea of the atmosphere you are hoping to create – and what you hope they will get out of the training.

If you're going to attend our Wordpress Training course in Brighton, Sussex, we recommend that you download and familiarise yourself with FileZilla prior to attending. FileZilla is a free FTP client that we use on the course.

If you're not attending the Wordpress course but need to know how to use an FTP client to manage the local and remote files in your website, this guide to setting up FTP using FileZillawill be a useful reference guide.

Summer sun floods the warm room and dust motes dance in my blurring vision. The lunchtime ‘pie and a pint’ sit comfortably in my stomach and the final straw is the hypnotic buzzing noise encouraging my heavy eyelids to close and calling me to the comfort of the Land of Nod. Suddenly, sanity returns, my eyelids jerk open and my head snaps upright.

As I look around me, I see an almost universal appraisal of the lecturer in the form of drooping heads and, in at least two cases, total oblivion. And we all have an examination in this topic in just a few weeks!

The great shame of this all is that the guy at the front of the room is a world expert in his subject … but he’s the source of the buzzing. He’s written several renowned textbooks on the subject … we’re all well aware of this because it is almost a prerequisite of passing the course that every student buys them all. Surprisingly, this is not resented by my fellows because sitting for hours poring over the dry text is preferable to listening the esteemed professor reciting, almost word for word, what is on the page.

You could come and be entertained at Silicon Beach Training in Brighton on our Train the Trainer course, we practise what we preach.