#226 in Business & money books
Reddit mentions of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)Fifth Edition
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Reddit mentions: 9
We found 9 Reddit mentions of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)Fifth Edition. Here are the top ones.
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PMBOK 5th Edition
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Please understand, all three are generally speaking fairly senior roles.
A Project Manager (obviously) manages projects.
Most PMs have a background in business or a technology area that they were good at, but discovered and got really good at managing projects.
An IT PM needs to know a little bit about damned near all technology areas - just enough to know when they need to bring in another resource.
An IT PM needs to know when they are being lied to. The business sets due-dates, and the PM needs to organize resources to meet those dates. Some resources don't want to give accurate or realistic estimates on how long their components will take, which has a snowball effect on project components that depend on that component...
Above all else, a PM must have excellent communication & organizational skills.
Formal Project Management is practically a religion, and this is their holy text: PMBOK
More info here: http://www.pmi.org/certifications/types/project-management-pmp
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A Technical Consultant is a specialist with significant experience & expertise in a given technology area. They know how a particular widget works, and how most businesses tend to use and integrate said widget into an organization. The deeper the history of knowledge and longer the track record of successful projects, the more a consultant tends to be paid.
A consultant will usually be brought in as a resource to be managed by a Project Manager.
The consultant has answers to questions and design or implementation recommendations that will be used by the incumbant technology teams to integrate the widget into their company.
Sometimes a company will engage a consultant and pay them to do everything. You are the expert - just make the widget work, and tell us when you are done. This is a clear indication of a terrible company, with piss-poor management. How will you keep the widget working if you don't know how it works, or how it was implemented in the first place?
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A Solution Architect is a Technical Consultant who has expertise in not just a specific widget, but the entire technology area and/or business operation that will use the widget. They can design or modify your business or technology department or infrastructure to best use a new widget.
These are among the most senior of technologists.
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Question for you:
What happened for you when you went to Google and searched for "wiki project manager" or "wiki technical consultant" or "wiki solution architect" ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_manager
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology_consulting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_architect
The reason I ask the question is that nearly all IT staff members are paid to solve problems of one sort or another.
Learning something new is just another problem to solve.
If you hope to succeed and excel in this career, you really need to improve your ability to answer questions of this level on your own.
Hi skunk,
Since everyone is remaining quiet I might as well give this a shot. I'm from a technical background but currently studying PM in my spare time in the hope that I can progress in this direction within my industry.
PMP
It seems like the global standard is the PMP with PMI which requires:
> A secondary degree (high school diploma, associate’s degree, or the global equivalent) with at least five years of project management experience, with 7,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education.
> OR
> A four-year degree (bachelor’s degree or the global equivalent) and at least three years of project management experience, with 4,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education.
I'm currently studying towards this. I've taken recommendations from this subreddit (and /r/pmp) and bought:
and
In order to obtain the required 35 contact hours, I bought one of several cheap Groupons for $99. I'm not going to link the course because I don't necessarily recommend it - it should be easy enough to find and people have linked to these in previous posts. It doesn't really matter anyway because it's just so I can "tick that box", as I've learnt everything I need to know from the books.
The exam however will have to be sat in person. I have yet to do this so can't give you any pointers.
CAPM
If you don't match the above criteria, you can always opt for the lower qualification of CAPM (also with PMI) and work your way up.
For this I reccommend CAPM/PMP Project Management Certification, Third Edition and the previously mentioned online course.
Please note that you can potentially pitch anything as a project in the right light, even washing the dishes. Aim high and try to get the hours for PMP if possible.
PRINCE2 & SIX SIGMA
What else? Well, if I'm successful with the PMP and still enjoy PM after the blood, sweat and tears, I'm looking at these two qualifications.
I've already added a few books to my Amazon wishlist but have yet to seriously look into these with enough detail to commit.
I know that the exam for the PRINCE2 foundation level (and possibly practitioner level?) can be sat online with a webcam.
Six Sigma I know very little about except that several colleagues have mentioned it and my industry takes it seriously. However, I don't believe you can do these Six Sigma "belts" online.
Sorry for the serious wall of text but I just thought I'd share everything I know about PM accreditation. This isn't a comprehensive list but I'm planning on doing 90% online so I'm in a similar situation to yourself.
I would be grateful for any feedback myself from experienced PMs on my plans going forward.
Links:
If you're serious about a PM career, you'll probably want to pursue the PMP credential, which requires (from the PMI site):
Hi I'm a graphic designer, UX engineer, and I have worked for a lot with a bunch of different PMs. Some have been great and some treat people really badly. I can share what was most effective for me and the other graphic designers I have worked with.
When it comes to the long hours I would like to ask who is making the estimates for the projects? I really recommend including the designers when you are making your estimates and scoping out the work. This not only will help you get better estimates but it creates buy in from the designers so that they feel more committed to meeting those estimates. I have seen PMs throw work over the wall to people to complete in unrealistic time frames or unrealistic prices. The person doing the estimate didnt know rendering an animation would take 4 days and 100% use of someone's computer etc. All parties end up blaming each other for not having the right talents and in the end its just the project that is put at risk.
As far them asking other resources to be involved. Somewhere they got the notion they could do that, they feel they have no choice, or they are doing some skill swapping and team building between departments. I really recommend looking into why this is happening before bringing down the hammer on anyone, a lot of times there is some other resource issue occurring that needs to be resolved. If you can approach it as a way to help solve their underlying problem people are more likely to be open to change.
Liability:
Reference:
This may seem lame but I totally recommend reading the PMBOK for reference. Don't feel like you have to take the test but I think it covers a lot of the responsibilities of PMs well. PMBOK
Sorry if this is very pro designer but I have seen way way too many PMs just pretend we aren't people. If you can gain peoples respect you have have an awesome job. Hope this helps. Good luck.
Not all of these are in our core training/ required knowledge, or related to our day to day functions as a university A/V department, but They are all available to my team for knowledge building and professional development. Additionally , and our job ladder includes Infocomm certifications, so the library is a little biased towards infocomm resources at the moment.
Books I use are
http://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Alton-Everest/dp/0071603328)
just ordered digital video and hd
based on a recommendation in r/videoengineering
infocomm's audio and visual systems design, essentials of the av industry, av best practices, AV installation hand book
white papers/ online training from extron, JBL, Dalite, surgeX, bluejeanscable, and others. (out of the office and do not have the exact list and links with me
I would say the BEST book is this one, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)–Fifth Edition.
The reason why, is the PMP/CAMP/Project+ are all based on this book. So not only will it get you Project+, but it will also prepare you for the other two certs from PMI. It's not short, I mean it's 600 pages, but it really is the best for these certs.
Otherwise, I think the Sybex book is your best bet. It's half the size and will only focus on the topics covered in Project+
Books on project management, software development lifecycle, history of computing/programming, and other books on management/theory. It's hard to read about actual programming if you can't practice it.
Some of my favorites:
You can't exactly learn to program without doing, but hopefully these books will give you good ideas on the theories and management to give you the best understanding when you get out. They should give you an approach many here don't have to realize that programming is just a tool to get to the end, and you can really know before you even touch any code how to best organize things.
IF you have access to a computer and the internet, look into taking courses on Udacity, Coursera, and EDX. Don't go to or pay for any for-profit technical school no matter how enticing their marketing may tell you you'll be a CEO out of their program.
Any other pointers?
Well if you are looking for study material here are some links to books I suggest.
http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Project-Management-Body-Knowledge/dp/1935589679/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405382005&sr=8-1&keywords=pmbok
http://www.amazon.com/PMP-Exam-Prep-Eighth-Edition/dp/1932735658/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
http://pmhigherlearning.com/project-management-exam-guide/