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PMBOK approach for small company

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Paolo Cornali Project Manager| HTA srl Brescia, Lombardia, Italy
Hello everyone,

start by saying that I don't know the PMBOK approach in details (this is a lack that I'm intended to fill as soon as possible) but I know only what I have read on the web, anyway do you think that the PMBOK approach is adequate also for small companies and small projects or is too heavy for these organizations?
In your opinion, are there other approaches that are more lean and suitable?
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Bala S Duvvuri Project Manager| Shell Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Paolo,

PMBOK will give you approach which you need to follow for the execution of a project and it clearly says that you need to tailor the processes according to the project requirement.
For example if you are doing an internal project you may not concentrate so much on vendor management compared to that of external projects.
One more example is If it is for a small project you may not be doing qualitative risk analysis and quantitative analysis separately and you will be combining both of them.
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Markus Kopko AI Enabler for Project & Program Mgmt | Founder PMotion.ai / The PM AI Coach| PMotion.ai Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Hello Paolo,

in addition to what Bala already mentioned i want to say, that PMBoK Guide is just like a framework.
You will take it and took the parts out of it which you need and tailor them, so they fit to your actual situation, regardless if it is a small project/company or a multibillion dollar worldwide project.
PMBoK Guide supports all stages of your organizational project management maturity since it doesn't say exactly how detailed a project management plan have to be for instance; it just stated - as a best (of good, however) practice - that there should be one.

Regards,

Markus
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Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I agree with both Bala and Markus and also it is worth mentioning that in addition to tailoring the processes, you also tailor the requirements based on the size of the project as the requirements for small project are definitely less than those of a large project.
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Aniket Sukhatankar PM | Diacore India pvt ltd Thane, Maharashtra, India
PMBOK guidelines can be applied not just to professional projects but even for events like picnics, parties etc

difference can be about applicable knowledge areas to each projects for eg. procurement may be their for parties but not necessarily for some project. It depends on nature and volume of project
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
The answer is YES. PMBOK is a guide. You can use it as a checklist about things to have into account to have good probability that your initiative will get the desires result. No more than that. After that all is about you. The project life cycle to follow, the PMBOK´s knowledge area you will consider or not, the approach (waterfall, agile, V, etc) you will use or not. So, there is no relation about the type of project, the size of your company and the PMBOK´s practices. In fact, if you review your personal life and your daily activities, you will find you are applying most of the PMBOK´s practices.
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Antonio Marino Business developer & Governance-PM Competence center leader| CONSEL - Consorzio ELIS per la formazione professionale superiore Roma, Rm, Lazio, Italy
I agree with my predecessor: PMBoK guide is a guide! In addition, Paolo, you should check if the projects of this small company have Agile characteristics or not. For example, if the company produces App for smartphone or similar, probably Agile approaches are better because the project are Agile, but if the company works in construction industry, probably you should consider predictive approach because the project is surely is not Agile! In Italian "come dire, dipende più dal progetto, e quindi dal settore industriale, che dalla dimensione dell'azienda".
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Stéphane Parent Self Employed / Semi-retired| Leader Maker Prince Edward Island, Canada
Go ahead and read the PMBOK, Paolo. You will then be able to come back and frame your question more precisely.
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1 reply by Paolo Cornali
Feb 11, 2016 12:35 AM
Paolo Cornali
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You are right, Stéphane. Surely this is the best thing that I must do. Read the PMBOK is on my reading list from too long time.
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Paolo Cornali Project Manager| HTA srl Brescia, Lombardia, Italy
Thank you all for your feedbacks that are always very useful for people like me that are growing up as PM.
In effect I thought that PMBOK was a guideline applicable for several companies and projects dimensions as other various standards that I know better (like ISO 9001 in quality management for example) but I wanted a confirm by people who have more knowledge than me.
Thanks again.
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Paolo Cornali Project Manager| HTA srl Brescia, Lombardia, Italy
Feb 10, 2016 9:48 PM
Replying to Stéphane Parent
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Go ahead and read the PMBOK, Paolo. You will then be able to come back and frame your question more precisely.
You are right, Stéphane. Surely this is the best thing that I must do. Read the PMBOK is on my reading list from too long time.

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