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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus.  Skomorokh, barbarian  03:03, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge

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A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Notability not verified - the only source appears to be the company responsible for the book/system/whatever it is (I'm not exactly clear) plus (see talkpage) a company that sells this product, which keeps spamming the page. If this is "an internationally recognised standard" I don't seem to be able to find evidence of it. Article has been unreferenced since 2007 when it survived last AfD on the promise of references. At the beginning of October, an editor who claimed to be a project management professional who used this product (not known if he worked for the company or not) said he would find references, but he has not returned. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:45, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak Delete, after looking through all the evidence again. Concensus seemed to be that the topic potentially has notability according to those in the field, and as such time was given for the article to assert its notability with additional sources. However, after the filings on WQA, and the article talk page went stale with no sources being found and added, it seems that nothing has changed. The article may be able to gain notability from some reviews on the web, but it would need to be substantially cut down as little of its content is verifiable currently. --Taelus (talk) 15:37, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment in advance to those who will again claim notability: Please find the sources and add them, this discussion will last 7 days. If you do know where to find some good sources please do add them and I will happily !vote to Keep the article, however as we have discussed this before, the article cannot really be kept without any sources. --Taelus (talk) 15:37, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - As noted above, it is widely held which lends credibility to the assertion that is used as course text. I realize fully that Wikipedia is not a reliable source, but our own article on Project Management Professional supports the assertion it is a key course text but it does have a reference to a PDF which I seem not to be abel to open right now. If another editor could give it a try, this might help verify the assertion. The book is often known as the "PMBOK Guide". Using this as a search turns up this entry in The Wiley Guide to Project Organization and Project Management Competencies and notes that its publication oin 1996 "marked a major milestone in the development of project management as a field of practice". A google scholar search for it turns up these results. -- Whpq (talk) 14:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Any article that contains texts like:

    The PMBOK Guide is process-based, meaning it describes work as being accomplished by processes. ...Processes overlap and interact throughout a project or its various phases. Processes are described in terms of:

    * Inputs (documents, plans, designs, etc.)
    * Tools and Techniques (mechanisms applied to inputs)
    * Outputs (documents, products, etc.)

    Each of the nine knowledge areas contains the processes that need to be accomplished within its discipline in order to achieve an effective project management program. Each of these processes also falls into one of the five basic process groups, creating a matrix structure such that every process can be related to one knowledge area and one process group.

    whatever else it is, is no contribution to any body of knowledge. Most of these articles about meaningless management theories are there to promote somebody's product or consulting business, in my impression. If this article about the book has to stretch such small ideas into such long sentences, and construct elaborate rhetorical tautologies and trivialisms, I wince to think what the full text is like. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:38, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - The field of project management may be mostly full of crap, but what we need to determine is whether this is notable regardless of its other merits. -- Whpq (talk) 21:46, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The PMBOK is a recognised industry-style of standard. An earlier version is an IEEE standard but I don't have the details handy. The article could be improved a lot though V29 (talk) 09:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have sources for that, because it's kind of the crux of the debate. I know it's *not* an industry standard in the UK and Europe, but I can't find evidence that it *is* an industry standard in North America. Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The PMBOK is an IEEE Guide 1490-1998 and -2003. I do not have which PMBOK version which corresponds to which IEEE versions handy. See http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/servlet/opac?punumber=6238 V29 (talk) 10:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There's a reason why I've removed that citation from the article several times now, as I discussed on the talk page. Namely, it's because that standard was withdrawn on 26-Jan-2009, and consequently, it's irrelevant. Dori ❦ (Talk ❖ Contribs ❖ Review) ❦ 09:24, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But if we are looking at notability, this does establish an historical fact about the guide, which is that a subset of its material was used and endorsed by the IEEE as a standard regardless of the fact that it has since been withdrawn. -- Whpq (talk) 11:38, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The situation with IEEE and the PMBoK might be more complex than it appears. See the IEEE Software & Systems Engineering Standards Committee status page at http://standards.computer.org/sesc/s2esc_mgtboard/Standards_Status/Standards-Status-2009-01-13.xls, which says that the next task will be to adopt the 2008 version of the PMBoK. Cxbrx (talk) 21:56, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The process to adopt PMBOK 2008 (4th edition) as an IEEE standard is ongoing as the PAR (Project Approval Request in IEEE standardization lingo) was approved by IEEE-SA Standards Board 11-13 May 2009 (http://standards.ieee.org/standardswire/sba/5-09.html) V29 (talk) 09:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Smerdis of Thingyme. Crafty (talk) 11:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Additional sourcing - Looking at notability for books, this should fall into the area of academic text as it relates to the study of project management. Whether the field of project management is full of consultants who speak fluent bafflegab is not realyl relevant. In addition to the Wiley text noted above, there is also [1], [2], and [3] all stating that this is one of the key works in the field of project management which meets the guidelines in WP:NB. -- Whpq (talk) 13:29, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep As per WP:NB, the PMBoK is a required text for almost all the Berkeley Extension Project Management Classes. Google Scholar shows that the PMBoK is cited 43 times (not a lot, but enough). Amazon shows that it is the #334 on the book list. Compare this with Design Patterns (book), which is #2609. Searching Google is not necessarily a good measure of notability, but searching just google books turns up 880 hits. I'm a project manager and consider this book to be the primary text in the area. Project Management Professional says that there are 359,973 certified Project Management Professionals, all of whom presumably studied one of the 4 versions of this book. The Project Management Professional exam is based on the material in the PMBoK, the Project Management Professional article says "Most of the questions reference the PMI A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (aka the PMBOK Guide).[4]" Before deleting this article, it would be good to have some Project Management Subject Matter Experts weigh in. (Disclaimers: I work for UC Berkeley, I've taken UC Berkeley Extension classes, I own four copies of the PMBoK, I'm taking the PMP exam in two days.) Cxbrx (talk) 22:08, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reason this ended up at AfD in the first place is because previously those with knowledge of the subject area stated they would add references, but nothing happened to the article for a month. The article needs referencing. --Taelus (talk) 08:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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