Who to send PMBok to study
Some time ago, I changed jobs, and was actively looking for a job as a manager - an IT project manager. And I noticed a rather frequent requirement to know the PMI methodology, PMBok.
And here in my current job there are quite a few project managers, let's say at the primary and secondary levels. The management of the company has many complaints about how projects are carried out. What to do? The first thought is to send everyone to study project management and it’s best to give a PMI methodology.
But I remembered that I had already advised some of my former colleagues to read project management books, and I heard very negative reviews. “This has nothing to do with practice” - this is perhaps the most loyal review. But then I did not attach much importance to this, there was no time to understand the reasons. But then I decided to start, to explore the issue yourself.
At first I studied a short course “Practical PMBoK in 5 days” (I don’t cite a link - I’m afraid they’ll find it advertising, but this course is free and easy to find on the Internet), then I downloaded books in Russian and English.
')
And that's what I brought for myself. This course is really useless to beginner and intermediate level managers. It is written entirely for a different audience, and has completely different goals.
There is a scientist - theorist, scientist practitioner, but there is an engineer at the plant, company, etc. The PMBok course is for academic theorists. Studying it at a factory engineer is completely pointless.
When I was a student, I was shocked by the formulation of one theorem, while I memorized it as a poem! “The homomorphic image of a group is isomorphic to a factor group by the kernel of the homomorphism” - a class! wrote and my heart is nice. Ask your fellow programmers - do they understand anything here? But this is one of the main theorems in algebra, on which much of programming is based. Now many years later, I find in our life, no-no, yes, in my work, examples of what this theorem says, but as a student I simply learned it as a beautiful set of words. I could even prove it, but I did not have any understanding of how it can be applied in life then.
Here also with project management. For PMBok, it doesn't make much difference whether you are doing a software development project, or building a house, creating a new bank, or starting a drug business. And it's great for those who do theory. It is wonderful to see how some methods and schemes work on projects that are so different in content. But this is completely unacceptable for entry-level managers, and perhaps even the middle level, too.
The manager, most often not up to the theory, he needs practice. How to make your specific project more effective, how to make it successful, what risks may be, etc. It is these questions that interest the manager, and the manager in the field of software development is not at all interested in the problems and risks in the construction of houses.
I believe that the theoretical PMBok course can be taught only by experienced project managers (with work experience of more than 10 years), who will then adapt it to the area in which they worked and who later will be able to conduct courses like: “Foundations of PMI in developing web projects "," Fundamentals of PMI for construction ", etc.
But simply learning the PMI processes will not lead to anything good, even more catastrophic for the project, there will be consequences if the manager suddenly starts to carry out the project 100% using this methodology, often replacing the meaning with writing formal pieces of paper.
And here in my current job there are quite a few project managers, let's say at the primary and secondary levels. The management of the company has many complaints about how projects are carried out. What to do? The first thought is to send everyone to study project management and it’s best to give a PMI methodology.
But I remembered that I had already advised some of my former colleagues to read project management books, and I heard very negative reviews. “This has nothing to do with practice” - this is perhaps the most loyal review. But then I did not attach much importance to this, there was no time to understand the reasons. But then I decided to start, to explore the issue yourself.
At first I studied a short course “Practical PMBoK in 5 days” (I don’t cite a link - I’m afraid they’ll find it advertising, but this course is free and easy to find on the Internet), then I downloaded books in Russian and English.
')
And that's what I brought for myself. This course is really useless to beginner and intermediate level managers. It is written entirely for a different audience, and has completely different goals.
There is a scientist - theorist, scientist practitioner, but there is an engineer at the plant, company, etc. The PMBok course is for academic theorists. Studying it at a factory engineer is completely pointless.
When I was a student, I was shocked by the formulation of one theorem, while I memorized it as a poem! “The homomorphic image of a group is isomorphic to a factor group by the kernel of the homomorphism” - a class! wrote and my heart is nice. Ask your fellow programmers - do they understand anything here? But this is one of the main theorems in algebra, on which much of programming is based. Now many years later, I find in our life, no-no, yes, in my work, examples of what this theorem says, but as a student I simply learned it as a beautiful set of words. I could even prove it, but I did not have any understanding of how it can be applied in life then.
Here also with project management. For PMBok, it doesn't make much difference whether you are doing a software development project, or building a house, creating a new bank, or starting a drug business. And it's great for those who do theory. It is wonderful to see how some methods and schemes work on projects that are so different in content. But this is completely unacceptable for entry-level managers, and perhaps even the middle level, too.
The manager, most often not up to the theory, he needs practice. How to make your specific project more effective, how to make it successful, what risks may be, etc. It is these questions that interest the manager, and the manager in the field of software development is not at all interested in the problems and risks in the construction of houses.
I believe that the theoretical PMBok course can be taught only by experienced project managers (with work experience of more than 10 years), who will then adapt it to the area in which they worked and who later will be able to conduct courses like: “Foundations of PMI in developing web projects "," Fundamentals of PMI for construction ", etc.
But simply learning the PMI processes will not lead to anything good, even more catastrophic for the project, there will be consequences if the manager suddenly starts to carry out the project 100% using this methodology, often replacing the meaning with writing formal pieces of paper.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/176155/
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