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Whine and Bear - the new PMBOK Guide is coming!

March 16, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: PMBOK

Whine and Bear - the new PMBOK Guide is coming!
By Rich Maltzman, PMP

The context is the book that - like it or not - is the defining guide - the standard - for our profession. I refer of course, to PMI’s PMBOK(R) Guide - officially, “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge”.

Whine

I have sometimes heard PMs [and this definitely includes myself and other PMP-credentialed project managers] whine about the standard. One of my complaints, for example, has been that it has the opportunity to be very specific and precendent-setting, but instead is very vague and general when it comes, for example, to setting a standard scale for risk impact.

Bear

Others just grin and bear with it. They don’t whine, but they ignore or keep their complaints inside.
I did both of these things. I whined. I beared (or is that bore….bored…whatever) with it. But then I actually signed up to be one of the many volunteer editors. I worked pretty hard on a couple of chapters, and many of my changes actually got in. So - frankly - I have less drinking to do this time around, because I got some of my ideas into this Edition.

Cheers!

Didn’t get to be an editor? Think your chance to have an effect on the PMBOK Guide is done? Well, cheer up! The exposure draft (yet another reference to a beverage) of the 4th Edition has been made available, giving you the chance to contribute to the PMBOK Guide. Until 22-March, 2008, you have the chance, PMI member or not, to go to the following site: http://www.pmi.org/Resources/Pages/Exposure-Drafts.aspx to view and, yes, propose changes to the document. You can drink in (okay, enough already) what’s in the 4th Edition, scheduled for release at the end of 2008.
I suggest that if you have been whining, or just bearing with the previous editions, you can take this opportunity to comment. You can go to a particular section, so if you have a pet peeve about Project Risk Management, you can go directly to Chapter 11 (the part of the book, not bankrupcy, that is) and edit away at your area of concern. So, go for the gusto! Speak your piece! Or forever hold your palate!

Rich Maltzman, PMP, has 30 years of industry experience, the last 20 of which have been in project management. Currently a Senior Manager for a large multinational corporation’s Global PMO, Rich has also been developing and delivering project management courseware and PMP prep packages for Boston University’s Corporate Education Center and mScholar. In addition, he and co-author Ranjit Biswas, PMP, are the lead authors, along with all of you out there, of the book, Fiddler on the Project, to be published in 2008, via its crowdsourced wiki site, http://fiddlerontheproject.bluwiki.org. You are invited to write it with them. You can also visit Rich’s blog at www.scopecrepe.blogspot.com.

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