Every five years, PMI publishes a new edition of our popular project management standard, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) During the production process, we post a working copy of the Guide online (called an exposure draft) for global stakeholders to review and comment.

On Monday, 7 March 2016 the exposure draft for the sixth edition of the PMBOK® Guide was opened for comment. Anyone interested in commenting on the exposure draft should visit the PMI Standards Update page. Your input will be incorporate into the final draft to ensure the Guide reflects current trends and practices in project management, and to maintain our American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accreditation.

Two important changes will occur for the newest edition of the PMBOK® Guide:

• The exposure draft process will be performed in two stages, rather than one, as it has in the past.
• This edition will include more information about agile and other iterative methods, as well as new references to the PMI Talent Triangle™.

Exposure Draft Process

In the past, the PMBOK® Guide was shared in its entirety during the exposure draft review. For the Sixth Edition, we will conduct the exposure draft review in two stages:

• The first stage will be for the Standards section (The Standard for Project Management). This section will undergo full consensus review. In a full-consensus review, each comment is evaluated by a committee of PMI volunteers who respond to each comment individually. If the person who submitted the comment doesn’t agree with their decision, they may file an appeal. This stage begins 7 March and ends on 6 April 2016.
• The second stage will be for the Guide section (the introductory and general knowledge area sections), which will undergo limited consensus review. All comments will be reviewed with the same level of scrutiny and consideration, but the committee will not reply to comments, nor will they be eligible for the appeals process. The dates for this stage are not yet scheduled.

These changes will streamline the publication process, will potentially allow us to introduce the new edition of the PMBOK® Guide sooner, and will help to manage the workload for the volunteers dedicated to updating this essential resource for project managers worldwide.

Content enhancements

Key changes to this edition that reflect the current state of the profession are:

• Information regarding the approaches often used in agile and other iterative practices including:
  • Information about agile and other practices often used in an adaptive environment in each Knowledge Area section (Sections 4–13)
  • An appendix to The Standard for Project Management on agile and other iterative practices
• A greater emphasis on the Strategic and Business Knowledge aspects of project management 
• A new chapter on the role of the project manager which discusses the PMI Talent Triangle™.