Sunday, June 21, 2009

Changes in PMBOK 4th Edition (as compared with 3rd Edition)

The 4th edition of PMI BOK has no major structural changes.
The idea behind this revision was to simplify some processes e.g dropping the Preliminary Project Scope Statements, Conditional and GERT scheduling and Activity on arrow (AOA).
One of the good things (and this has helped PMI is achieveing its position)that PMI has always followed is to keep abreast of the project management methodologies and also to be aware of deadwood (and dump it).
Based on my experience I can vouch that I never used (and doubt if I will ever) GERT scheduling or Activity on Arrow.

Also, PMBOK 4th edition has more details on project justification and project environment. Both of these make sense -
1) Project Justification - being in the IT industry I believe this is where most projects get delayed or "dead-on-birth" because too much or too else happens in justifying the project
2) Project Environment - There are just too many variables in the environment to overlook them. The best way is to be aware and track as many as possible...


Specific to the PMI notion of processes (44 current processes) the changes are:

1) Integration Management – reduced to 6 (earlier 7)- PPSS has been removed
2) Scope Management - – Unchanged(5) - but "Scope Planning" is replaced by "Collect Requirements" (I think this is a great change....in my experience eliciting requirement is a much broader aspect in scope management rather than planning)
3) Time Management – unchanged (6), minor edits but no major changes
4) Cost Management – unchanged (3), minor edits but no major changes
5) Quality Management – unchanged (3), minor edits but no major changes
6) HR management – unchanged (4), minor edits but no major changes
7) Communication Management – increased to 5 (earliuer 4) - addition of "Identify Stakeholders"
8) Risk Management - unchanged (6), minor edits but no major changes
9) Procurement Management - reduced to 4 (earlier 6) - However most of the content is same, some structural changes - content repackaging into Plan/Conduct/Admin/Close

Hope this helps...Will add more details as and when possible..

Ciao

No comments: