- Introduction
- Learning Objectives
- Why Are Projects Important?
- Who Are Project Managers?
- Project Management Roots
- Key Concepts of Project Management
- The PMBOK Guide?the Standard
- How to Use the PMBOK Guide
- Where the Activity Occurs
- Project Management Issues Not Addressed by the PMBOK Guide
- Emerging Issues Likely to Be Addressed in Future Editions
- Common Project Management Methodologies
- Summary
- Key Terms You Should Know
- Discussion Questions
- Exercises
- Final Points
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Emerging Issues Likely to Be Addressed in Future Editions
The PMBOK Guide is a standard rather than a methodology, and you shouldn’t expect to use it as a project management methodology. Rather, it presents a significant amount of the total sum of knowledge regarding the profession or discipline of project management. One of the irritants of professional project managers has and always has been the ability of others who are less trained, less knowledgeable, and less experienced to practice their profession. Given (and it does appear to be a given) that project management is practiced by people with widely different levels of skill, training, experience, and ability, some feel a possible improvement in future editions of the PMBOK Guide may be in more prescriptive methods and more standard tools. Some project managers long for a nearly de facto requirement for enterprises practicing program management to comply with or implement the PMBOK Guide, which is not appropriate in its current format.
It seems likely that it is in the best interest of the profession that all project managers—even the amateurs, accidental, and de facto project managers—practice project management in the best manner possible. There are a growing number of project managers who would like to see a “PMBOK-light” as an entry or introduction into (and possible pathway toward full immersion) the profession. Hopefully this text—and this series—can facilitate a broader understanding, acceptance, and utilization of the profession and the PMBOK Guide both at the individual and enterprise level.