Why is the PMBOK® Guide changing?

- Did you know that the PMBOK Guide is actually made up of the standard for project management and the guide to the body of knowledge? The standard for project management is an American National Standards Institute or ANSI standard, which means that every four to five years, it has to be updated, reaffirmed or retired. Right now, there's a team working on the update, and while this happens every few years, this update is especially interesting because the Project Management Institute, also known as PMI, is making significant changes to the standard and the body of knowledge. In the past, the standard was based on a set of processes categorized by process groups, initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. The guide address those same processes based on knowledge areas, like integration, scope, time and cost. The processes showed the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs associated with each process, but project management has evolved to the point, we're talking about a series of processes really doesn't do our profession justice. Processes by their nature lean more towards a predictive or waterfall approach. Currently, almost half the projects being done are using some form of agile or hybrid approach, so there's a need to shift away from the process-based way of presenting the standard in the guide. What we've done with the seventh edition of the PMBOK Guide is move to a principle-based standard, and a guide that describes performance domains, tailoring, and models, methods and artifacts. Before embarking on the seventh edition, PMI did a lot of research, both with market surveys and working with practitioners around the globe, and there's some consistent themes that emerged. The PMBOK Guide has credibility, keep that. The PMBOK Guide could be more relevant, get better at that. Make it more readable. Don't keep making it bigger. It needs to be more responsive to the market. The first four of these are reflected in the seventh edition. The final thing is addressed with PMI's standards plus digital platform that's expected to launch in Q two of 2020. There we have it. Now you know where the standard and the PMBOK Guide are changing. We're excited to have these resources reflect the growing and dynamic project management industry.