Simplify, simplify, simplify! This post describes why I’ve gone through all of my PM “Body of Work” and boiled it down to the essential few items you need to design and manage your projects with “just enough” PM discipline… and
no burdensome PM administrivia!
I have been wandering through the world of project management (PM) for more than 30 years — first as a working project manager; then as an author, consultant, and trainer of PM newbies. Here’s a graphic summarizing my PM “Body of Work:”
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| My "Body of Work" in Project Management |
My PM textbooks have been adopted by individuals, colleges, universities, and organizations (public and private). I’ve published articles, conducted informal PM studies, maintained this websites for nearly two decades, published a blog/podcast (
Inspired Project Teams) and have been a presenter at many professional conferences. I’ve also helped develop proprietary PM job/competency models. Finally, for more than 20 years, I especially enjoyed creating customized PM Basics workshops and presenting these on site, for PM newbies in almost every industry imaginable.
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| My "Wisdom Filter" Working to Reduce Complexity |
After so many years of explaining PM and helping newcomers apply PM to their own projects, I’ve developed a kind of filter (like the strainer shown above) that’s made up of my experiences. I call this my Wisdom Filter. And, as the years go by,
I have begun more and more to engage this filter to help me strip out the needless complexity from the field of PM. The result is
a simple, practical vision of PM which I call Project Management Minimalism. It’s based on these
two premises:
First: Despite what many PM “experts” and professional associations would like you to believe,
it’s fairly easy for anyone to learn to use a few basic PM tools and processes to assure that projects are well-organized and completed on time, on budget, and with excellent results.
Second: A strong case can be made that
extensive PM training and certification is a “nice to have,” not a “need to have.” (For more on this, see my article
Beyond PM Certification: Achieving PM Performance Improvement.)
To support this PM Minimalist vision, I’ve gone through all of my PM “Body of Work” and boiled it down to the essential few items you need to design and manage your projects with “just enough” PM discipline… and
no burdensome PM administrivia! And I’ve assembled this in an easy-to-use book,
The Project Management Minimalist: Just Enough PM to Rock Your Projects!
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PM Minimalism: 10 Essential Steps to PM
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