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May/June 2005

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PMBOK Guide, Third Edition – Is more really better
A Review by R. Max Wideman – Part 2

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition, is copyright by the Project Management Institute, PA, USA, 2004. It has been distributed on a CD free of charge to members of the Institute

In Part 1 of this review we took a general look at the Institute's latest A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition, highlighting the good points but also drawing attention to some serious Missed Opportunities. In this Part 2 of our review we look at Sections I and II of the Guide in more detail, examining both What We Liked and the Downside.

Section I - The Project Management Framework

What We Liked

In Chapter 1 it states:

"Uniqueness is an important characteristic of project deliverables. For example, many thousands of office buildings have been developed, but each individual facility is unique - different owner, different design, different location, different contractors, and so on. The presence of repetitive elements does not change the fundamental uniqueness of the project work."

Well almost. We would go further and argue that even if the buildings were otherwise identical, as in the case of standard homes in a housing estate development for example, each home could still be run as a project. Each would still be unique not by virtue of the deliverable itself but by virtue of its time, place and most likely its workforce. There is some confusion here between the "deliverable" as a "product", and the work that goes into creating the product. The work is transient but the product is permanent! We'll have more to say on this when we get to Section III, chapter 5.

"The project manager should also examine the organizational culture and determine whether project management is recognized as a valid role with accountability and authority for managing the project"

Good point, but what does s/he do upon discovering that it isn't?

Good lists of general management knowledge and interpersonal skills, potentially required by project team members, have been added to section 1.5. Portfolios, portfolio management and project management office (PMO) get passing mention in sections 1.6 and 3.2. However, the Guide makes it clear that it focuses on the case of a single project. Still, the Guide provides a good list of some of the key features of a PMO.

Chapter 2, Project Life Cycle and Organization, is an improvement over its 2000 predecessor. It explains that:

It also illustrates that a project life cycle commences with an "Initial Phase" and ends with a "Final Phase". This observation is not as inconsequential as it might seem, as we shall see later.

Downside

While the Guide's new sections on "project life cycle" are an improvement over the 2000 Guide, if any section deserved its own unique "Section", such as that accorded to the project management process groups, it is this one. As we said earlier, a well-formulated project life span, with appropriate "gates" between the major phases, is the vehicle for the sponsor or the executive management of the performing organization to exercise proper control over the whole project management process. Many project failures can be directly attributed to a lack of a sound PLS process. As one reviewer suggested "the Guide has become more systems-based [at the team level] and less executive oriented. I'm concerned that it reinforces bureaucracy over management and excellence of decision-making."

Also, the Guide suggests that many projects take place in a single phase. Every knowledge area chapter states categorically in a standard paragraph: "Each process [of the knowledge area] occurs at least once in every project and occurs in one or more project phases, if the project is divided into phases." (Emphasis added). Does this suggest a very limited view of project management, perhaps an obsolete one that real projects only exist once they get to "execution"? If so, this overlooks the importance of project management from the perspective of corporate management, to say nothing of the importance these days of project portfolio management. As one reviewer observed "The whole area of justifying, optimizing and initiating a project and its overall management and team are inferable as largely somebody else's job."

Probably for the same reason, the Guide fails to mention the "Business Case", which should be corporate management's justification to proceed to a "Concept Phase" where an idea can be developed with broad parameters for proceeding to definition and planning. The guide does discuss the "Project Charter", defined as a document issued to formally recognize the existence of a project and authorize the use of resources. However, this document when presented in considerable detail is more appropriately applied to the release of the project for its execution phases.

Failure to recognize these natural and logical steps in the PLS is another reason for frequent project failure, or at least under-performance, in terms of maximizing product benefits. There are, alas, many instances where the project management was exemplary but the product was, nevertheless, an abject failure.

In passing, in the Organizational Structure section of Chapter 2, the chart titled "Organizational Structure Influences on Projects", which has been around for many years, has been significantly revised. It was probably a good idea to remove the old percentages shown against "Percent of Performing Organization's Personnel Assigned Full Time to Project Work". But this row has been relabeled "Resource Availability", and the row in the old chart labeled Common Titles for Project Manager's Role has been removed. The net result is that the chart no longer makes sense.

So, now in the functional column of the new chart we have the prospect of a project manager working part-time with little or no authority, no control over the project budget and little or no resource availability. But he or she does have part-time project management administrative staff. As a personal comment, as an aspiring project coordinator/leader in a functional organization under the old chart, I might well have been happy to work part-time on a project with support people. That is even though virtually none of them worked full-time and I had little or no authority.

However, under the new chart I don't think I would be at all happy about working as a project manager in the functional organization with little or no resource availability and little if any authority. It would be of little consequence whether I worked on the project part-time or full-time, I would be inclined to hand over the work to the part-time project administrative staff and let them get on with it.

Section II - The Standard for Project Management of a Project

This section consists of a single chapter, Chapter 3: Project Management Processes for a Project.

What We Liked

The problem with this Section is that we could not find anything that we did like. Worse, the cover page is largely titled as "The Standard for Project Management of a Project". From this we must conclude that, as the official Institute standard, this section becomes the be-all and end-all of project management.

Downside

As we indicated earlier (under Missed Opportunities) the problem starts with the labeling of the five project management process groups, a problem that first surfaced in the 1996 version of the Guide. The groups in question are designated in order as Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing. Monitoring and controlling project activities is a perfectly legitimate repetitive management activity no different from that of operational management.

Henri Fayol first described it in his classic description of management back in 1916. He said "To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control." Except that the key element of forecasting is missing, this is not far from the Guide's own description: "General management encompasses planning, organizing, staffing, executing, and controlling the operations of an ongoing enterprise."

The problem is that the Guide defines "Initiating (Processes)" as "Those processes performed to authorize and define the scope of a new phase or project ..." and "Those processes" included "Develop Project Charter" and "Develop Preliminary Project Scope Statement". It defines "Closing (Processes)" as "Those processes performed to formally terminate all activities of a project or phase, and transfer the completed product to others ..." Consequently, these two labels and descriptions look exactly like the first and last phases of a complete project life span as illustrated in Figure 2-1 of the Guide. So why wouldn't people jump to the conclusion that the Process Groups represent the project life span? Indeed, it has been taken to be exactly that, not just by many students, but also by many trainers and authors presenting the project management body of knowledge in their books and training programs.

However, the 2004 Guide does state categorically: "The Process Groups are not project phases."

But then again it presents a diagram of data flow showing all five processes in a sequence that starts with "Human resources pool" as an initial input and "Final product, service, result" as the final output to the customer. Clearly that spans the project life span so one might well presume that the steps in between are the equivalent of intermediate phases. That obviously reinforces the misconception that these processes are the logical sequence in a project's life span and hence represents its phases rather than management's controlling process groups. The fact that there are also arrows going in all directions up the sides and a "Note" that says "Not all interactions and data flow among the Process Groups are shown" hardly clarifies this misconception. Indeed, there are a number of other places in the Guide where this misconception is reinforced.

The above diagram is preceded by an interesting graphic that tries to display the cyclic nature of the intent and its correspondence with Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act quality management cycle. If the Guide's descriptions are to be taken as presented, then one concludes that initiating and closing are a part of every cycle. Indeed, this is formally recognized in the bottom row of an illustration entitled "Project Management Process Group Triangle. We question whether this really makes sense in practical project management?

A further illustration attempts to put the process groups into perspective relative to the "Project Boundaries" This shows Project Inputs at the project's beginning timeline boundary, the planning and executing processes cycling in the middle, and the closing boundary at the project's ending timeline boundary. What could be clearer than that to demonstrate that "Initiating" and "Closing" are synonymous with the first and last phases of the project life span?

True that the Guide is careful to point out:

"This does not mean that the knowledge, skills and processes described should always be applied uniformly on all projects. The project manager, in collaboration with the project team, is always responsible for determining what processes are appropriate, and the appropriate degree of rigor for each process, for any given project."

However, the unfortunate reality is that general management, upon seeing this promoted by PMI as the "Standard for Project Management of a Project", will insist upon it being standard for every project. This when we think the real question should be: "Should it be applied like this on any project?"

In any case, it is questionable whether the selection of processes and degree of rigor should be left to the project manager and the project team. This flies in the face of the requirements of project portfolio management, where a degree of uniformity across projects is essential for the proper selection and supervision of projects in a portfolio.

The bottom line of all of this is that the primary focus of corporate management, and their portfolio and program managers, should be on the careful design of the project life span as the overarching external control vehicle. And the Institute should adopt Deming's much simpler plan-do-check-act labels for the proper and legitimate internal project management monitor-and-control cycle.

An Aside

In any philosophical discussion of how to manage a project it is important to draw a distinction between managing the project management components and managing the technology of the project. We believe that it is possible to articulate "knowledge and practices" that "are applicable to most projects, most of the time" provided that these "knowledge and practices" are limited to the project management subject domain. The observation is not true, however, in the domain of technology management where the management of the technology is very different from area of application to area of application, and industry to industry.

One may view project technology complexity on a scale from traditional to high-tech, say, from construction to research and development. In construction it is good practice to plan from end to end. At the high-tech end it is good strategy to proceed through a series of iterations of which there may be several within a phase, or a single iteration may represent a complete phase. Since IT tends to be near the high-tech end, it is quite appropriate to approach the management of this technology in a whole series of iterations, each adding an increment of functionality.

But even in construction the concept of "iteration" is not unknown, except that it is called a mock-up, prototype or test section for the purpose of validating and verifying design details. Nevertheless, we think it quite possible that, in the 2004 Guide, the appropriate approach to IT management in particular is being inappropriately applied to project management in general.

To be continued ...

In Part 3 of this review we will look in more detail at Section III of the Guide.

R. Max Wideman
Fellow, PMI

About the Author:

Max Wideman is an engineer and professional project manager with experience in systems, social and environmental projects, as well as design and engineering projects. He is a Fellow of the Project Management Institute, of which he is past president and chairman, and for whom he developed the 1987 version of the Project Management Body of Knowledge. He is also a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK), the Engineering Institute of Canada, and the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering. His web site is at http://www.maxwideman.com

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Too Much of a Good Thing? Trends in PMP Growth and the Questions They Raise.

Having recently attended PMI’s Asian Congress in Singapore, even the most conservative projections for the demand for Project Managers is mind boggling- 600,000 in China alone, 6-10 million globally….. The numbers are almost unbelievable. Unfortunately, despite these rosy projections in support of our chosen occupation, there are early warning signs that we may all be in for some turbulent times ahead.

One of the arguments in favor of “occupational licensing” revolves around the fact that as more and more people enter the market, the laws of supply and demand go into force, causing the prices to drop. As the prices drop, the most talented and capable providers of these products and services drop out of the marketplace, seeking better avenues to apply their skills and knowledge. In the end, so goes the argument for occupational licensing, the occupation becomes commoditized, resulting in low or no growth, and little or no innovation. Thus the call for “licensing” to artificially keep the numbers of practitioners low compared against the demand, enabling those who remain to charge higher prices for their services, with the implicit requirement that they give something back to the profession by way of increasing the knowledge base in return for their protected status.

The purpose of this article is to explore whether we are approaching that point in Project Management, and if so, what, if anything, should be done about it? And if yes, by whom?

Let me start with the facts. For this research, I am using the figures provide to me by the Project Management Institute, noting that other professional organizations all have similar credentialing models. And while the numbers will almost surely vary, the same principles and questions apply to them as well.

First, let us look at the actual and projected growth of the PMP certification.

While PMI is reiterating an estimated need for 600,000 PMP’s in China alone, the question becomes, what happens to the market value of the PMP as we add more PMP’s? And with the majority of new PMP’s coming from the developing nations, especially given the trend to outsourcing, what pressures will that put on the salaries of those from the developed nations who hold their PMP? We need to be looking for these “break points” to ensure that we are not overcome by our own success.

Secondly, let’s look at the growth of the Registered Education Providers (REP’s)

Note that while PMI tightened the requirements for renewal as an REP in 2004, causing nearly 200 REP’s to drop out of the program, according to PMI there are between 5-6 new REP’s being admitted per month. However, to be consistent, I applied the same linear regression model to both PMP and REP growth.

Lastly, let’s take a look at the business model numbers. Below are the average numbers of PMP’s per REP (Total Number of PMP’s / Total Number of REP’s)

While clearly not all REP’s are “average”, for the purposes of this example, let’s assume it costs approximately $1,500 to qualify annually as an REP (Fees to PMI plus in house administrative overhead).

Let’s also assume that the average selling price/value for the required 35 hour PMP Prep Training is $1,000 USD, and that the Earnings After Taxes (EAT) is 6% or $60. This means each individual trained adds $60 net worth to the value of the organization, while requiring an investment of $15 for the “accreditation” process of obtaining and maintaining the REP credential on an annual basis. (Assuming an average of 100 PMP’s per REP are trained annually and the average cost of the REP credential is $1,500 per year.)

While the numbers certainly make the REP appear on the surface to be a worthwhile investment, (($60-$15)/$15=300% ROI) the first question becomes whether or not the “added value” is directly a result of having the REP or is it a result of some other factor or combination of factors that have nothing to do with being an REP. (Note that PMI does NOT require that anyone take the required 35 hours of training from an REP.) A related question revolves around the question of whether it is appropriate and ethical if not illegal for “not-for-profit” organizations to be competing against “for profit” organizations in the same marketplace offering the same or similar services. There seems to be a clear conflict of interest that has never been transparently addressed.

The next question revolves around the concept that, with the with the proliferation of PMP’s, the market value of the PMP is likely to drop, and, as the supply of REP’s increases, the resulting pressure on the cost of obtaining one’s PMP is also likely to drop. This phenomenon is known as “commoditization” and is a classic indicator of a mature market. The question becomes will the commoditization of project management training start to drive out he “best and brightest” to other sources of income to the detriment of the bodies of knowledge? This is a real issue that all professional organizations should be aware of, and addressing in their strategy.

While the demand for project management related training remains strong, there are clear indications that the peak is drawing close. While year on year sales have increased, the rate of this increase is clearly dropping off. Furthermore, the level of effort required to make the next sale has doubled, with more competitors entering the marketplace. This is resulting in an inevitable downward pressure on prices, which in turn will eventually drive out the “best and brightest” practitioners.

Another example (addressed in a previous editorial article in PM World Today) revolves around the proliferation of books designed to pass the exam, with little or no regard for actually developing professional competencies in the field. When the credential itself becomes more valuable than the demonstrated competency of the practitioner holding that credential, we might infer an early warning sign of something going wrong.

What, if anything, can or should be done about it? As research has proven that occupational licensing has generally not benefited consumers, licensing of Project Managers and/or the trainers of Project Managers is probably not desirable.
How then to ensure the quality of the training and the quality of the practitioner increases? One suggestion would be to raise the bar for certification. Recent research is proving that to be considered a “professional”, requires at minimum a 4 year degree, along with between a 2-4 year “internship” or “apprenticeship”.

Following the lead of the Realtors or Professional Engineers, one suggestion might be to require that before anyone can become and REP (or for that matter, a PMP) that they serve a 2 year apprenticeship or internship working for an existing REP or PMP? This model is also consistent with the PE (Professional Engineers) which requires that not only does a potential Engineer take an exam (Engineer in Training or EIT) but that he/she also works for a period of 3-7 years under the direct supervision of a licensed Professional Engineer, who is required to mentor the Engineer In Training (EIT) and sign off on his/her capabilities at the end of the internship.

The bottom line remains - PMI and the PMP may well be victims of their own success, unless steps are initiated soon to avoid the commoditization of the credential and the fractionalization of practitioners as the inevitable “turf wars” begin (following a similar life cycle of the Architects, Engineers and Constructors).

Paul Giammalvo photo Paul D. Giammalvo, CDT, PMP, CCE, MScPM, is Director of the ASEAN Project Manager's Center of Excellence, Inc. (APMX) For over 12 years, he has been provided Project Management training and consulting throughout SE Asia. He is active in the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International, (AACE); Construction Specifications Institute (CSI); Construction Management Association of America, (CMAA) and serves on the Global Project Management Forum Steering Committee. Email Paul G. Giammalvo or visit Paul's Website

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On science.gov PM Alerts

"The science.gov web site is a collection of US government scientific and technical web sites. That is, more than 20 authoritative science web sites of the US government".

This science.gov service has access to more than 30 databases that constitute a significant resource hidden from major search engines.This "deep Web search" is made available through US Office of Scientific and Technical Information Service (OSTI). It provides a PM search query to scientific databases (the site deep Web), where traditional search engines cannot go. The nice thing is this information is free, with no registration.

At first I thought that this "scientific Web service" would have little relevance to the world of project management. I was wrong. For example, a basic (topic) search of "project management" on the science.gov scientific sites revealed a huge archive of relevant PM documents.

The next "drill down" was an arbitrary selection of "Astronomy and Space" that narrowed the search to the following databases:

I selected the NTRS and reviewed a significant project management document listing. I read the "Information Management for a Large Multidisciplinary Project" and some of the earlier Risk Management reports which fitted in with my early background in major international project management.

As I selected my first report I got a pop up that said my Adobe Reader was out of date and did I want to update to the most recent version. OK by me and the newest Adobe Reader was downloaded. With some manual prompts it was installed and my original pdf was automatically loaded for reading.

The available technical features are:

The default search is QuickRank Search which provides results in relevancy clusters.

The Advanced Search is impressive with selected databases of more than 12 US Federal Agencies.All of this is great for a one time search but the really useful aspect is the PM information trap capability provided by an "Alert Service".

The Alert Service eliminates a regular visit to the science.gov web site. This is installed through a weekly personal email service that lists recent documents that have a project management keyword or phase.

For example, I listed my personal "Alerts" as project management, systems engineering management and risk management. This acted as a flag for science.gov to email me when new resources, relevant to these keywords, are posted to the databases of ALL the scientific web sites.

The selection of ALL the scientific web sites was a big mistake. The issue is that much work is done in medicine and other scientific science.gov organizations that, for example, can be classified under risk management. A US Institute looking at technology in education estimates that every day, 7,000 scientific and technical articles are published and every two or three years the general knowledge base doubles. Accordingly, you must be selective in your choice of databases or you will get hundreds of documents that are interesting but not focused on project management.

The "Alerts" is an automatic feed PM information trap that provides a project management document update directly to my inbasket. The really neat thing about this science.gov Alerts is the summary of Alerts (on site) that records the Alert Name and lists the Alerts that I have received over the past weeks as personal information Alerts. A table of past Alerts provides an Alert Name link that allows viewing of my search strategy where I can delete and add Alerts. The link to the number of alerts under each date/time stamp provides me heads-up of the Alerts for that week for more leisurely review.

Science.gov is advertised as " a gateway to selected science information provided by the U.S. Government".It is a significant window on R&D Projects and management of scientific projects with many practical lessons learned for the project management mainstream. In particular the range of NASA sites makes a huge PM archive available to practitioners.

Many of these NASA "lessons learned" documents can be mapped onto other research and engineering systems project management practices.science.gov is relevant to all PM practitioners especially those close to R&D and high technology.

The selected science Web sites are involved in project management practices that are made available "to science professionals, students and teachers and the business community." This Web resource is concerned with best project management practices and documentation of scientific/project resources.

Note 1 - For more on PM Alerts and information traps read the PM Weblog PMCOMMUNICATIONS.INFO

Note 2 - About RSS - RSS is a technology that allows the PMFORUM Web Site Publisher to make content available through a "feed" that users can subscribe to receive content. Users then view the feed with the help of an RSS reader.

Note 3 - The orange XML button. You may note an orange button like this XML posted to a web page. The XML button is the standard indicator that a site has an RSS feed available. In this case it is the RSS feed for the PMCOMMUNICATIONS.INFO Blog. This is also true for most of the Web PM Blogs of the PMFORUM. Simply select the URL given by the orange button and copy it into the field of your RSS reader ( browser?) which allows you to add "syndicated feeds" Some RSS capable agents ( latest browsers or an RSS Reader plug in like allow Pluck) you to drag and drop XML button URLs into the reader to subscribe.

Copyright PMSEARCH.INFO David H. Curling 2005

David Curling is the Author of the PM Weblog PMCOMMUNICATIONS.INFO a personal journey of discovery for effective project management Internet information retrieval and communications. David has particular expertise in the management of major international projects.

David Curling is the Author of the PM Weblog PMCOMMUNICATIONS.INFO a personal journey of discovery for effective project management Internet information retrieval and communications. David has particular expertise in the management of major international projects.


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PRESS RELEASES: READING BETWEEN THE LINES

Since assuming responsibility for PM World Today earlier this year, I have discovered a new hobby: interpreting press releases.

Producing a publication like PM World Today is a continual process of gathering, evaluating, and in many cases, discarding information. And one of the key sources of oft-discarded information is press releases. Press releases serve an important function, of course. They serve as a key communication mechanism between people who create news and those that report it, and they provide a vast menu of information editors need to pursue reportable news. On the other hand, press releases are almost invariably positive, written to promote the organization the author represents. After just a few days on the job, I learned to start reading between the lines.

For example, when a company announces it is “re-releasing a product to address overwhelming demand”, it probably means the product it is not selling well but hopefully a press release will generate some renewed interest. And when a company asserts it is a “leading provider of a particular service”, it probably means it provides a very narrowly defined product serving a tiny niche market.

One refreshing exception to this practice is provided by NASA. NASA’s press releases are routinely brutally honest. For example, a recent press release described the activities of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station: “(Commander Sergei) Krikalev replaced a liquid processing component of the Russian Elektron oxygen generation system yesterday. It failed almost immediately…” Now a press release like this is not only obviously honest, it provides great reassurance to those of us who are firmly attached to the Earth and trying to keep cars, refrigerators, washing machines, and sundry other mechanical devices operating effectively. I will certainly think of Commander Krikalev the next time I am trying to dry my basement because the sump pump failed.

It seems NASA also has no better luck with computers than the average project manager. Another press release reports Flight Engineer John Phillips' problems with the laptop computers aboard the Space Station: “He refreshed a Portable Computer System (PCS) laptop by deleting and then reloading information on the hard drive, which recovered its corrupted hard drive to serve as a backup…Phillips also worked with three Station Support Computers (SSCs) that were experiencing problems booting up. After the troubleshooting, two of the computers turned on, but the screens remained blank.” Sounds painfully familiar! He has my sympathy! At least there was one piece of good news: “There are enough operating computers onboard for the crew to access e-mail, perform word processing and view the daily schedule of activities.” The crew apparently has no excuse for not responding to those ubiquitous requests for project updates from the project managers in Houston and Star City.

There was one recent NASA press release that needed a little interpretation, however. It reported the treadmill had stopped working. This is apparently of major concern because astronauts are required to exercise for 2.5 hours a day. Yes, 2.5 hours a day! I believe in regular exercise, but 2.5 hours a day? I do not believe there is anything wrong with the treadmill. I would be reporting it was broken too. What else are they going to say? I cannot go for a run today because it is raining?

Hugh Woodward is the President and Managing Editor of pmforum.org, and an internationally recognized leader of the project management profession. He served two terms as Chair of the Project Management Institute and almost six years as a member of PMI's Board of Directors. His professional experience includes projects and programs in manufacturing, construction and IT, and involving both the public and private sectors. He continues to promote the profession as a frequent conference speaker, having addressed audiences in Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, France, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

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