Tag Archives: differentiation

On Choosing Resources: An Anecdote

This semester afforded another reminder of the need for differentiation. In addition to other articles and online resources, I use two texts for my ed tech project management course:

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)

Scrappy Guide to Project Management

The PMBOK Guide is the widely accepted industry standard for project management and at least a few students have thanked me for including it as they were asked about their familiarity with it during job interviews. It’s not an exciting read by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a comprehensive approach to the process.

The Scrappy Guide is part of a series and take a seriously light-hearted approach to the process of project management, revealing the sometimes chaotic underbelly that PMBOK mostly ignores. She includes some excellent exercise ideas for team building and planning along with ways to avoid some of the well-known pitfalls of project management.

So, two books that cover the same topic in much different ways and for much different purposes. I think they complement each other and I wouldn’t give up either one of them. Students tend to either love them or hate them. This semester, one student told me how much he disliked the Scrappy guide: too messy for him. Another student told me PMBOK gave him a headache. I wondered if their personal preferences have any bearing on how they might function as a project manager.

But, it was also a reminder that differentiation is essential at all levels. I also include a “video of the week” in the course and take advantage of videos created by ProjectManager.com.