Body of Knowledge refreshStructure Working GroupPaper 3

16 November 2011

Highlights

  1. Gender neutrality

23 comments were received on the use of ‘he’ throughout the content e.g. comment from a male respondent “Given that we are in the second decade of the 21st Century I was surprised to see that HE is used when discussing the Project Manager and other key stakeholders”. There was strong feedback across the board that the BoK should be gender neutral.

This needs to be included in the final drafting process.

Request from refresh team:

  1. Please can we have a recommendation from the Structure Working Group on the approach to take (use ‘he/she’, or use ‘he’ and ‘she’ alternately, ‘they’, refer to the role rather than the gender, etc).
  1. Further reading

One of the 4 questions for the consultation was focused on further reading. 15% of comments received related to the further reading.

Representatives from ENAG who attended the face to face events have volunteered to review all further reading items, and additional members of ENAG have subsequently joined this group.

The refresh team have collated all comments received relating to the further reading and have provided this, along with a briefing, to this group. They will be providing the updated further reading for inclusion in the final draft review.

  1. No action required.
  1. Alignment

General

  • “If you ask people to read something else, also need to be conscious that they will come across different definitions of a term - people need to know that. Moving towards greater alignment of terms would be the ideal”.
  • “Need alignment of terms across different standards (BSI, ISO, etc.) We reference OGC in further reading so the terms they use need to be in the Glossary. If we don't use the same terms, need to be clear about why it's different and why we are using a different term”.
  • “If APM is going to command respect as a Chartered Body, need to be clear about how it sits alongside what other organisations have”.
  • “The updated text refers heavily to P3 which I presume is OGC. This excludes other approaches and industry sectors”.
  • “Links to DSDM? APMG? IPMA? Anywhere in final document?”

There were a number of comments on alignment with other organisations, namely:

  • ISO – particularly in relation to the new ISO21500
  • “Using the terms outputs and outcomes (in this manner) conflicts with the ISO 21500 which will be published 2nd half of 2012. Based on ISO 21500 the examples given for outputs and outcomes would be defined as deliverables”.
  • “There is current work in progress such as ISO 21500? We should ensure this emergent work is anticipated and appropriately referenced when available”.
  • “Reference to new international standard should be considered (ISO 21500) – to get the ‘foot in the door’”
  • BSI – particularly in relation to the glossary, and to the updated BS6079
  • “The project life cycle chart seems inconsistent with BS 6079, surely we should be in accord or we confuse”.
  • “Glossary - work in conjunction with BSI - has similar glossary but slightly different so we have different definitions for the same terms, not helpful - would be better to have one agreed version”.
  • “The revised BS-6079 (2010) guidelines contain definitions which differ from BoK. Now is a good time to look at this. The forthcoming ISO standard might influence this”.
  • “The formula given for Value is the standard formula shown in the British Standard and promoted by the Institute of Value Management for general use rather than the project specific explanation we gave”.
  • PMI
  • “I assume it is deliberate not to mention anything from PMI, but why not?”
  • “How does this review link to the current PMI BoK review?”
  • “The PMI BoK provides a useful venn diagram explaining the relationship between core BoK for Project Management and how this interfaces with other disciplines”.
  • OGC – both in terms of how the references are presented, and alignment of terms and concepts
  • “The Office of Government Commerce is no more – it now Cabinet Office. All references to PRINCE2, MSP, P3O, MoV etc should be stated with the appropriate trademark and a acknowledgement made as dictated by the Cabinet Office about these trademarks. The acknowledgements could be made at the beginning of the BoK”.
  • “It does not recognise the formula given in the OGC’s MoV publication. This does not make VM specifically relevant to project management”.
  • SIG Guides
  • “Governance heading needs to align with the Governance guide”.
  • “The definitions and use of 'Contingency' and 'Management Reserve' are inconsistent with the APM 'Interfacing Risk And Earned Value' guide. The BoK should be updated to conform with the 2008 edition of RIsk-EV guide. In particular, the sentence that states "A management reserve covers things that could not have been foreseen, such as changes to the scope of the work..." is incorrect. I believe this statement also contradicts the definition in the 'Earned Value Management: APM Guidelines' publication. N.B. The APM Risk-EV guide purposely removed the term Contingency from its content and glossary)”.
  • IPMA
  • “We currently 'group' competencies into THREE; here only behavioural and technical competences are discussed, NOT contextual ones. If not the latter then please explain why we don't follow our own structure (and IPMA's)”.

Request from Refresh Team:

  1. Please can we have a statement on position of APM BoK in relation to above items.
  2. Also need an agreed position in terms of diagrams from other organisations (see comment 3 under PMI above).

Following this, any content specific items in the above (e.g. VM formula from OGC) will be fed through to the consistency authoring team for consideration in the final draft.

  • Glossary

Included in the above are some comments on the glossary. Members of the consistency authoring team and Structure Working Group will be meeting on 20 December to review the glossary ready for inclusion in the final draft review.

  1. No action required.
  • Publishing

Some comments were received relating to the supplementary information that will be developed as part of the published version following sign-off e.g. “Recommendation: produce a road map to explain how to content fits together, an opening statement explaining the order or put in order”, “the logic of the structure is somewhat obtuse and needs explaining and signposting - e.g. to avoid repetition the main headings are those things that must happen. Various supporting techniques to achieve the main headings are nestled within the main topics and "invisible" in the index”.

Work is taking place on the development of the eBoK, as well as an initial meeting regarding the published book. Items referenced in the comments above will be incorporated into the publishing workload taking place following the sign-off of the technical content.

  1. No action required.