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Are Project Management Standards Like PMP, PRINCE2, PMBOK, etc Worth the Paper they’re Written on?

April 9, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Certification, PMBOK, PMP, PRINCE2

Are Project Management Standards Like PMP, PRINCE2, PMBOK, etc Worth the Paper they’re Written on?
By Anand Sanwal

I’ve been watching the Boeing Dreamliner saga for the last many months and am amazed at how such a big project in terms of its scale, strategic importance, and financial implications can go so terribly of course. The delays hurt sales prospects and in the short term, they hurt share price performance as The Street’s skepticism of Boeing increases. It is 9 months late right now and most folks expect that Boeing will delay it further for a variety of technical and non-technical reasons. A brief perspective from TheStreet.com is given for those interested.

But alas, Boeing is not alone with its multi year project debacle. It is very common. Surprisingly and frighteningly common. R&D, product development, IT, infrastructure, etc projects are all prone to significant and often spectacular project failures. Failure is often on multiple dimensions with projects coming in over budget, under scope and over time.

And there are plenty of helpful tips out there on how to prevent project failure. Various books, websites, conferences, etc. And yet, all these tips and tricks and “best practices” make for interesting reading but still project failure continues at alarming rates. This results in a great business for consultants and other ecosystem players who profess to have expertise in project management disciplines.

But what is most unnerving or perhaps a better word is perplexing are the numerous project management certifications and practices that are out there - PMP, PMBOK, PRINCE2, etc. Here is why I’m perplexed, and I’d welcome comments from project managers out there or someone who can make sense of this.

  1. Why is there a need for so many different certifications? Can’t we agree on a single standard? Or are all of these basically saying the same thing but because certifying people is such a good business, multiple folks have jumped in to become certifiers?
  2. PRINCE2 was a project management discipline developed by a portion of the government. Would anyone argue that the government should be viewed as the authority on how to manage projects? I didn’t know the government does projects well especially multi-year ones? This seems to me a bit like asking an alcoholic to come up with a guide on staying sober - it makes no sense.
  3. But I shouldn’t pick on PRINCE2. Why are any of these certifications or practices coveted when projects still fail at such an alarming rate. When someone has a certification, I assume they now have the capability to do something in a way that someone without that certification could not do. You goto a doctor or lawyer because they can help you with your medical or legal issue. They may not know the answer precisely but in my experience, they’re usually pretty close. But I’m not sure project management can brag of such a success rate. I could probably find hundreds of people who can screw up a multi-year project without any certification at all. It isn’t that hard.

So what I’m not arguing is that project management is not useful. Please don’t send me hate mail as that is not my intention. Doing projects right is obviously important. What I am questioning, however, is the value of the standards that are established from these “accreditation bodies” if projects continue to fail as they do. The value seems marginal at best. A certification is only valuable if it helps you do the thing you are accredited to do better, right? Someone enlighten me if I’m way off the mark.

Anand Sanwal (www.anandsanwal.com) is the former Vice President, Investment Optimization and Strategic Business Analysis, at American Express where he was been responsible for building and managing the company’s corporate portfolio management discipline. American Express is widely recognized as having built and pioneered one of the most advanced and ambitious corporate portfolio management efforts amongst corporations of any size. In his role, he also oversaw the CFO’s strategic business analysis group and led the company’s $50MM Chairman’s Innovation Fund. He is currently a Managing Director at Brilliont (www.brilliont.com). He is the author of the book Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management: Aligning Investment Proposals with Organizational Strategy which features a foreword by the CFO of Citigroup, Gary Crittenden. He is a recognized thought leader on corporate portfolio management frequently speaking to and consulting with companies, governmental organizations and research organizations including the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable, CFO Executive Board, and Gartner amongst others. He can be reached at asanwal@brilliont.com.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 and is filed under Certification, PMBOK, PMP, PRINCE2. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 person has left a comment

There’s nothing wrong with certificates, bodies of knowledge and standard methodologies.

There’s a lot wrong in assuming that they are all the same type of thing, that they all fit all projects, or that having them is a substitute for thinking.

One project might find PRINCE2 to be exactly what it needs, whereas others will want to avoid it like the plague.

I’d expect a competent PM to know their way around a few of them (and yes we do need different ones, to account for differing national or domain cultures as much as anything else), but not to waste effort trying to collect the (non-existent) set.

Matt Whyndham wrote on May 9, 2008 - 3:22 am | Visit Link

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