BOOK REVIEW:

Book Title: The Standard for Portfolio Management, 2^nd edition
Authors:  Project Management Institute (PMI®)
Publisher:  PMI
List Price: US$60.95 softcover
Publication Date: December 2008
ISBN:978-1567262568
 Reviewer: Ishkhan Topalian
 Review Date: December 2009

True to its predecessors, this Standard for Portfolio Management (second edition) from PMI is chalk full of great information written in very easy to ready format. It is organized in a very logical manner where one idea easily flows into another without much interruption of thought process. However, this publication and its standards should not be taken as stand-alone books.

Those who have not read and are not more than casually familiar with PMI’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), The Standard for Program Management, and OPM3 will be somewhat lost while reading this book. I could see that an exception could be made for those who are portfolio practitioners without having read the other 3 books and are looking to improve upon their portfolio management skills and processes. Even then, I think the reader may still find it difficult to see how the book is building upon the other 3.

To make a military analogy, this book is a general’s or admiral’s guide to project management, while the Standard for Program Management is more of a commanding officer’s guide and the PMBOK Guide a platoon leader’s guide. One would not expect to be an executive commander without first going through the ranks and thus being exposed to and becoming familiar with the standards that more closely fit his or her rank before moving into the higher ranks.

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About the Reviewer: Ishkhan Topalian Ishkhan Topalian, PMP is the sole Compliance Project Manager at Unitrin Specialty, an insurance company, in Dallas, TX. He has been in the insurance industry for 13 years with the last 7 in project and process management. Ishkhan manage all internal and external compliance projects as a result of changes in laws at the state and federal levels (legislative, regulatory or judicial). He is also the sole process management practitioner in the company. Ishkhan Topalian has a Masters Degree in Business Administration (MBA) with a concentration in Project Management from The University of Texas at Dallas, holds a Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI®), and has a Business Process Facilitator certification along with Six Sigma Green Belt and Lean/DFSS certifications.