Far am I from sucked in by PMI’s marketing hype. In fact, I mostly use Prince2 these days, due to the industries and organizations I work with demanding it. To be honest, I’m not a methodology junkie, I am one of only 2 PMs in one of my places of work who juggle 30+ projects at any one time. We follow methodology where possible, though many times this is tailored (read: stripped down) to suit the project and our available time to allocate to it. We call it more your ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ type methodology many days!

That said, however, I am a believer that there should be methodology and that it is useful to know and understand project management and process. PMBOK is the largest as you say and there are many people starting out in project management or looking for qualification project management and it is useful for these people to be able to gain a recognized certification in a well known project management methodology as well as learn formal project management process.

My PMBOK Explained series is a high level overview for those wanting to find out what it’s about before making up their minds whether they really do want to wade through the big book!

Cheers, and thanks for posting! Love it – lots of character and flair in there – as well as the plug for your own business with an alternative methodology and courses related to it!

What planet are you living on? I have yet to see ANY credible studies indicating that major projects are “successful” by any stretch of the imagination. Have you read Standish Chaos Report? Or FMI’s series from the construction sector? http://www.fminet.com/market-sectors/owners. Or perhaps the most recent all time favorite- Glenn Butts scathing assessment of NASA. http://pmchallenge.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/2010/Presentations/Glenn.Butts%20-%20Mega%20Projects%20Estimates.pdf

And after what, close to 50 years of PMI and 25 years of the PMP? Gimme a BREAK!!! Seems to me like all you are doing is spouting PMI’s marketing hype and not taking a long hard critical look at the practice of project management and those organizations which purport to represent us a practitioners.

Suggest you start by tossing aside your PMBOK Guide and ordering a copy of Gary Humphrey’s Project Management Using Earned Value. While his linear approach doesn’t work so well for the IT sector, it is, IMPO, one of, if not THE best book ever written on APPLIED project management. https://humphreys-assoc.com/product_view.php?product_id=3 . It is what the PMBOK Guide SHOULD or COULD have been- a book that most of us can take out of the wrapper and have a REASONABLE chance of being able to set up and manage our projects well if we follow the step by step process. But at 900 double sized pages, it is not something that you want to carry around for long!!

Bottom line Karen…. PLEASE do not get sucked in by PMI’s marketing hype. Take off the rose colored glasses and start to make a real hard comparison between the ALTERNATIVES to PMI and I think you will agree that PMI, while certainly the LARGEST (not to mention RICHEST) not for profit professional organization, I think you too will come to learn there are many other alternatives, and many of them are far better than PMI.

BR,
Dr. PDG, Jakarta, Indonesia
http://www.build-project-management-competency.com