I’m Having A Geeky Blogging Month

I am writing a lot about the business of Apple.

I do project management and I do not own any Apple products yet lately, a lot of my posts are about technology. This blog is about anything that comes to mind and it surprises me that IT business  is a subject that I think a lot about.

As a project manager, I am on the business side of IT and I am thinking about getting an iPad. I am sensitive to these subjects. It makes sense that I would think, and write, about these often.

I planned on the blog revealing things about myself. I did not know what revelations to expect. This one is surprising. I was hoping for something a little more interesting.

Drucker on the PMP

‘Management, in other words, is a practice, rather than a science or profession, although containing elements of both. No greater damage could be done to our economy or to our society than to attempt to professionalize management by licensing managers, for instance, or by limiting access to management positions to people with a special academic degree. … any serious attempt to make management “scientific” or a “profession” is bound to lead to the attempt to eliminate those “disturbing nuisances,” the unpredictabilities of business life — its ups and downs, its “wasteful competition,” the “irrational choices” of the consumer’ — Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management

Granted, Peter Drucker is talking about the practice of management and not project management. Granted, the PMP certification only attests to minimum of project management experience and knowledge of project management as documented in the PMBOK.

Nevertheless, project management is management applied to projects, project management is seen as a profession and the PMP is becoming a required certification (license) for project managers. This is especially true in IT.

The result is as predicted by Peter Drucker, ‘the attempt to eliminate those “disturbing nuisances,” the unpredictabilities of business life’.

The Agile Manifesto is clearly a reaction to the regimentation of project management:

“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”