{"id":10529,"date":"2012-08-27T07:00:36","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T14:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=10529"},"modified":"2012-08-24T14:06:02","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T21:06:02","slug":"the-pentic-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=10529","title":{"rendered":"The Pentic Code"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Langdon stirred angrily in his sleep in his extravagantly luxurious hotel suite in central London. The phone on the tiny antique bedside table was ringing incessantly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably another butt dial\u201d he thought to himself as he rolled over and pulled the pure white Egyptian cotton duvet tight over his head. <\/span><\/p>\n

The phone continued to ring loudly above the sound of the relentless rain pounding against the window of his expensive hotel.<\/span><\/p>\n

A voice in his head spoke. \u201cRemember the last three times this happened to you? A call in the middle of the night in a strange hotel? Each one led to greater name recognition and another mystery to be solved. Maybe this could be even bigger than \u201cThe DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons or even The Lost Symbol.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Grumbling loudly, he grabbed the phone and was shocked to hear Sophie, the cute French grand-daughter of the curator of the Louvre on the other end.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSacre bleu\u201d she whispered in her beautiful French accent. \u201cI am so sorry to wake you but it is an emergency and only you can elp us.\u201d He melted at the sound of her voice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am in New York and have managed to get a hard copy of ze PMBOK\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His eyelids rose as he struggled to find a link between the city known as \u2018The Big Apple\u2019 and a South African gazelle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it is not an animal\u201d, she corrected him switching to an American accent. \u201cIt is the big brown book that the Pimps read.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Intrigued now he sat bolt upright in the bed \u2013 eying himself in the largest mirror in the room adjacent to the humongous bathroom. He frowned as he caught sight of the 3 day beard and strongly greying temples.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am afraid that the PMBOK is being used as a Trojan Horse to spread the Pentic code around the world.\u201d She continued. \u201cThese Pimps are clueless to what is happening\u201d she said, exasperated. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Pentic code\u2026. of course he had heard about it. The number 5 and all its associations had been vying for world supremacy with the numbers 3 and 7 since the time before numbers. She must mean \u2018PMP\u2019s\u2019 he thought, congratulating himself on his unique ability to make amazing neuronal connections \u2013 Project Management Professionals. He vaguely remembered meeting a PMP in Australia of all places. Even then he suspected a Pentic Code link when he heard about the 5 project processes. He put it down to a coincidence then. He had never followed up on his hunch as he had heard that the book itself was rumoured to be so uninteresting that once you put it down it was impossible to pick it up again. But that was long ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAre you still there?\u201d Sophie asked after a long pause for that paragraph.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOui\u201d said Robert in his flawless French accent. \u201cI was researching this very thing when we met in the Louvre many years ago. You may well be onto something here. There are 3 million copies of The Project Management Body of Knowledge in circulation, it has been translated into 13 languages and god knows how many illegal downloads are out there infecting the minds of ordinary people unlike us. We must do something to help them and stop the spread of this deadly code.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut first we must establish how bad is the infection\u201d said Sophie in her gorgeous accent again.\u201d I am sending you a copy of the book by email now as we speak\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Robert sat by his computer waiting. The incredibly slow internet service gave him time to kick his amazing brain into gear. Why the link between 5 and project managers? Could it be related to their incessant need to say \u2018on the one hand\u2019? Or perhaps related to the \u20185 second rule\u2019 observed by many novice project managers with their infants\u2019 floor-bound food? So many questions he thought to himself and so little time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A gentle ringtone alerted him to the Skype call from Sophie. She was still so very attractive. She didn\u2019t seem too bothered by his dishevelled state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDid you notice?\u201d said Sophie holding up the brown book, \u201cthat this is version 4. But please don\u2019t be fooled. Version 5 is due out in 2013 and I\u2019m sure they will make their big move then. We don\u2019t have much time to break this nut case\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

They both opened the book and started combing the pages looking for signs of the Pentic code. At times it jumped straight out at them like the 5 project processes or the 5 steps in Scope and Communications management. Other times they had to look a bit closer to see it revealed in the 5 phases of the Tuckman\/ Jensen Team development model, or the 5 part RASIC code in the RAM tool. It was staring them in the face in the SMART mnemonic but more subtle in the 5*5 \u2018Probability by Impact Matrix\u2019 in Risk assessment. Sometimes it seemed to be embedded into the very fabric of the book like the 5 group creativity techniques in Collect Requirements and other times obscured as in the 4 group decision making techniques in the same step. Robert and Sophie weren\u2019t fooled by this one. The 5<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> decision making technique, \u2018group lethargy\u2019, would no doubt be easily added in the 5<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> version.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They carried on through the night, intermittently excusing themselves for a bathroom break or room service. At no point was either concerned about anything else. This was a mystery and demanded all of their powers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cVoila!\u201d exclaimed Sophie suddenly as she came towards the end of the book. \u201cThey have even hidden it in the 5 parts of the communications model on page 255.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is useless\u201d cried Robert.\u00a0 \u201cSoph, Do you see page 264? \u2018Under interpersonal skills, 4th bullet down \u2013 do you see \u2018Overcoming resistance to change\u201d?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes I do, Bob\u201d said Sophie returning the irritating shortening of names so loved by Americans \u201cWhat is the matter with that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a sly reference to the 5 stages of the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross \u2018Grief\u2019 model\u201d declared Robert as if his very life force was being sucked out of him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou are so amazing\u201d said Sophie holding the pillow close to her chest. \u201cWhere would the world be without you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d murmured Robert as he collapsed on the bed. \u201cBut we will have to start all over again and look even more closely. The whole book is riddled with the Pentic code and will demand even more of my brilliance\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

He dropped the laptop as his head fell on the feather pillows. His eyes closed tight against the daylight peeking through the open windows<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRobert, Robert\u201d cried Sophie into his laptop. The last thing she saw illuminated on the far wall of his hotel room was a very \u20185\u2019 like impression made by the suns rays rising behind The London Eye and Big Ben.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Langdon stirred angrily in his sleep in his extravagantly luxurious hotel suite in central London. The phone on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1531,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[852,6,1,849,652],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pmbok-process","category-communications","category-miscellaneous","category-team-leadership","category-creativity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10529"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10535,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529\/revisions\/10535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}