REPLY Society Strategy Development (SD7114)

[SDMAIL Carl Betterton]

Posted by  Carl Betterton <carlb at uga.edu>

In reply to Bill Harris, who asked of Johann Heymann:
>   May I ask why?


I don't intend to answer for Johann, but suggest that a published SD 
body of knowledge (BOK) (perhaps along with certification) might confer 
benefits similar to the following:

    * Offer prospective SD students, together with their parents, 
teachers, counselors, and advisers, a glimpse of the importance of SD 
and of the breadth of opportunities it offers;
    * Assist SD and other faculty members in designing curricula, 
creating and modifying courses, and teaching and mentoring students;
    * Offer researchers ideas on future directions of SD and related 
needs and define the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that should be 
imparted to students seeking to pursue a career in SD research;
    * Provide SD students and beginning SD practitioners with a 
framework against which they can understand the purpose, measure the 
progress, and plan the completion of their studies and pre-certification 
experience;
    * Give leaders of the SD Society or other oversight organization and 
those who work with them a basis for developing appropriate 
accreditation criteria for SD curricula;
    * Tell employers what they can expect in terms of basic knowledge, 
skills, and attitudes from SD majors or graduates;
    * Suggest to SD professionals how they can assist SD beginners 
attain the additional levels of expertise needed to enter the practice 
of SD at the professional level;
    * Provide certifying bodies with confidence that the formal 
education and pre-certification experience of SD practitioners will meet 
the SD profession’s responsibility to the public for ethical and 
competent practice.
    * Serve as a focal point for continuous improvement in the BOK itself.
   
A BOK is not fixed, but evolves with the field. Anyone can write a book 
about SD, but a BOK requires just the sort of agreement that we have 
seen is so difficult, with goals and strategy for example. The PM (or 
any other) BOK does not include everything that everyone believes it 
should contain; but it includes some things that everyone agrees upon, 
things "generally recognized" as "good practice." It is a start, not an 
end point. The 3rd Edition of the Guide to the PM BOK does indeed refer 
to critical chain methodology, but my recollection is that the first 
edition did not. There is a process for updating the BOK; the committee, 
contributors, and reviewers consisted of over 120 people for the 3rd 
edition.

Integrate PRINCE2 with PMBOK? What a nice thought as it applies to SD - 
how good it would be if we had a SD BOK developed in the UK and another 
developed in the US (or India, Japan, etc). You must know that there is 
much in the two approaches that is quite similar - the basics of 
defining, initiating, controlling, etc. a project. And if I know PRINCE2 
well, I will have little difficulty making a transition to PMBOK.

Yes, project management is a process, but applied engineering (control 
theory or any other) is also a process; design is a process. Developing 
and agreeing upon a BOK is a process. A BOK is a manifesto that says, 
"this much we (as a society) agree on." One of the problems with the SD 
Society (in my view) is that its members can't seem to agree on what it 
is, or should be. In other words, there is no minimal agreed, and 
published, body of knowledge. I suspect SD people do not want to be 
"tied down" to any set of rules or standards that a published BOK would 
imply. Bill's concern with "codifying" SD reminds me of the debates that 
have raged in the building code community for a century. Some argue that 
such codes restrict creativity and add to cost, and they do for the best 
designers, but for others they prevent mistakes and enforce 
fundamentals. I see codes (or a BOK) not as focused on the past, but 
serving as a relatively stable launch platform in a dynamic present that 
helps aim for an uncertain future.

There was a time when we did not have project managers, or even 
"managers" by that title. It was more rapid change and greater 
complexity that produced the need for project managers, and the need was 
there before there were people recognized as "project managers." It may 
well be that change and complexity demand SD knowledge and skill, but 
the need is not yet widely recognized, partly because there is no 
published SD BOK - which would along with benefits listed above, embody 
a bold and recognizable prescription for many of the current ills that 
we endure.

By the way, the list of benefits above is an edited version of the 
benefits given by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) for its 
civil engineering BOK publication 
http://pubs.asce.org/magazines/ascenews/2007/Issue_07-07/news3.htm.

Best regards,

Carl
Posted by  Carl Betterton <carlb at uga.edu>
posting date  Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:57:09 -0400