Changes from PMBOK 4 to PMBOK 5 (exposure draft)

NOTE: This post is in regards to the Project Management Institute's exposure draft of the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Fifth Edition. It was available on PMI's site up until March 20, 2012. You can no longer view it, at least until it is released officially in Q4 2012. However, I have summarized the changes as below. This is a high-level summary and does not specifically detail all the changes in Inputs, Outputs, Tools and Techniques.

Version 5 won't be out till Q4 2012, new PMP test not till roughly June 2013. So if you're currently studying for the PMP, stick with version 4 and worry about this one later.

PMBOK 5 changes summary

The major change appears to be that they've created a new Knowledge Area called Stakeholder Management, emphasizing its importance. The rest of the changes appear to be of a lesser degree, so expansions on things like PMO, more graphics, organizational structure, etc. And even in those areas they've expanded, they might have gone from one paragraph to say, three. So I would describe the changes as more evolutionary than revolutionary. As below:

-My hard copy of PMBOK 4 clocks in at 344 pages, minus glossary. The online PMBOK 5 comes in at a mere 248 pages minus glossary. Not sure how they did that unless there is no one-for-one correlation and the hard copy will somehow be longer.

-The five process groups (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing) are intact.

-There are now 47 processes, as opposed to 42. Most of the new ones seem to be in the new Stakeholder Management knowledge area plus some other Planning ones.

-As mentioned in my summary, there are now 10 Knowledge areas instead of 9. They have broken out Project Stakeholder Management into its own knowledge area. So they're really emphasizing the importance of this.

-They've expanded the idea of stakeholders to include what they call "Operational Stakeholders." So you already knew of stakeholders that were in some respects, directly involved with or affected by the project. So these newly identified stakeholders are people who are doing their day-to-day job and should be recognized in the stakeholder register. Examples include plant operators, manufacturing line supervisors, help desk staff, etc.

-At a glance, it looks like the Inputs, Outputs, Tools and Techniques have changed somewhat. Impossible to say exactly how much until and unless I do a detailed, comprehensive study of same. My quick thought is that they don't look radically different. Not as much as from PMBOK 3 to 4.

-There appear to be more and better graphics for things such as tornado diagrams, quality charts, etc.

-They've expanded on the definition of a Project Management Office (PMO). They now stratify it into three possible ways of existing: Supportive, Controlling and Directive.

--They talk some about the link between project management and organizational governance. So, in the example they use, if an organization has adopted policies in support of sustainability practices and the project involves construction of a new office building, the PM should be aware of sustainability requirements related to building construction.

-They talk more about the organization and how project management fits into it, and about organizational communications.

-They've expanded their definition of a sponsor from one who pays for a project to one who provides resources and support for the project and is accountable for enabling the project's success.

-They drill down a little more on who exactly is part of the project team, so dedicated vs. part-time, PM staff vs. supporting experts.

-They talk some about different types of project life cycles (waterfall, adaptive/agile).

-For the first time, they actually show some more data about calculating critical path. (But still no substitute for detail in the better vendors's books). They also have a graphic depicting critical chain.

-There is a better description of how reserves fit into the budget.

-There is, for the first time, a long overdue table of all Earned Value formulas.

-They somehow overlooked putting anything in about Point of Total Assumption, which is a contract type they test on.