I have been on twitter for the last 2 weeks.

After a friend of mine said to me, that twitter is a great resource and great articles and pearls are referred to, I started to create an account, loaded the great ‘Tweetie 2′ Application onto my iPhone and gave it a go. I looked for public known PMs within twitter, like the ‘pmstudent‘ or ‘CorneliusFicht‘ aka Cornelius Fichtner and started to build my ‘network’ on Twitter. I started following Project Managers and accounts from Companies. During that time Twitter announced the ‘list’ feature, where you are able to categorize Twitter accounts into lists so that you can build areas of interests. So it started to set-up a list which follows great individuals around project management (you can see it on the right side in my blog; an example for the real time web, where all new tweets are published at the very second they are visible on twitter).

So after two weeks I almost posted 200 tweets, more or less in the area of project management, and I do have around 80 followers. I guess most of the followers are not organic, they follow me because of specific key words I have used in my tweets. Those guys are following a couple of thousand accounts or even more, and I am not sure how you can follow more than appr. 200 people. I would call that information overload.

But the best part are the tweets that I am seeing every day (I check them while I am on the train in the morning and in the evening while going to work and back home; wondering sometimes how I get there as I am fully focused on my iPhone :-) )

Out of all these tweets I am getting I do tag the ones as favourites that are focusing on my key areas of interest like ‘pearls in project management‘, ‘social media and project management‘, ‘How to use agile approaches in your projects‘ and other special topics.

As I have written 2 books in the recent past and another one due to be published in December this year, the next book has been planned and kicked off already which will focus on revolutions in project management, twitter has become a key resource for me. Just look at the fantastic pearls I have identified in the various fields over the last two weeks (abstract) thanks to all the great people I am following.

Perls in Project Management:

1. theplanis : New article: Disaster projects and how to recover them: http://bit.ly/7UAJWF
2. projekt_log : Super Artikel über Festpreisprojekte und Scrum: http://bit.ly/8cqOOQ
3. commsabilities : PMs: practical advice on how to turn projects round using communications http://cli.gs/2QRPj
4. pmstudent :What to Include in Your Project Kickoff Presentation: http://bit.ly/8JWncM #PMOT

Social Media and Project Management:

1. JoachimNiemeier : 12 Adoption Strategies for Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 - http://bit.ly/8HwJgH
2. shim_marom : “Social Media in the work place | quantmleap” ( http://bit.ly/7GY0Pi )
3. tweetmeme : 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010 http://bit.ly/7vKnms

Agile Approaches:

1. zcope : Turning #Storyboards into #Agile #Requirements http://bit.ly/5lYDtp
2. thepmp : Presentation: Principles and Practices of Lean-Agile Software Development http://bit.ly/4th6kj
3. garmahis : The waterfall trap for “agile” projects http://bit.ly/4JlTwi

Specials:

1. garmahis : Nine Awesome iPhone Apps for Business - ReadWriteEnterprise http://bit.ly/4pUwa2
2. chaoskind : Betrachte nicht müßig den Steinhaufen, sondern frage dich, wen du damit bewerfen kannst. (Persisches Sprichwort)
   
3. PhilipGDavis : Tips For Attractive Book Covers http://bit.ly/8egDWJ

Twitter is wonderful and I am looking forward to receive more perls and to contribute to the #pmot network. Thanks to everybody out there.

The PMBOK has been rewriten and enhanced and published throughout this year.

I have just came across in interesting article that describes all the major changes that have been applied to the 4th edition.

So what has changed (read the article for further information):

1. Consistency around the terminology and concepts used
2. clear and standardized writing style
3. Some minor process changes
4. Consideration of new PM practices (Agile etc.)

A great step forward but nothing really new.

As I have written in my past post, the methods and tools around Project Management do not change much. We are vertically rather than expanding the horizon. Agile gave some new momentum to the industry and new books have been published around this topic and you see more and more presentations on conferences. But emagine, after some years you would need to rewrite was has happened on the Internet, I am sure that book would have for more major changes than a book about project management.

As said, I am glad that there are projects as they make our lives.

I am just wondering, what has changed in the recent past in project management and what has been really new? To be honest, not much.

In the last 2 years I have visited a couple of project management conferences and I have presented on some, I have facilitated workshops, chaired whole conferences and gave presentations on several topics. What I have realized, especially in the break out sessions that we talk stuff over and over … and over. We dig deaply into Risk Management, Communication Management, Stakeholder Management, Quality Management and all other interesting topics around our micro cosmos. But really new stuff … I have’nt seen it.

OK, you might say … Agile … ! Yes, but isnt agile just a rapid waterfall with a different terminology?

OK, you might say … Web 2.0 … ! Yes, it has changed and will change the way how we communicate among teams, especially in a global and outsourced world. But is this anything new to Project Management?

Even PMI shows with their new credential programs, that they are going ‘more detail’. The PMI Risk Management Specialist, The PMI Scheduling Professional and more to come. The techniques and the terminology are enhanced but is there anything new to it?

Unfortunately a project is a project is a project. And project management compared to whats happening in the web 2010 and the dynamic thats happening in that field might look very boaring from the outside.

How ever, I am glad that there are projects! Which are not boaring at all, as every project is different and has it’s own challenges.

So lets do projects.

A risk that nobody had on its register - The loss of the entire building and the loss of the whole staff and both at the same time - (more…)