Shadowing Practice: Inside PMBOK Guide 8: What Project Managers Must Know | Episode 542 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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So you think you know what a project is?
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Well, think again.
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Hello and welcome back to the Project Management Podcast at pm-podcast.com.
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This is episode 542 and I am a very excited Cornelius Fichtner here on the podcast.
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Thank you so much for joining us here today.
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I am very excited because, well, the PMBOK Guide 8 edition has dropped.
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It is built from tens of thousands of data points collected from real practitioners.
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And it shows the structure is cleaner.
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The guidance is really more practical.
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And the entire document reflects how projects actually unfold rather than
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how we would sometimes like to imagine they should unfold on paper and our schedules and you know how it goes.
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It is a deliberate move towards clarity,
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usability and the relevance for the work that we project managers do every single day.
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The eighth edition also updated the definitions for several foundational concepts that many of us assumed were set in stone.
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And that includes the definition of both project and project management, which is why I started today's episode with,
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so you think you know what a project is?
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We'll see those new definitions later on.
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Guiding us through the thinking behind these changes is Jesse Fuel.
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Jesse has coached leaders on five continents, shaped multiple certifications and standards,
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and served as the chair of the PMBOK 8 development effort.
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He brings a front row view of what the global community asked for and how those insights shaped this new edition.
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And here he is.
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Welcome, Jesse Field.
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Thank you for joining us today.
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It is an absolute treat, Cornelius.
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I'm excited to be back on the podcast and to talk about this new exploration,
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definition, formalization of what it means to do project management.
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Wonderful.
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Thank you so much.
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And as the chair of PIMBOK 8, Wayne's World, we are not worthy.
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We are not worthy.
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Thank you so much for having you here.
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All right.
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We already got the first comment here coming in.
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Greetings from Azerbaijan.
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We have a worldwide audience with us.
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Welcome to you, Cameron.
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Yeah.
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As always, this is a video episode.
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If you're only getting the audio, please stop by at pm-podcast.com slash 542 slash YouTube or slash Spotify.
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I before we start this interview, there is one thing that I need to get off my chest.
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That's this here.
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The PMP exam is not a test of the PMBOK guide.
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Repeat, not a test of the PMBOK guide.
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Reading the PMBOK guide will help, yeah, sure.
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But it's only one of many resources that you need to use as you are preparing for your PMP exam.
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With that out of the way, let us begin.
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Jesse, how was the 8th edition developed and what problems or gaps is it really designed to solve for today's project managers?
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Well, Cornelius, there's really two key themes.
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The first one is that there is a regular renewal cycle that is required by ANSI,
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which is the standards body that accredits the PMBOK Guide as the global standard for project management.
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And their requirement is
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that the document is updated on a regular cadence every few years in order to reflect any evolutions
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and variations and changes in the industry in the global marketplace.
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So there will be a ninth edition.
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It's coming in a few years, the same way that this has been on a regular recurring cycle.
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So that's point number one.
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There's been a lot of practitioners who complain, why do they keep changing things?
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And it's because the world keeps changing.
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And it's the accrediting body's position that the standard of practice should reflect evolution
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and nuances and ebbs and flows in the industry
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so that's point number one um which is that uh it changes the order of life
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um but the deeper question i think you're asking is why were specific changes made it um 48th edition is that is
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that a fair fair yes yes yeah okay the the the the seventh edition was intentionally disrupted the seventh edition
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which was released in 2021 reformatted what was traditionally understood to be knowledge areas process groups inputs tools techniques and outputs
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and just blew it up completely in order to shake up the community shake up the profession to wake up
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that things are changing in the world
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and at the same time move to a principle-based standard of
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project management as opposed to a process-based standard of project management as you can imagine there was mixed response to
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that and so the eighth edition was launched with the conviction
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that this will be not about opinions not about disruption it will be the most data-driven project management standard in history.
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And it is, as I think you've alluded to a little bit already.
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Yeah, you had like what, like 15,000 comments from people that you had to go.
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Did you read each one of them?
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Not you personally, right?
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You had as the chair, you're at the top, you have two dozen.
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Yeah, there were two dozen volunteers involved.
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There was It was a double-blind process of 12 development team volunteers and then 12 review team volunteers.
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None of them knew who the other was, and I was the chair kind of as the anonymous bridge between them.
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And yes, we looked at every single comment.
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And the review team had their own comments before the 15,000,
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such that by the time the 1,500 contributors saw the draft, it had already been vetted a little bit.
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And that's even after the market research went into understanding what the community wanted in the eighth edition.
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All right.
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So much for the story behind the PMBOK Guide.
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Now, let us open it up.
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Our plan is to take the PMBOK Guide eighth edition table of contents and discuss some handpicked topics.
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It's quite thick.
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Let's see.
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I have it right here.
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294 pages.
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We can't look at everything.
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And what we see here is a simplified version of the table of contents.
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Generally speaking, it consists of three segments.
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The standard for project management is first.
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Then the actual PMBOK guide is second.
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And then we have sort of the back matter, the extras and all of that.
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And Jesse, for those who don't know, what is the difference between the standard and the PMBOK guide?
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This is the third edition in a row that has differentiated between those two different parts of the document.
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The document, the first half of the document is what is accredited by ANSI as a standard for project management.
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It goes through additional extra validation and governance to make sure
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that there are opportunities for community comment and that there is a consensus vote from a committee and all of those things.
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And that's where the most, what we believe to be the most important fundamental elements of project management are located.
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The second part, which is sometimes called the guide or sometimes called the body of knowledge, is more about the how.
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It's more about some of the tools that we like to use in project management,
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which are very contextual, very nuanced, and can be tailored in or tailored out.
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the standard includes the things that are universal.
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The guide or the body of knowledge includes things that are a little bit more contextual and case by case.
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Okay.
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Thank you very much.
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And from my perspective, as a practitioner, you need to read both, right?
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You can't just say, oh, I'm just following the standard, or I'm just going to read the PMBOK guide, or I'm just going to read the appendices.
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Yeah, not going to help you much there, but you You need to understand the content of the law
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in order to really know how to manage a project in its entirety.
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And some people will find that the content in the body of knowledge,
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that second part, it's kind of the more interesting stuff.
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It's where the rubber meets the road.
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It's kind of where we get nerdy and technical.
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And yet we also want to make sure that people don't skip over that standard part.
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So it used to be second.
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I remember in previous editions it was in the back.
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It was kind of hidden and nobody knew about it.
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And now it's first.
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So yeah, emphasis is right there.
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All right.
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Let us now head over.
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So for the rest of the conversation, this is the actual table of contents here.
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And let us begin with the system for value delivery,
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which is the second item there in the standard.
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Would it be correct to say,
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Jesse, value and the system that describes it is really at the core of what a project is supposed to do?
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Deliver value?
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A hundred percent.
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This has been a conversation that's been evolving and intensifying, I would say, over the last 10 to 15 years
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which is that the project management of the 20th century was get it done.
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Project management of the 21st century is, was it worth it?
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And just because it's done doesn't mean it was worth it.
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And so we're being challenged more and more in every sector, in every country, in every industry.
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Do you even know why we're doing this?
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And can you make the case that we should keep going? and
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and usually uh project managers are historically project managers have said
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that's above my pay grade it's not my job to be
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able to articulate whether what i'm doing is even worth doing
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and that's more of a portfolio discussion or a sponsor discussion
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and what we're finding in the marketplace is change is happening
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so fast that our sponsors can't even articulate the value proposition of their projects.
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They need help from you, project manager, to ask tough questions.
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Why are we doing this?
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Who are the stakeholders who benefit?
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Who are the stakeholders who would not benefit?
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What's kind of an impact?
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How would you measure that impact?
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These are the kinds of questions that we're being expected to bring to bear
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and articulate the value of a project within an organization or even within an ecosystem of vendors and suppliers.
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It's more than just get it done.
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Excellent.
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And people do agree.
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We have LinkedIn user saying that is the truth.
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Next, let us zoom in here because you gave us a good segue.
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Was it worth it?
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Let us zoom in here on 2.1.2, assessing project success.
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I have the definition of project success over here.
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Let me read this for everybody.
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Project success is defined as the consensus view across intended beneficiaries,
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other stakeholders, and project participants,
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that a project was perceived to have delivered value that was worth the effort and expense.
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And now let me highlight two words in this definition,
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consensus and perceived, because this definition clearly says that a consensus of how the participants perceive a project is what counts.
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So even if the project is behind schedule, over budget, and all of that,
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if the consensus of your stakeholder says, No, you know what?
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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These are all issues, but we solved them.
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In the end, this project was still worth it.
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That is an important thing to realize.
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Jesse, would you highlight different words here?
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Is there anything else that you might want to highlight?
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Oh, my goodness.
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I like the way that you highlighted this um there's a couple of reasons
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and um then there's a concrete example
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so first consensus does not mean unanimous nor does it mean
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strictly from the highest uh the hippo the highest paid person's
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opinion the consensus really is a like on the whole maybe it's a majority maybe it's a plurality
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and uh and so so that's the key number point
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and the other one is that value perceived is value achieved
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that um because value is hard to measure this is one thing
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that the agilists have have I think not been able to
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articulate well the agilists have been promoting deliver value focus on value how do I measure
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that we don't know okay so then value is in the eye of the beholder we have net motor score,
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we've got customer satisfaction, we've got ROI.
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So depending on your context, your metric might be different.
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So then the value is really going to end up being contextual and perception-based.
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Just think, here's the example, about the Sydney Opera House.
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The Sydney Opera House is mentioned in the guide as the classic example of 10x over budget,
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5x over schedule um the the uh pm of australia lost their job
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because the project was being was was undergoing
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so much just upheaval there was a riot on the construction site of the sydney opera house
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and it's a it's a un it's a unesco heritage site
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it's considered it's a success world it is heralded as you know like one of the greatest architectural achievements of mankind
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It is the symbol of the Sydney skyline.
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So was it worth it?
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Yeah.
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It's considered to be one of those failed projects that was totally worth it.
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Yeah.
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Let me ask you this.
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does this new definition, this updated, this modernized definition of project success mean
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that project managers should also change the way that they measure and evaluate success on their projects?
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Absolutely.
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We'll talk about it in a moment.
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But in the guide, there's an entire domain,
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an entire discipline around executing on a project in a way that measures project performance.
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So one of the new processes that's introduced is to measure project performance, which is two sides.
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There's delivery performance, schedule, risk, compliance, budget, but then there's value performance,
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net promoter score, customer satisfaction, stakeholder satisfaction, ROI, revenue.
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Project performance now includes both conventional, historical, traditional delivery excellence, but also on the value side.
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Okay, wonderful.
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Thank you very much.
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Before we move on, let me remind everybody, we are live on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube.
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If you have a question, please feel free to type it into the chat And we'll see if we can squeeze this in for everybody.
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Okay, let us move on here.
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Where are we?
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Let's see.
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For some reason, is my computer.
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There we go.
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Ah, okay.
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It didn't want to do what I was wanting it to do.
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We are moving on here to this, where we see the six project management principles.
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They, let me go through them.
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They start on the left there at 3.3 with adopt a holistic view.
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Below 3.4, focus on value.
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3.5, embed quality into processes and deliverables.
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At the bottom left, 3.6, be an accountable leader.
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Top right, 3.7, integrate sustainability within all project areas.
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And below that, 3.8, build an empowered culture.
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Many principles.
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Go ahead.
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You wanted to say something, Jesse.
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No, I'm just like, yeah.
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Yeah, those are the six principles of project management.
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Right.
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So many could have made it into this particular list.
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What was the reasoning behind choosing these six as the universal foundation?
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Well, it was in response to some of the practitioner feedback around the seventh edition, which actually introduced 12.
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12, yeah.
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And generally speaking, where the practitioners were coming back, three out of four project managers said,
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we agree that principles matter more than processes.
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They're both important, but at the end of the day, what makes for a successful leader are your guidelines,
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your guiding ways of managing and leading, how you approach the like, focusing on an empowered culture,
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so that way you can delegate effectively instead of being the center of gravity all the time.
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That's an example of what makes for a successful project.
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So the seventh edition was reflecting what was a community conviction
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that their effective management and leadership is not about following a process.
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It's about leading.
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However, it was a little bit overwhelming, 12 of them.
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There was some duplication, not just within the principles.
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There were two different principles around leadership that,
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so around accountability and leadership were two different principles here they've been merged into one
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that seems to be a little bit more focused also the
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uh there were some confusion about well we have a quality principle but we also have quality uh processes
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what's the difference between a process versus a domain versus a section
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and so we intended to remove as much duplication
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and repetition as possible with the eighth edition
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and just make everything simpler thank you very much um let's
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see before we move on to the next few questions let me bring up uh these here
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because we have a few comments
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and questions uh can we claim pdus for this session yes i'll mention this at the end next
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when will pinbox ip included in the pmp eco that's what
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i mentioned at the beginning the pmp exam is not a
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test of the pmboc guide however the new exam content outline
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has already been published things are in alignment with the pmboc guide like the new definitions
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and all of that
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but it is not a test of the pmboc guide some
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of you may have noticed me looking at the pmboc guide
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here it is i have a copy i bought it at the global summit
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and because of this question here does value engineering play any specific role in assessing and terminating the value.
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I looked in the index value engineering does not seem to be mentioned in here.
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So Jesse, and in my opinion, this matches exactly the next question as well.
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I think product success, social benefits and major environmental impact should be added in definition.
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To me, both these questions go a little too deep because remember,
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it's the consensus whether I feel that it was worth it, whether the value has been achieved.
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So if you're in your opinion, value engineering is part of it and you think,
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no, based on value engineering, it was not achieved.
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Well, there you go.
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If in this opinion here, you feel that social benefit was achieved, major environmental impact, we didn't have any.
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That is your understanding of what it means to be successful.
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So you put these thoughts into the definition.
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The definition is fine, I think.
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You are trying to put more into it, which is what you need to do when you yourself are asked, was it worth it?
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Jesse, is my interpretation here right?
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I think you're on to something there, Cornelius.
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at actor shayit 619 is making the point about value engineering i think
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that would be an effective technique to make the case
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that the project is either over performing or underperforming
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when you're doing an executive briefing or a stakeholder presentation and so value engineering could be a way to capture,
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identify, communicate the value that a project is delivering.
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At Vatsal Ramesh, the project success definition is intended to be inclusive,
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such that the context determines the societal benefit and the environmental impact or the sustainability impact.
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Remember, sustainability is one of the core principles, and so it will go into the perception of value around a project.
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But the definition stops short of committing the perception to just those dimensions.
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All right.
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We are about halfway through our conversation here today, so let us continue.
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And from here, we are moving on to the project life cycle right here.
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And we are going to be taking a look at two areas in the project lifecycle.
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First of all, we have 4.2 there, the development approaches, predictive, adaptive, and hybrid.
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And then second, we want to look at What we know as the, or what we knew as the process groups,
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they are now under the heading of focus areas.
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So Jesse, when we look at predictive, adaptive, and hybrid in PMBOK 8, so we're talking about the top portion here,
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are these simply approaches that we already know, you know, agile is agile,
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or did the team redefine them in a way that would surprise us practitioners?
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I think it's fair to say that the predictive, adaptive, and hybrid are essentially going to be very familiar to those
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of us who have already been working in either agile ways of working
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or so-called waterfall approaches with more formal serial plan-driven approaches versus highly adaptive and iterative.
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I think it's going to be mostly familiar.
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It continues the community's usage of the term predictive versus adaptive, which was introduced back in,
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I believe, 2013 with the fifth edition, is a way to be more inclusive.
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The agile waterfall debate can be a little bit divisive.
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And so for the last 12, 15 years, PMI has been intentionally using
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that language as a way to describe a spectrum because no project is fully plan driven and predictive with zero change.
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And no project is all adaptive, 100 percent exploratory with no concept of where we're going.
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there's always some place where you live on that spectrum
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and a hybrid approach tends to be a blending of different places on that spectrum at the same time.
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Okay.
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So it's very familiar to, it should be familiar to most people.
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Yeah.
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Thank you very much because this also answers this question here from Abidaz one.
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What are the new development approaches and life cycles being emphasized
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and how do they integrate with the principles
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and i think nothing new i mean you did not come
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up with a new development approach you did not come up with a new life cycle
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but let's focus on the last one here how do they
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integrate with the principles is there some sort of a mapping
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table is there some sort of a combo how does this work the the what's important about the principles is
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that they are universal foundational to every project regardless of
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which approach you take so when we talk about embedding quality into everything we do
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this is not simply about following quality management processes about having
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a quality mindset in a predictive environment where maybe we have a lot of quality control and quality engineering,
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or maybe also in an adaptive environment where there's a deep
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lean thinking ethos where we're going to shift left on a lot of quality practices to make sure
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that we're iterating internally to verify the work before we validate it with stakeholders.
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In either approach, the principles like having embedding quality into everything that we do are universal regardless of approach.
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So that's the intention there with the standard is that it's applicable to every project regardless of which approach the project takes.
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Wonderful, thank you very much.
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And let's not forget when you look at the development approaches here, predictive, adaptive and hybrid, and when we go back to the principles,
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you know, focus on value.
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Doesn't matter whether this is adaptive or hybrid.
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Be an accountable leader.
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Build an empowered culture, right?
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That there is no real reason why you can't do that in one of these development approaches there.
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Let us move down 4.5.
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I said we'd be looking at that.
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What prompted the development team to bring back the essence of process groups under the name focus areas?
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Demand.
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You heard our voices.
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Okay, clearly.
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Absolutely.
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80% of all project managers in the world came back and said, hey, where did the process groups go?
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80% of project managers saying, isn't it true that every project has some form of initiating, launching?
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Isn't it true that every project has some element of planning and executing and that there's some level of monitor and control?
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And eventually projects are closed out to some degree.
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even if they're a multi-year project.
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And so the community came back to the standards team with this demand,
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overwhelming universal agreement that these five things are foundational to every project everywhere,
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whether it's agile or predictive or hybrid,
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that these five things are important they were no longer going to be tied to processes.
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Planning happens regardless of what processes you use.
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Execution happens regardless of which processes you use.
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How you do your execution, your monitoring, controlling, and your planning is really up to the project-specific context.
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So you can use processes, and we make the point of highlighting this.
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You can use the processes, maybe use the 40 processes that we offered, or you can use informal practice instead.
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How you go about those five focus areas is independent of the processes
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or practices or policies or traditions or habits that you're using as long as you focus on them being done well.
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I like the comment we got here from Dottie 102 to, it is a testament to how ingrained the focus areas are in our craft.
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They are in our blood.
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Yes, it is true.
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It is true, especially if you have started like I think I started with Pimbok version two originally.
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That was the first one that I read.
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Oh, my goodness.
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Yeah, it's been quite, quite a long time there.
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And from here, we want to move on.
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We're leaving the standard behind us.
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We're moving to the second section of the document here, which is the PMBOK guide.
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Here is what PMI says, what we can expect.
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From the PMBOK guide, we can benefit from an evolved structure that connects principles, domains, and focus areas in a clear, actionable way.
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You have already spoken towards this.
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Where would you say that we as practitioners will feel the biggest aha moment,
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so to say, as we navigate the new structure and review the new document?
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I would say that for more experienced and tenured members of our community,
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they're going to have an aha where they start seeing
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that the processes have different names than they've been familiar with in the sixth edition or before.
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And that the categories in which you find the processes, they're no longer knowledge areas.
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They're performance domains.
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and they themselves have different names for example cost management used to be
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or budget management used to be one of the core expectations of project management but today
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it's now broader to be finance performance what is the financial performance of your project
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and that's not just how much money you're spending we're more
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than just human calculators as project practitioners we also need to
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take a look at the the financial equation around funding around
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uh the the the financial equation around whether we're going to
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generate revenue from this uh what is what is the holistic
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financial scenario around this project not just how much did you
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spend how much did you spend how much did you spend
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and so i think that's going to be the most interesting evolution
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that people will see who happen to be familiar with older versions of the Pinbox guide.
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All right, let's open it up.
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Here is the table of contents from the actual Pinbox guide.
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We want to quickly review the performance domains that Jesse has mentioned.
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Again, they're on the left and right.
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Let me read them out for everybody.
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2.1 at the top left there, governance performance domain, 2.2 scope performance domain,
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2.3 schedule performance domain, and the bottom left is the finance performance domain that Jesse just mentioned.
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Then at the top right, we have the stakeholder performance domain.
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Below that, 2.6, the resources performance domain, and then below that, the risk performance domain is 2.7.
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Project managers will notice that, well, several longstanding domains vanished.
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Communication, quality, for example, they are no longer here, right?
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Jesse, how are, I'm pretty sure you're not saying, oh, quality is no longer important.
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We don't need to do this on a project.
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Communication, very unimportant.
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That's why we moved it out.
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How are they woven into the new structure?
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Where do we do quality?
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How do we do communication?
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Where's the guidance on these?
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Well, let's talk about quality.
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This was a hot debate.
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I imagine.
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This was a hot debate.
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The seventh edition also emphasized quality as an important consideration.
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And eventually what we came to was the conviction that we have to practice what we preach.
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If we're saying that quality is a fundamental principle of everything we do,
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whether it's process quality or product quality quality assurance or quality control
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if we believe that in our bones as a fundamental principle of every project a matter approach
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then perhaps we should embed it into the very scope of the project
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and perhaps we should embed it into the governance of the project overall
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and so we implemented the principle embed quality into everything you do into the document itself.
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Yeah, right, right, right.
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And, and, you know, I hadn't noticed that before.
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But, you know, principle number three, embed quality into processes and deliverables.
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There it is, right?
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And are these seven, this is really a rhetorical question, but I have to ask it anyway,
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are these seven domains meant to be stable for a long time? do you see them evolving as our profession evolves?
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Well, so now you're asking me to be a bit of a fortune teller.
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Crystal ball.
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Yes.
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I would say it's fair to say absolutely.
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I think the ninth edition will have a different set of categories.
445
The same way the seventh had a different performance domains relative to the sixth's difference of knowledge areas.
446
And the sixth edition knowledge areas were different than the fifth edition, which were different than the fourth edition.
447
every edition reflects the change of the profession.
448
If we're looking for stability in what project management means,
449
look inside yourself because the world around us is changing all the time.
450
And that means that the practice is evolving all the time.
451
And the one constant that you have is you.
452
And so I'm going to be looking at me to change my techniques
453
and my skills and my approaches because the profession is changing because the marketplace is changing.
454
So I think it's fair to say that if each edition has reflected, each edition itself has had changes that reflected the changes in the marketplace.
455
I don't know about you, but just in the last year, everything has changed so much.
456
I can't even envision what's going to happen in the next four five years.
457
Yes, yes.
458
From here, we are now leaving the PMBOK guide, we're going into the back matter.
459
So we've looked at the standard, we've looked at the PMBOK guide before we head into the back matter.
460
Jesse, is there anything from your perspective
461
that you would like to add at this point to for our audience in regards to when you read this new document,
462
when you look at the the standard, when you look at the pin book, things that we should keep in mind that were very important for you and your team during the development effort.
463
I think one of the bits of feedback that we got again and again from the community was we need more examples.
464
And so this is something
465
that you'll notice in the six principles in the standard are
466
accompanied by a section called principles in action where we give
467
a concrete illustration of what it looks like to exhibit a behavioral pattern like accountable leadership
468
or uh accountable leadership likewise in the guide with the performance
469
domains there's an entire section on offering three concrete examples of how that particular arena whether it's finance performance
470
whether it's scope performance, what it looks like in actual practice.
471
So the one thing I would encourage you to do is go straight to those examples
472
because it will be more than the intent is to make it not as theoretical, but to start moving into the practical.
473
Wonderful.
474
Thank you very much.
475
And that also is a good segue into this question here.
476
We have another question about the PMP exam.
477
What about the changes in the PMP? again, does it shift the focus to memorization from situational?
478
No, no, no, no, no. Let me once again repeat, the PMP exam is not a test of the PMBOK guide.
479
Therefore, you do not need to memorize the PMBOK guide.
480
Instead, the PMP exam tests your experience as a project manager.
481
situations that every project manager sees day to day are being tested.
482
How would you react?
483
Do you understand what a normal project manager, normal project manager would do in those situations?
484
Yes, exactly.
485
Whatever a normal project manager is.
486
After all, every project is the same.
487
From here, we are moving on to the last topic from the table of content.
488
It's in the back matter.
489
And yes, everybody is interested in this right here.
490
Artificial intelligence.
491
Now, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
492
And a little bit critical maybe on my side here.
493
The AI appendix, it outlines high-level use cases.
494
AI can do real-time monitoring.
495
AI can automate processes.
496
AI can identify risks and so on.
497
So there are about three, four pages of this, right?
498
Honestly, they do feel a little light.
499
They do feel maybe a little theoretical as well.
500
But is it maybe because when we look at today's project management software,
501
solid AI tools that really help us and really bring AI to the forefront of how we manage projects,
502
they are far and few in between.
503
Is that what I'm seeing here?
504
How did you work on this?
505
Or is my critique unfounded from your perspective?
506
No, I think it's a fair take on this appendix.
507
This appendix was intended to be a hyperlink to PMI's practice guides on AI.
508
So if you go onto the PMI website right now, you'll see on their landing page, a lot of resources around AI,
509
whether it's the Infinity tool set,
510
but also the practice guide for AI and project management is something that is not just available,
511
but also in development.
512
There are going to be multiple editions of this.
513
There's going to be a practice guide around how to project manage an AI project.
514
There's also going to be a practice guide about how to embed AI into project management.
515
And this appendix was intended to be a hyperlink to some
516
of the ideas to be thinking about as we start moving
517
into the AI PM world remember we started working on this two years ago uh right about
518
when chat gpt launched and
519
so what was happening is as we were evolving the the guide
520
and as we were taking community input overwhelmingly practitioners were like we need something
521
and so we felt it was appropriate to to put into the eighth edition some concepts that are fairly stable,
522
fairly universal, but the details are just so volatile.
523
You can't really put those into a standard and hope that it survives more than three months.
524
All right.
525
So that's kind of why it's a little bit ethereal and not really tangible
526
because there are other standards guidelines that are coming out and because it's such a volatile space.
527
Yeah, all right.
528
Thank you very much, especially for saying the word tangible
529
because that is much better word than my word theoretical that I use.
530
So tangible is actually, or feels a little intangible is what I should have said.
531
Yeah, okay.
532
And final question here before we begin closing out our conversation here.
533
X 3.3 there.
534
In about the middle, responsible use and ethical concerns.
535
So from your perspective, if a project manager wants to start using AI responsibly after reading this appendix X 3 here,
536
What is the very first practical step that you personally believe that they should take on Monday morning?
537
Check everything.
538
Check everything.
539
I'm working with a senior executive at a large military manufacturer
540
who is asking about the use of Microsoft Copilot inside Microsoft Project.
541
and wouldn't it be great if we could just have that available so that I can quickly re-level my integrated master schedule.
542
And so I hit a button and I'm like, make this project more efficient timeline, go.
543
And then it does some work.
544
And then you look at it, you feel, oh, fantastic.
545
It just saved me so many hours.
546
And it somehow strangely deleted 10% of my line items out of the schedule
547
because ai does that and so whatever you're using a tool
548
i have found it most helpful to get inspired by the tool on what to put into an email
549
or what the template should look like but not to just copy paste the results into my uh my next briefings
550
So buyer beware on any of the AI content that you're using.
551
It's not intended to to be a copy paste or a click and be done.
552
It's intended to be a copilot, if you will.
553
Indeed.
554
Thank you very much.
555
Which means we are moving to the close out.
556
Let's come back to my opening statement.
557
So you think you know what a product is?
558
Think again.
559
And here we want to take a look at the updated modern definitions.
560
Two of them, in fact.
561
First of all, this is what a project is.
562
A project is a temporary initiative in a unique context undertaken to create value.
563
This new definition, crisp, compact.
564
What misconceptions about projects were you trying to resolve with this wording?
565
So if you go back to the previous definition,
566
this is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique project service or result.
567
Exactly.
568
That definition is 40 years old.
569
It has not changed since the PMI first started thinking of what a body of knowledge would look like
570
or a codification of practice would look like.
571
And if you think about the terminology at the time,
572
a unique product, service, or result is focusing on the thing.
573
It's focusing on the deliverable, not on the value proposition that the deliverable supports.
574
And so what happens a lot of times on projects is that there'll be a pivot.
575
there'll be a fundamental change request that comes in and says, you know what, we need to chop off this part of the scope in favor of this part of the scope.
576
Or we've just blown through our schedule, we need to rethink the value proposition.
577
And does that mean now that the unique product service or result is obsolete?
578
Sometimes it does.
579
Instead, the value proposition now needs to be served by a different product or a different service or a different result.
580
This also, this re-examining of definitions came independently of the project success research
581
that PMI was doing to define what project success was, which is whether it's considered worth it.
582
And so we were challenged as a team to think, it's been 40 years.
583
Should we be rethinking what fundamentally the project is about?
584
And projects are not about the thing.
585
They're about the why behind the thing that we're building.
586
All right.
587
Thank you very much.
588
I would like to bring up another misconception here that I need to clear up.
589
Does the current PMP exam question refer to version eight concepts?
590
No, they do not.
591
The new PMP exam is going to be launched in July of 2026.
592
Until that time, you do not need to worry really about PMBOK 8.
593
It'll help, but it, you know, you don't really need to worry about it.
594
Final slide here.
595
We are moving on from the definition of project to the definition of project management,
596
which is now the application of knowledge,
597
skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet or exceed the intended value.
598
Once again, this definition puts the intended value at the finish line.
599
How then would that influence how we define the scope, how we plan, how we lead?
600
What's your insight here that you can share with us?
601
Yeah, the original definition for project management at the same time as that definition of project came out in the 1986 pre-PIMBOK,
602
called out that the definition of project management was application of knowledge,
603
skills, and tools to meet or exceed project stakeholder expectations.
604
And then somewhere along the way, our community said, no, no, no, no. It's about the requirements.
605
And so the definition of project over the recent 10 to 15 years has been about satisfying project requirements.
606
What if the requirements are wrong?
607
and and and and guess what project manager that's your job your job is to make sure
608
that the project requirements capture some kind of a business case
609
some kind of a value proposition in order to move forward um
610
so i'm about to audit a very large it project right now where there's one executive
611
that says the requirements are the definition of success i'm not
612
going to pay for anything more I'm not going to tolerate any further delays, the requirements.
613
But then there's another executive in a different department.
614
They're both peers who says, but I won't be able to use it.
615
Now, the one who wants to use it is not the one paying for it.
616
It's the other executive.
617
And so now they get to have an executive cage match.
618
Go fight it over.
619
I'm the project manager.
620
All I did was reveal you have a fundamental misalignment on what the success of a project is.
621
And it's my job not to solve that but to make sure
622
that it gets solved by the appropriate players that's what project
623
management is it's not complying to requirements it's meeting expectations of
624
what the value proposition is about wonderful thank you very much with
625
that we have come to the end of our conversation here
626
on the pinball guide eighth edition we looked at the standard we looked at the PMBOK Guide.
627
And third, we looked a little bit at the back matter there with AI.
628
Before I say thank you very much, let's let people know where they can get their copy of the PMBOK Guide.
629
I bought mine at the Global Summit, you probably got one for free, I hope, for all the work that you've put into this.
630
Where can our audience get the PMBOK Guide?
631
So if you just go to PMI's website and look under the standards section, and it is the flagship standard,
632
it'll be right there for free download to anyone who is a PMI member in good standing.
633
Not merely a certification holder, but if you are a paying member in good standing with an annual membership that comes renewal each year,
634
it's a free download.
635
PDF.
636
Go for it.
637
If you want a hard copy,
638
then you can pre-order your print copy today to be shipped to your home in January.
639
The full print run is going to be happening over the holidays.
640
So just go to PMI's website
641
and you'll be able to take a look either for your free member download
642
or a paper copy or a non-member digital copy for purchase.
643
Right.
644
And I think if you want it in a language other than English, you have to wait until April, if I remember the date correctly.
645
Right.
646
That sounds right.
647
The translations are underway and will be released in the middle of 2026.
648
All right.
649
Jesse, thank you so much for being here.
650
It's only been a little over a week since PMBOK 8 has been released.
651
I really appreciate your flexibility to come on here and bring the new Pimbockeye to our audience.
652
It's been my pleasure.
653
Absolute treat.
654
And for those of you who want to talk about this more, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
655
I have a personal policy of accepting any invite from any project practitioner.
656
Would love to continue the conversation.
657
Right.
658
I will put your LinkedIn profile link into the show notes of this episode here,
659
which is episode 542 of the Project Management Podcast.
660
Once again, Jesse, thank you very much.
661
Thank you, Cornelius.
662
All the best.
663
All right.
664
Thank you, everybody.
665
Please do visit pm-podcast.com slash 542 for the show notes and also for Jesse's LinkedIn profile link.
666
You can claim PDUs for participating, watching, listening to this episode.
667
Looks like about 0.75 PDUs in ways of working.
668
And our email address is info at pm-podcast.com.
669
And finally, we have this here, the Galaxy Brain Meme, which should have been animated, but it isn't.
670
So let me walk you through it.
671
At the top left, the first brain is when you're thinking that, yeah, Pimboc 8, that's just Pimboc 7 with new lipstick.
672
Below that, the second brain, a little bit more active when you realize, oh my, the principles have changed.
673
Then at the top right, your brain is getting more activity going.
674
You're realizing the domains have changed.
675
And lastly, at the bottom right, your brain is exploding because you realize even the definition of the term project has changed.
676
And with that, I bid you farewell.
677
Until next time.
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Project Managers, English Learners: Let’s Break Down This Real-World Chat
Imagine you’re tuning into a podcast where two project management experts chat about the new PMBOK Guide 8. The conversation is casual but packed with industry jargon—perfect for practicing real English! This is the kind of natural dialogue you’d hear in professional settings, making it ideal for shadowspeak (repeating aloud to mimic pronunciation and flow). Let’s dive into the key parts that’ll boost your speaking skills.
Useful Chunks & Collocations to Master
- "Dropped" (informal for "released"): "The PMBOK Guide 8 edition has dropped." Great for talking about new products or updates.
- "Set in stone" (fixed, unchangeable): "Foundational concepts we assumed were set in stone." Useful for discussing rules or ideas that might change.
- "Get off my chest" (share something bothering you): "I need to get one thing off my chest." Perfect for casual conversations when you want to be honest.
- "Renewal cycle" (regular update process): "There’s a regular renewal cycle required by ANSI." Handy for professional contexts about standards or processes.
- "Front row view" (inside perspective): "He brings a front row view of global insights." Use this to describe someone with direct experience.
Your Shadowing Challenge: Mimic the Flow
Here’s how to practice shadow speech right now: Pick a 30-second clip from the video. Listen once, then hit pause and repeat immediately, copying the tone, speed, and pauses. Focus on phrases like "the PMP exam is not a test of the PMBOK guide"—notice how the speaker stresses "not" for emphasis. Do this 5 times, then record yourself. Compare it to the original—you’ll start to hear how shadowspeaks improves your pronunciation and fluency. This isn’t just about words; it’s about sounding natural in real conversations. Ready to try? Press play and start shadowing!
Pro tip: Shadowing helps you internalize common collocations, making your English sound less scripted. Keep practicing, and you’ll notice your confidence grow—whether you’re talking project management or just chatting with friends!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | that's been evolving · have been promoting · have already been working |
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to be |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has dropped · has coached · has been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is built · were set · is required |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.