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PMBOK for Breakfast!


    Let's say some good things about the PMBOK
  • It's a standard - PMI has put a stake in the sand and attempted to define the best practices of Project Management
  • It's prescriptive rather than descriptive - It tells you the way things ought to be, not the way things are
  • It's very broad - You can apply it to many different kinds of projects
  • It's a work in progress - A new edition is slated for 2008
  • It is a Guide - the real territory of the PMBOK stretches for miles beyond the confines of the standards manual.
  • If you don't like it change it - The PMBOK-revision project is happy to accept volunteers and reviews
 
    So what's everyone complaining about?
  • The PMBOK is focused on very large, multi-year, cast-of-hundred projects - so throw out the parts you don't need.   It says specifically
  • The Real World is messy and doesn't happen with the orderliness the PMBOK recommends - Maybe so, but shouldn't you strive for that order and discipline. It's called Professionalism.
  • You'd have to be a real boy scout to follow tie PMBOK's code of ethics and professional conduct - And why not?   Would you want to come home and brag to your family around the dinner table about how you really inflated your estimates to the boss or how the developers have a totally impossible schedule and your job is to flog them into submission?
  • The Boss doesn't care about doing it the PMBOK way; she just wants it done. - PMI is a very political organization dedicated to helping Senior Management understand the value of following best practices.   You are perfectly free to participate in this "selling up" the benefits of doing it right.
 

    Our Position

    The PMBOK is like the rules of basketball.   You don't have to know the rules to play a good street game.   But as the stakes get higher, as the organization gets bigger, and as you work your way into the pro Leagues, you'd better know what the rules are and how to play by them.

    All our courses are compliant in both language and character with the PMBOK 3 rd edition (2004).

    Good practice does not mean that the knowledge described should always be applied uniformly on all projects; the project management team is responsible for determining what is appropriate for any given project.

    A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (Third Edition), Project Management Institute, 2004, p. 3


Copyright 2005 The Project Group, LLC