PMBOK Guide 7th Disaster Waiting to Happen?

Very interesting discussion around the changes with the new update to PMBOK7. Sorry in advance for my rather long post.

It is quite right that what PMI has publicly exposed is only The Standard for Project Management. The actual PMBOK® Guide itself will not be fully exposed for public comment. Though The Standard for Project Management is the first three chapters of the Guide.

This is what makes the Standard a deficient standard – it is NOT written as a standard but more as a summary textbook. This is also bringing back one of the big deficiencies the PMBOK® Guide struggled with since the Third Edition was adopted as an approved ANSI standard. The Standard was chapter 3 of the Guide, not the entire PMBOK® Guide. PMI struggled through each of the updates to get the message across that the Guide was NOT the Standard. Finally, with the Sixth Edition update, The Standard for Project Management was packaged as a standalone document (the cover of the PMBOK® Guide no longer carried the ANSI standard logo, it was on the cover for the Standard). With the Seventh Edition update, I fear we will be back to people believing the entire PMBOK® Guide is the Standard.

As a standard, what PMI exposed for public comment with the Seventh Edition falls way short.
• It is just general discussion.
• It introduces a value delivery model but leaves anything around how one could assess whether your project is in alignment with this model.
• It introduces 12 so called Project Management Principles that are more like general management value statements and takes over half of the document to discuss these principles. If these are truly the fundamental principles of project management, why does it take 17 pages to list them? If you need to have 17 pages of text to understand and recognize these principles, are they really principles?
• Again, there is no discussion around how one could assess whether your project is in alignment with these principles.
• There is no real discussion on other key project management concerns, e.g., life cycles, constraints, etc.

As for the PMBOK® Guide itself, the changes are just as dramatic. As pointed out in the video posted by Phil and referenced by Luis, the entire structure of the Guide will change. As already stated, the first three chapters will be what is exposed as the Standard. While these first three chapters do not make a good standard, they could serve as introductory chapters to the Guide. The rest of the Guide is to be broken down into three additional chapters:
• Performance Domains – listing 8 broad areas of focus for project delivery, which include complementary areas of activities and functions. These are not directly tied to the previous Knowledge Areas but rather focus on these complementary areas of activities
• Tailoring – an entire chapter discussing importance of and general approach for tailoring specific approaches and methods for managing a project
• Models, Methods, and Artifacts – a final chapter discussing various management thinking models as well as discussion on various methods and artifacts that can contribute to effective project management

Thus, as Phil points out in his YouTube video, the entire structure of the PMBOK® Guide is radically changing. Only time will tell whether these changes will be accepted by the project management community.

What can be said right now, as evidenced by discussion threads such as this one, PMI’s change management efforts for this level of change is falling way short. The project management community, especially the PMI member community, should be much better informed about the changes coming, the justification for the changes including the vetting and validation for these changes, and how they can be more engaged in reviewing and responding to the changes.

As a minimum, I encourage PMI to rethink their decision to not send the entire PMBOK® Guide through a full public exposure draft process so they can get direct feedback from the broader project management community. This is the only way to obtain direct feedback from the broader community prior to publishing the Guide.

I viewed the YouTube. As a "Public Exposure contributor" to the Third and Fifth Editions, I also contributed to the Seventh Edition's public exposure process. I have two major concerns:
1st - I question the POLICY decision to only release the 'Standard' (old and discarded content starts on page 541 in the 6th Ed.) but not release" 1-Preface and 2-Chapters 3-13 (now going to the "Standards Plus Digital Content Platform".
2nd - I question the validity of the final edits based on the feedback to my comments. 17 of my recommendations (for improvements) resulted in 211 lines (14% of the document) being "eliminated" (PMI's term) and replaced with undisclosed content including a new figure!
I have officially requested a Second Public Exposure cycle.

Dave thanks for the straight talk. Jim

I had a very similar experience - most of my comments were responded with "content was eliminated" or "content was rewritten based on multiple comments" with no additional details as to the new text introduced.
I was on the other side in the past, review and Core Team, and I remember having to include the new text in the response... I guess rules have relaxed in the meantime...

Hello again,

Over the last weeks/months there were a lot of unfavorable comments (to be polite) about the new PMBOK Guide - but nobody "up there" seems to be paying attention. And now, with the bigger worldwide issues related to COVIT-19, this seems to be completely swept under the rug.

However, the pandemic will pass sometime, and we'll be left in hand with a PMBOK that received over 5000 comments for 27 pages of text - how can this text have consensus? To not even mention that most comments were responded with "text was eliminated" - so what's going to be left, couple of pages to represent "the standard for project management"?

There is no second exposure for "the standard" to ensure that the remaining text has consensus, there is no exposure for the Guide itself - which is the most of the document. How can this be claimed to represent the collective knowledge and expertise of the project management community?

I'm hearing about a number of people fed up with an ineffective process that plan to send letters directly to the Board of Directors members - at the end of the day, they are our representatives and the highest governance authority, so whom better to listen to our concerns.

I plan to join the chorus and send a letter myself - and I encourage every one that has something to say on this essential issue for PMI community to do the same (maybe if they receive enough letters they will take action).

If you want to join the movement, the BOD email addresses are listed at https://www.pmi.org/about/leadership-gover...d-of-directors.

Good luck to us all!

Hello again,

Over the last weeks/months there were a lot of unfavorable comments (to be polite) about the new PMBOK Guide - but nobody "up there" seems to be paying attention. And now, with the bigger worldwide issues related to COVIT-19, this seems to be completely swept under the rug.

However, the pandemic will pass sometime, and we'll be left in hand with a PMBOK that received over 5000 comments for 27 pages of text - how can this text have consensus? To not even mention that most comments were responded with "text was eliminated" - so what's going to be left, couple of pages to represent "the standard for project management"?

There is no second exposure for "the standard" to ensure that the remaining text has consensus, there is no exposure for the Guide itself - which is the most of the document. How can this be claimed to represent the collective knowledge and expertise of the project management community?

I'm hearing about a number of people fed up with an ineffective process that plan to send letters directly to the Board of Directors members - at the end of the day, they are our representatives and the highest governance authority, so whom better to listen to our concerns.

I plan to join the chorus and send a letter myself - and I encourage every one that has something to say on this essential issue for PMI community to do the same (maybe if they receive enough letters they will take action).

If you want to join the movement, the BOD email addresses are listed at https://www.pmi.org/about/leadership-gover...d-of-directors.

Good luck to us all!

George - my letter to the PMI BOD and CEO went out this evening. Now waiting to hear back.