This paper is the first of a four-part series in which an attempt has been made to capture the collective wisdom of the leading participants in an extended LinkedIn discussion over the first six months of 2014. The actual original texts have been edited for grammar and spelling to make for easier reading online. The observations quoted are the opinions and property of the contributors as noted.

Published here August 2014.
Editor's Note | PMBOK Definition Woefully Deficient | PMBOK Definition Not Deficient
Project and Product Management Not the Same | PMBOK Fine So Far as it Goes
Useful References | What Wikipedia Has to Say | Success Has Multiple Dimensions | PART 2

Stan Krupinski:[10] What Wikipedia Has to Say

I agree with Bill's comments. Meeting all the PMBOK requirements, and then delivering something useless is silly. If you were an experienced and qualified project manager, why would you allow that to happen? Quoting motherhood from a manual that barely covers the procedural basics, is like saying that if I gave you an HP Laptop users manual, and made you pass a multiple choice exam, then you would become a hardware and software computer expert.

Projects always have surprises [unplanned], and always have issues that cannot be directly controlled by the Project Manager. The Project Manager's job is to deal with those in order to achieve the project objectives.

Here's what Wikipedia says:

"Project management

In project management a project consists of a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. Another definition is a management environment that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to a specified business case.

Project objectives define target status at the end of the project, reaching of which is considered necessary for the achievement of planned benefits. They can be formulated as SMART:[11] Specific, Measurable (or at least evaluable) achievement, Achievable (recently Agreed-to or Acceptable are used regularly as well), Realistic (given the current state of organizational resources) and Time terminated (bounded). The evaluation (measurement) occurs at the project closure. However a continuous guard on the project progress should be kept by monitoring and evaluating. It is also worth noting that SMART is best applied for incremental type innovation projects. For radical type projects it does not apply as well. Goals for such projects tend to be broad, qualitative, stretch/unrealistic and success driven."

Project success is based on whether or not the project delivered a value added product or service to the sponsoring organization. It is not based on whether or not the Project Manager successfully followed the PMBOK user manual.[12]

Useful References  Useful References
10. Stan Krupinski: Project Manager
11. [SK note] — These are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) criteria.
12. Nor is it necessarily dependent on whether or not the organization successfully deployed the product and garnered the intended benefits.
 
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