Project management framework (an overview of the Project Management Body of Knowledge)

The act of creating PMI's initial A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) was a massive undertaking involving numerous project management practitioners discussing and debating the finer points of the elements essential to the discipline. This article summarizes one of these discussions and debates, one that occurred as a workshop held during the 1985 PMI Seminars & Symposium (Denver, CO, USA). It discusses the background of PMI's effort to create its PMBOK®, originally known as PMI Project #121, an effort initiated and managed by PMI's Ethics, Standards and Accreditation (ESA) Management Group. It identifies the PMBOK's six basic functions and describes the limits of PMI using the work breakdown structure (WBS) as the model for organizing its PMBOK. It also explains the scope of PMI's PMBOK and lists the type of knowledge needed to manage businesses (general management) and the ground rules required to develop a body of knowledge for managing projects.