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Process and People

planning Jun 15, 2020

I've been keenly interested in the latest developments around project management. Up until now, the PMP certification has been built around the PMBOKv6 guide, which is entirely focused on process, process, process. I'm assuming the PMI determined the thousands of hours of required project management experience needed to achieve the PMP would give you the real-world "people experience" (commonly called "soft skills") you would need to be successful.

Now, the new exam outline (due out in January 2021) is focused on nearly an exact divide between two elements: people and process

Isn't this the entire challenge of building a business? Or managing a project? Or getting just about anything done? Getting the people to follow a process. Sure, you can simply "do stuff" and hope that you arrive at the destination, but the path will be chalked full of inefficiencies. Likewise, once you're done, you may have a completed product or service, but have no idea how to do the entire thing all over again (enter the cliche, "it's like recreating the wheel" every. single. time.

When building something new (technology service, chore schedule, recipe, etc.) always begin with the process creation in mind (this is why PMP certification is valuable: it's primarily a pre-created glut of processes that you can use). Since it's likely an entirely new thing, it's as simple as opening a note taking "thing" (OneNote, Evernote, Blog) and writing down each step you are doing. Even if you end up on the wrong track, you can come back and edit later. Once you're done with the exploratory work, you're left with a framework / list of steps you took to get there. This can then be refined and published into a repeatable process to build that item the same way.  

Well, this blog ended in a completely different spot than it started; I'm sure I'll expand on many elements here as the thought process evolves. 

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