Category: B690

I forgot to announce my completion of the Professional Certificate in Management.

In July this year I was awarded the Certificate, after completing B628, B629 and B690.

I loved the content of this course, especially management theory and marketing, both of which are highly relevant to me.

In terms of the finance content, I was already familiar with most of it, but it served as a useful refresher, and I was surprised to learn a few new things I had never heard of.

All in all, I would recommend this course to anyone looking for a formal management qualification that is recognised around the world.

I heard yesterday that I passed the B690 exam for the Professional Certificate in Management, and that I also passed B629 with a pretty decent mark for my EMA. This means I have now completed and passed all necessary components to be awarded the internationally recognised Professional Certificate in Management.

Apparently, I’m going to receive the award in July this year. I’m not sure what form that will take, but I suspect it will just be an email confirming I have it!

Anyway, all the hard work on activities, TMAs, EMAs, day schools, the residential school, and the exam were worth it. 🙂

It seems a long time since I received the case study for my B690 exam, even though it was only two weeks ago. I feel as if I’ve been preparing for so long.

Finally the day came around! Today was the exam day for B690.

I didn’t find the exam too difficult. In fact, the hardest part was writing by hand non-stop for almost three hours.

Also, my lucky pen ran out half way through! I couldn’t believe it after all the warnings I’d received about this happening. Fortunately I had a couple of spares to fall back on. 🙂

So that’s it. The end of the Professional Certificate in Management. Now it’s the long wait for the results.

Last weekend I attended by first ever OU residential school – for B690 as part of gaining my Professional Certificate in Management.

I was apprehensive, wondering what it was going to be like, whether I would enjoy it, or whether it would be like an Apprentice-style free-for-all with everyone aggressively shouting over each other.

I’m happy to say the experience exceeded my expectations in every way, and I thoroughly enjoyed the school. Everyone was civilised (except those who spent too long at the bar in the evenings!), and there was no gung-ho competitive behaviour at all. The weekend was very much about teamwork.

The rooms at the Manchester MacDonald hotel were great too. I was very impressed with the huge window that offered me a spectacular view across the city.

None of my future planned courses involve residential schools, and I’m a little bit sorry about that. I would love to do something similar again.

Well, I’ve done TMA02, and am now just five weeks away from completing my studies for B629 (on schedule). Another week or two after that, I’ll have completed the EMA and finished the course. Sadly, this learning diary (still stuck at week four) is obviously hopelessly behind, due mainly to the workload and my own crazy professional work schedule.

I’m also progressing through B690 (easy so far), with the third case study beginning to float around my brain, and the day school and exam for the Professional Certificate in Management looming in March and April.

I am now certain there isn’t any point in me maintaining a learning diary to support my studies, so I’m not sure whether or not I will carry on with this blog. I’d like to, but I now recognise that for me personally, there is no benefit in keeping a diary of what I have learnt. It doesn’t add value.

However, one idea I have is to change this blog into a notebook of the most profound things I have learnt from my OU studies in management so far, and perhaps keep it running that way as I continue onto other courses. Such an approach would allow me to keep the blog running, keep things fresh in my brain (very useful for exam revision), and also give me a kind of creed by which I can live my life as a manager.

When the study weeks have completed for B629 and the weekly activities are all done, I think I’ll have a lot more time for a month or two, which will give me a good opportunity to try this idea out while I revise for the exam.