PM Excellence announced the launch of the first open practical standard for project management for the Russian market

The conference was organized by PM Excellence, a PMC contractor and one of the Russian market leaders in the field of managing large-scale projects and megaprojects.

The event speakers were:

• -Alexander Kochetov (PMP, PME, PM Excellence partner)
• -Anastasia Chemisova (PME, PM Expert training director)
• -Alexander Kutuzov (PME, invited expert of PM Excellence)

The purpose of the PM GUIDE standard is to offer customers and project managers in companies a minimum set of mandatory processes necessary to manage any project. The standard was developed based on more than 20 years of practical experience in managing large-scale projects and megaprojects by PM Excellence experts.

Prerequisites for creating a PM GUIDE

Speaking about the prerequisites for creating the standard, Alexander Kochetov noted: "We regularly observed how many project management teams are engaged in describing processes from scratch, often filling in the bumps already filled with their predecessors. Also, in some, especially large, organizations, there are so-called "heavy methodologies", which are multi-volume documents. Few people read such documents from beginning to end - and even fewer who regularly use them in their work (often due to the obsolescence or isolation of such documents from real life).

Largely due to this state of affairs, we regularly heard and continue to hear from most of our customers a request for a short, succinct manual document with the minimum required processes and artifacts described in it - and this despite the presence of internationally recognized standards on the market (PMBOK, IPMA, etc.).

We have been working in the market for a long time and, naturally, are familiar with most of the existing documents. But since PM Excellence is a service company, and we work directly "in the field" (in particular, at facilities, on construction sites), we could see with our own eyes which concepts, provisions and sections of standards work and which do not.

Considering the needs of the market, the requests of which, as I already said, we heard regularly, and also having the experience accumulated over 20 years in managing large-scale projects and megaprojects, we decided to speed up the work on developing a document that was supposed to include the minimum necessary set of processes and artifacts applicable to projects of any level of complexity."

PM GUIDE complements the well-known international standard PMBOK 7.0, which is used by many companies as a basis for developing internal methodologies. However, PMBOK 7.0 broadly describes the outline of project management at the principle level, but not the specific steps and processes. While PM GUIDE is a short practical guide to project management.

PM GUIDE Principles

PM GUIDE includes:

• -a minimum set of mandatory processes (12) required to manage any project;
• -requirements for the results of project management processes;
• -logical relationship of processes;
• -mandatory roles of project participants and their main functions.

The standard clearly shows the process diagram at two levels: the level of the project customer and the level of the project manager. The diagram displays the main logical connections between project management processes.

Alexander Kutuzov spoke about the principles of PM GUIDE:

1. "More is possible, less is not possible." The standard includes minimally necessary but mandatory processes.
2. Openness. The standard is publicly available on the PM Excellence website. It may be used without permission but with credit to PM Excellence.
3. Based on PM Excellence practices. All provisions of the standard are a reflection of the practice of PM Excellence, whose team has been managing large-scale projects and megaprojects for more than 20 years.
4. Ppractical value. The standard includes exclusively practical steps (without theory, principles, declarations).
5. PM GUIDE is the starting point in creating a "tree of standards". It is planned to further develop the line of standards and release new versions.

The PM GUIDE standard was presented to the professional community at the 17th international conference "Project Management 2022" and caused a positive response among project management specialists. In particular, its brevity, conciseness and practical orientation were noted.

The attitude towards PM GUIDE is illustrated by the results of a vote held among conference participants:

PM GUIDE training and certification

The first training course on PM GUIDE will appear in the PM Expert line in the second quarter of 2023. Registration for the course will begin in January.

The PM GUIDE standard specifies a clear sequence of steps in managing any project and their logic, while allowing for a large selection of tools and methods by which these steps are implemented. The educational course according to the standard will be devoted to just these tools, and students will study project management technology from A to Z using the example of solving an educational practical case based on a real project.

Also, the PM GUIDE standard does not aim to explain why this or that action is needed in a particular situation, but the course will pay attention to this.

"The participants in our trainings are mostly already established project specialists with certain experience (according to statistics, about 50% of our students have experience participating in projects from 3 years, and 30% - from 1 to 3 years). But these are project specialists, many of whom have not received systematic training in project management. They come to us at PM Expert for theoretical and methodological reinforcement of their practical experience, for confirmation or, conversely, refutation of the approaches to which they came through their own practice. Do these approaches correspond to what is recognized by experienced professionals in project management? Courses on the new practical standard PM GUIDE will allow a more focused answer to these questions," comments Anastasia Chemisova.

PM Expert also plans to supplement its line of certifications with a new product - certification based on PM GUIDE. This will be an addition to PME certification, which involves testing knowledge of the basics of project management methodology. The new PM GUIDE certification will test knowledge at the operational level of project management.

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The PM GUIDE standard is open and can be downloaded from the PM Excellence website follow the link.

PM Excellence - PMC contractor, one of the leaders in the project management market, specializes in the practical management of large-scale projects and megaprojects. The PM Excellence team of expert practitioners stood at the origins of project management in Russia and has been helping companies implement projects of a national scale for more than 20 years.

PM Expert is a leading Russian provider of educational services in project management and certification of project managers. The PM Expert team has been on the market for over 20 years. During this time, tens of thousands of managers from Russian and foreign companies have attended PM Expert courses. The total number of training certificates issued exceeds 83,000.
PM Expert and PM Excellence have a long-term partnership. Managers of PM Excellence practices speak at PM Expert courses with their real cases, illustrating the practical application of the theory that students learn about during the training process.

The PM Expert company has developed and brought to the market a certification system for specialists in the field of project management, consisting of several stages. PME® Certification recognized by leading employers, about 4,000 specialists have confirmed their knowledge of project management.