The PMI Project Management Fact Book — Second Edition is destined to be a benchmark resource for both the project management community and those interested in learning more about the profession. High school and college students, in particular, will find it to be an invaluable overview of a career that can offer excellent salaries and challenging opportunities around the world. Here are just a few of the fascinating facts you’ll discover about the project management profession:

-More than sixteen and one-half million people can’t be wrong. The Project Management Institute (PMI®) estimates that four-and-a half million people in the United States—representing about 3.3 percent of the employed U.S. workforce—may regard project management as their profession of choice. The size of the profession in the rest of the world may be more than 12 million.

-Projects are big business. PMI estimates that the U.S. public and private sectors spend some US$2.3 trillion on projects every year, an amount equivalent to one-quarter of the nation’s gross domestic product. Extrapolating U.S. data, PMI estimates that the world spends nearly US$10 trillion of the world’s US$40.7 trillion gross product on projects of all kinds.

-The project management profession is experiencing explosive growth. Memberhip in (PMI) has grown to more than 95,000 members. In addition, more than 46,000 individuals are now certified as Project Management Professionals (PMP®).

Sections 1 and 2 frame project management by giving a brief history of the profession, defining project management as a practice, and discussing knowledge areas and providing statistics based on PMI's research of project costs, scope and challenges.

Specifics about the profession of project management are given in Section 3, including job descriptions, ethics, credentials and typical compensation. This is followed by a discussion of the PM environment in Section 4, which covers organizational issues such as the ratio of project managers to the total number of employees, globalization of project management and certifications. In this section the case is made for the PMP certification, which is valid in the US, but the conclusion made of the global acceptance of this certification, in my opinion, misses the point that PRINCE2 is more accepted in the UK and former Commonwealth countries. Section 5 is devoted to the Project Management Institute, its organizational structure, standards and standards making groups, membership benefits and its influence.

For PMI members, PMPs or those considering joining PMI and/or pursuing the PMP certification this is an excellent book because it describes the PM profession from PMI's point of view, gives a wealth of supporting statistics and facts, and provides insights into PMI.