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Is PMBOK Overkill?
September 19, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings
Is PMBOK Overkill?
By Barry Otterholt
The simple answer is yes, most of the time. But that’s only because it’s not applied right.
This question most often reflects lack of understanding about the PMBOK. PMBOK means a guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. The actual body of knowledge exists in all of us pratitioners. The PMBOK distills some of the more widely acknowledged best practices into a single reference point.
The PMBOK is not a methodology and doesn’t claim to be a “how to” management script. In the early pages, the authors state that the PMBOK “…does not mean the knowledge described should always be applied uniformly to all projects.” It’s a framework, full of tools and techniques that can be applied with more or less rigor to situations that arise throughout a project. They use the term “tailoring” to encourage you to fit the bounty of PMBOK tools and techniques to your particular circumstances.
So how can PMBOK possibly be overkill? Obviously it can’t, unless you don’t tailor it to your needs.
Here are some of the benefits I’ve found in using the PMBOK:
- It provides a common language so project managers from different projects or geographies can have productive conversations, and so newly formed teams can quickly become productive
- It provides both art (being resilient to human situations) and science (following set protocols) to your project.
- It provides a number of best practices that can be applied to common and uncommon situations
- It provides techniques to frame a problem, to make it solvable.
- It imposes a preventive bias, to avoid problems rather than react to them in a fire-fighting mode.
The more I get to know PMBOK the more I benefit from it. What I initially thought was just a dry reference book suitable only to the most abstract projects, I now realize is chocked full of useful material that pertains even to the smallest project …if you take the time to understand it and tailor it to your unique needs.
If you struggle getting your mind around the PMBOK, I’d suggest one of the many companion books that puts the PMBOK in more human and situational terms. Rita Mulcahy’s materials are among my favorites. Heldman and Verzuh are among my favorite authors on the subject.
Give PMBOK a chance. Don’t expect it to be your brains. View it as a project management tool belt. Pull out the right tool for the right situation.
Barry Otterholt, CMC, PMP
Barry Otterholt has been a project management specialist and coach for the past 30 years. He is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) and a Project Management Professional (PMP). He works with both public and private sector companies in the USA, Europe and Scandinavia. Mr. Otterholt was a Director with Microsoft, a senior consultant with Deloitte Consulting, and a COO with a nationwide consumer electronics enterprise. In 1988 he founded Public Knowledge, LLC to provide independent management and operational support to the public sector. More recently, he founded Stouffer & Company, LLC to provide as-needed project management services to fill an obvious skills gap in both private and public sectors.
Mr. Otterholt is an adjunct professor teaching project management at Northwest University. His essays on project management have been published in PMI newsletters. His runs a blog, Project Management Essays, where he muses about various project management topics.
Mr. Otterholt is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) and the Project Management Institute (PMI). He has a BA in Accounting and Computer Science and an MBA in Business Administration. He lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
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1 person has left a comment
Thank you for this blog. I agree with your perspective about using the PMBOK as a tool and reference point but that each project has its own uniqueness that requires the Project Manager to adapt best practices into what works to make the project run successfully. All to often, I think we can get wrapped up in processes that hinder progress vs. the intent of guiding the project along.