A couple of days ago I had a chance to attend a project management workshop about a new project management methodology called CAM2P (Customizable and Adaptable Methodology for Managing Projects), the workshop had different people from different industries such as IT, construction, oil & gas, and marketing & media, there have been many discussions about hot topics that I will discuss in this post

The workshop had about 150 attendees who have various profiles and different experiences, I could see people who are in 50s and some other PMP aspirants in 20s, the day has started by an introduction and a presentation about history of project management, then another presenter gave an overview about the different project management certification options emphasising on the pros and cons of each which is a very subjective topic, then another presenter started the main topic of the workshop that is the CAMP2P methodology, a general overview about what the PMBOK is and what it is not was also given, many people tried to compare the PMBOK Guide to the methodology, however I have spoken to the presenter and the audience and said that the PMBOK Guide cannot be compared to any methodology because the first is a framework and an apple to apple comparison would be useless in this case.

The presenter related the IT projects failure to the lack of methodology and of course referred to the Standish Group chaos report, some attendees challenged the presenter and mistakenly confirmed that the success rate is getting higher due to maturity of project management and the boom of PMP, however I have get into the discussion and confirmed that as per the 2009 edition of chaos report, the success rate was the lowest in the decade (thanks to the recent great discussion I had with Steve Romero)

There also has been a discussion about why PMP is not a project success guarantee and why executives tend to hire PMP certified project manages thinking that PMP is an equal to success, while I didn’t contribute to this topic, I wish I could inform everyone about the great discussion I had about the same topic with great project managers from different countries, you can read about it at There are too many projects and few project managers

While the methodology was somehow finalized and to be published in a book soon, the agenda was to give a collection of random paper shapes to each table and to let each team try drawing the right methodology diagram on a flip chart, my group consisted of 8 members, some people were passive and didn’t try to contribute and I don’t know why I remembered my post Social Loafing for Project Managers, honestly it helps me understand why people avoid contributing in group activities, and some other members tried to dominate the discussion and impose illogical sequences, I tried to be democratic and I was asking everyone before sticking a shape like I was asking “guys what do you think? do you agree?”, eventually this approach was not correct and the final methodology we composed was not the correct one, while I could have done it easily if I have done it on my own, especially I have experience with creating project and demand management methodologies, yet I believe that some groups can be constructive and others can be destructive!

There has been a break and then attendees were asked to form teams based on industry, biggest team was the construction one and I was part of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the team had about 10 members, again the problem was due to people, while I was, and to be honest some other participants, trying to apply some logic, other team members tried to be either passive or dominant, it was so funny when a team member said “guys we didn’t finish it, even devising the ICT methodology was a failure ”, even though I interrupted the team in the middle and asked everyone to present himself as an icebreaker but yet it didn’t work out!

With regard to the methodology, I have asked some questions about the methodology artifacts and why it has been designed like that, like the closure activity was under a master stage called delivery, I have asked why there was no a separate phase called closing, the answer was that many projects are deemed delivered without ever being closed and so they decided to make closing the project part of the delivery and this is one of the things that I liked about the methodology, I also have been told that there was a separate closing stage in the first draft but it has been changed in a later version

Methodology matters, and judging the methodology is highly subjective, at the end of the day the goal is to successfully deliver not to tout a specific methodology over another, you just take what works with you and what you feel comfortable about!

There has been a small questionnaire that audience were asked to fill upon check-in, the question was the same old tricky one “what do you think the project life cycle phases are?”, yet majority answered “initiating, planning, executing, control, and closing”, the correct answer is that there is no such a thing called project life cycle! I advise you to remember the below quote before starting your next battle on methodology wars, ( inspired by Mohammed Naguib’s old quote )

Methodology is a candle inside a multicolored lantern. Everyone looks through a particular color, but the candle is always there

Do you agree that Methodology matters while Methodology wars is a myth?, have you ever attended a similar workshop and you faced the same? Would love to hear from you, thanks!