A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition (PMBOK Guides)

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition (PMBOK Guides) | Project Management Institute | Very Useful

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A Guide to the Pro...

	A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition (PMBOK Guides) Project Management Institute Project Management Institute, 2004 - 380 pages average customer review:based on 130 reviews view larger image
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Great book for project managers

The PMBOK contains all the information you need to help you organize your projects and run them successfully. It provides down to earth explanations for each phase and describes some of the pitfalls you need to watch for. I strongly recommend it for any seasoned or aspiring project manager.

Very Useful

I found the PMBok very useful and helful for the project management, it clarify a lot all the project management concepts, and as well the path to help you on how manage.

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge

I used this book for a Graduate Level Project Management Class. The book is very detailed but confusing at times. I had to research some of the information that was presented. However, I realize that project management is a very organized and detailed practice the book illustrates that point very well.

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Useful as a reference, but not as a learning tool

If you want to become a project manager (or even a better project manager), reading this book will not get you there. As a reference to look up an aspect of project management or a refresher, there is value to having this on your bookshelf, but as far as a learning tool, there is a good chance you will die of boredom before you become a project manager.

My objection to this book is not the content - it does cover the core and essential concepts of the PMBOK. My objection is to the style of how the concepts are presented - imagine a 390 page lecture from your most boring, droning professor from college, and you will understand how this book reads. Plenty of information, but in a format that makes assimilation and retention of the information extremely difficult - unless you have the ability to mindlessly capture data and regurgitate it later. I don't have that ability, and I suspect that many people do not as well.

My recommendation is to get this book and use it to back up learning that you gain elsewhere...there are lots of other books and materials that teach project management concepts far better than this book does. And if you are studying to become PMP certified, this is certainly an investment you need to make, but do not rely on it as your first (or even second) source of information for acquiring the knowledge needed to pass the test. Ignore those who insist that you must suffer the boredom of this book to become certified - you don't.

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It is what it is

By the time this review is written the PMBoK has been in print for over 3 years. I imagine the next version is nearly ready for press. So the most obvious reason you should buy this book is if you are planning to take the PMP certification some time soon. Take it before the book changes, especially if you plan on going through a prep course, otherwise you may be skating into unknown territory.

What if you are just in the market for a project management text? In a way, this is not really it. See some of my other reviews for some other PM texts, and then there are other good ones beyond those that I just haven't reviewed yet (because I haven't bought them lately). The PMBoK is not a how-to; it is a compendium of all the things that you might want to do if you are running a project. It focuses on defining the processes involved in project management in terms of major processes, inputs and outputs. This is extremely handy if you are trying to set a standard of practice (which is PMI's intent). It IS the standard in the profession, along with the UK's PRINCE method; there is no point arguing with it (especially if you are planning to take the certification examination). It doesn't often explain how to actually DO any of the things that the standard says need to be done.

Not in this document but on any of a dozen related sites you can get MS-Project templates that assemble all of the tasks in the standard. In actual practice you are probably not going to do many of those things, but at least you will have a moment or two to think through why not.

There is one supremely practical if cynical use of the full scope of the PMBoK. If you are in the consulting business and being challenged as to why the customer has to pay an outrageous overhead for a PM who is after all not doing any coding, bricklaying or whatever, then you'll need to include all the stuff in the MS-Project template and use the PMBoK to explain what all those things are. If you have a customer who is dull enough to need to question why someone needs to manage the work, I can say from experience that when you drop the full-bore PM solution on them and "justify" all those hours that this customer will happily pay the bill and sometimes even insist on even more, now that the "need" has been "documented".

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