ANDY CROWE. BILL YATES. NICK WALKER.
NICK WALKER: Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. Every two weeks we meet to discuss what is important to you, no matter where you fit into the world of project management. If you’re a leader, we want to equip you. If you’re on a project team, we want to encourage you. This is the place to share ideas, be challenged, and remind one another of what we are capable of when we work together.
I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me are the chief idea cultivators, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates. Andy, we’re going to talk about something that many project managers look forward to with anticipation, and others maybe await with dread.
ANDY CROWE: Yeah, you know, we’re going to be talking about the PMBOK Guide today, and specifically the Sixth Edition. And Nick, I saw something that made me laugh out loud. When I got my copy in the mail, I opened the package, and the book – the way it was oriented was on the back of the book. And the very back of the book says “By Project Managers for Project Managers.” And I thought, somebody’s listening to this podcast; right? It’s funny to see ideas creep in. So, yeah.
NICK WALKER: Yeah, great minds think alike. Hey, before we start, let’s welcome Bill back from a whirlwind trip on the other side of the world. Tell us, Bill, where have you been?
BILL YATES: Thank you. It’s good to be back. This was really a bucket list item. Beth and I have wanted to take a trip down the Rhine River, and so we took a cruise down the Rhine River. We started, we actually went into Berlin first, had an aunt and uncle there. So we spent some time in Berlin and then started in Amsterdam and went all the way down to Switzerland, to Basel, and had an incredible time. I can’t even tell you what my favorite part was because I saw so many beautiful sites.
NICK WALKER: Oh, wonderful.
BILL YATES: And amazing projects.
NICK WALKER: Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m sure, I’m sure.
ANDY CROWE: Well, don’t worry about us. Nick and I have just been laboring away here.
NICK WALKER: Yeah.
ANDY CROWE: Keeping things going.
BILL YATES: Dissecting the new Sixth Edition PMBOK Guide.
NICK WALKER: Well, I hope you enjoyed your trip. And it’s back to reality now; okay? We’ve got to jump in with both feet.
BILL YATES: Absolutely. Yup, yup, back into it, the fun and thrill of PMBOK Guide.
NICK WALKER: Well, Andy, you mentioned that you just got yours in the mail. I imagine a lot of project managers have gotten this new PMBOK Guide in the mail. It’s sitting there on their table, this big thick gigantic book, and maybe they’re looking at it wondering, what do I do with this now? And we want to let folks know, if they’re thinking that, they’re probably not alone.
ANDY CROWE: I agree. That’s part of the problem is people get this, it sits there, maybe it collects dust. It’s kind of like a religious text. You know, you look at it, maybe you feel guilty for not reading it, maybe if you do try and read it you’re not completely sure you understand it. So we’re here to deconstruct a little bit of that and talk about, okay, what do you practically do with this book now that it’s arrived?
NICK WALKER: And it’s big. It’s bigger, I guess, than it’s ever been.
BILL YATES: It is big. It is. As we’ve said before, PMI every four years updates the PMBOK Guide. And this printing that came out in September of 2017 is the Sixth Edition. We were looking at just doing a page count. And if you go back to the Third Edition, it had 388 pages. We’re about double today what we were then. So from Third Edition to Sixth Edition, we’ve gone from 388 pages to 756 pages. And Andy, I’m not even counting the Agile Practice Guide which came along with.
ANDY CROWE: Right. But you know what, Bill? If you go back in time – so I want to go back for a moment in time.
