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Guest speakers and industry experts speaking on today's trends in project management.

PMO - Where to start?

 OK - eProject seems to have turned me loose on a Blog. This sounds like it might be dangerous, especially for someone who likes to pontificate as much as I do :-)

 

By way of introduction, I'm Dave Blumhorst, CEO and founder of EffectiveIT Group. I am a former CIO and CFO, and the former Sr. Director of the IT-PMO at PeopleSoft. You may have attended one of my Webinars, or attended one of my presentations at eProject's users conference last Septembers (BTW - those are available from my web site). In any event, I have now been given a new forum for discussing all things PMO related. So, here goes:

 

For my first topic, I'd like to address the question I get most often. If we are just starting a Project Management Office, where should we start? To address this question, let's first look at what goes into a PMO.

 

PMOs have widely varying charters. They range from simple offices for managing large projects or programs, to strategic planning entities inside of project driven organizations, the most common being Information Technology (IT). It is the latter that I ran at PeopleSoft, and that I typically address.

 

At EffectiveIT Group, we take a comprehensive approach that looks at 3 basic practices. These are not always contained in the PMO, but all relate to each other no matter where they are located. They are:

 

Portfolio Management - organizing and tracking the slate of projects in meaningful groups, or portfolios, and prioritizing the list of requested and active projects.

Project Management - the methodologies and execution of projects.

Resource Management - How those projects get staffed, and the resulting resource conflicts managed.

 

So, where do you start? It all depends on where the pain is!

 

Many organizations have mature project management practices, but haven't even looked at how to organize or prioritize them. They should start with portfolio management. Others have their projects well organized, but can't seem to execute successfully - they should start at Project Management. And many organizations suffer from acute resource overload - resource management is a great starting point for them.

 

But what if it all hurts?!? This is the most common problem, and here's my quick take:

 

Start by developing sound project management methodologies. If you can't deliver on single projects, the rest won't do you much good!

 

After that, group them into portfolios, and start prioritizing them. Start with the grouping part, then develop a sound project intake, or request, process to control the flow of work into the organization.

 

Finally, learn to plan you resources. Oddly enough, this starts by logging time so you ca get real world feedback on what your resources are doing. Without that feedback, all the planning in the world is just guess work. You should also start making those planning guesses by assigning people to tasks in your project plans. Don't go to capacity planning until you have some experience with the former 2 steps.

 

OK - that sounds good - but how do you actually do those things? More on that in future blogs . . .

 

And if you have some other ideas - share them!

Published Feb 26 2006, 07:57 PM by Dave B
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Comments

 

SamerB said:

Thats an excellent topic.

But I think in most companies the project managers work by themselves without any process or methodolgies. And I'm sure these companies do not adopt any kind of project management methodology. This is the most devistating factor.

I might be wrong but I think that training project manager is the first step before actually adopting or building your own methodology. Of course training them on a well known Project Management process or methodology like PMI, six sigma, etc...

March 13, 2006 2:24 AM
 

John Filicetti said:

I agree with Samer.  It is best to give all project managers their own personal "toolkit" composed of best practices and ways to deliver projects as promised.  Once they have the basics (training, templates, organization structure, the right sponsorship and steering committee), they can do great things with or without a methodology.  Having a methodology to work under can be very freeing for some and very constraining for others.  Some of the best PMs I have worked with have a natual ability to lead others to deliver the project.  
March 13, 2006 11:37 AM
 

Dave B said:

Great comments! I do agree that well trained and skilled project managers are key to delivering successful projects. And I feel strongly that the ability to understand the business issue at hand and lead a team to hitting that target is what seperates the great PMs from the ordinary.

Remember, though, that a PMO is not simply about delivering projects. It is about tracking, planning, prioritizing, and aligning portfolios of projects. For this, a common methodology, with consistent phases and common reporting metrics, is key to creating the "apples to apples" comparisons needed in portfolio management.

Dave B.
March 13, 2006 1:57 PM
 

mskhs said:

Great topic, more so when I am given the responsibility to develop a PMO in my organization. Every PM do their own way in managing a project. We do not have a common methodology. Having manage number of projects succesfully myself, I found building a PMO is a different ball game all together from managing projects.  Apart from all the years of experiance managing projects in this organization and pevious, I find it hard to replicate whats right to other PMs in the organization.

The management have seen the value of having a PMO, the question is, where do i start? The best place I could start with is documenting all the processes and templates that have been used, let the other PM use it and coach then to use it properly to the benefit the project. Some process works well with other some done. Revisit each process and enhance it, modify it if need be. When starting a PMO, study the current process and enhance it and document it. I believe that should be a good starting point.

mskhs
March 16, 2006 1:30 AM
 

DK said:

All of this is good.  Real World.  We have tossed around the idea of creating a PMO for several years. We startedout piloting the introduction of CMM in order to institute a framework by which to work under.  It would seem that if there is not an Executive Sponsor, one is spinning ones' wheels. It would seem that an infrastructure to support the PMO formulates the path for success. Industry  calls for standardization of how to execute in an effort to 'cross-breed' PM's.  Centralizing those tools that would be required across all projects is critical to the success of the PMO. In addition, having a QA team in place aides in verifying and validating the use of the tools and analysis of the metrics captured noting trend analysis, etc.  

So, Executive sponsor, education  of PM, centralization of tools and a watchdog to verifiy and validate in addtion to analyzing metrics denoting trends (training opportunities, personnel issues, inefficient procedures,etc)

DK
March 17, 2006 10:56 PM
 

Dave B said:

DK,

You have hit on one of the sure keys to success - Executive Sponsorship. Of all the PMOs I have worked with, this turns out to be the most highly correlated factor of success. Almost all the PMOs I've worked with that have good exec sponsorship and participation have succeeded, None that lack this last for long.

At EffectiveIT Group, we also use this in our eProject implementations engagements. The first step in our process is an interview with the Exec Sponsor, be that the CIO or a VP in charge of the PMO. This helps us understand and establish expectations up front, and tells me the chances of success for the implementation as well as the PMO.

Dave B.
March 19, 2006 6:58 PM
 

Michael H said:

Following on from Dave & DK, and to try and address Shaibollah's question above - "management have seen the value of having a PMO, the question is, where do i start?" - I would advise him to go back to those that have assigned him to establish the PMO & have them list their expectations from the PMO.

What management think the PMO will deliver will bear heavily on what kind of PMO you will end up establishing, and consequently where you should start.

This review with management will be interesting, and it might also be disturbing. No matter, you have to ask. If they are unwilling or unable to state what they want out of the PMO, then I would suggest you write up your own vision for what the PMO will deliver once it is fully established. Then mark this as a draft 'project statement' (or something similar) for your PMO establishment effort. Then ask the relevant (and only the relevant!) management folks to read this brief, and ask them to let you know if they agree or not - and tell them that you will need their signoff in order to proceed with the PMO project.

Hopefully, they will either agree with what you have written (and now you know what they want!) or they will disagree on some points (and you will have some idea what they don't want) - either way you will have the start of a scope statement for your PMO project.

I am working on a similar project myself at the moment.

Michael H
March 25, 2006 6:17 PM
 

CIMpleBS said:

   To complete the logical thought process started by Michael, and tie all of these great threads together, you have hinted at the primary objective of any methodology:  A standard approach to leverage experience towards the effective realization of a desired change. What you suggest is creating a Scoping Document in tandem with an approach document (can we call this a Charter?). Sounds like implementing a PMO is just another project that requires exactly the same mental rigor, communications, validation and tracking of any other project. Objectives will lead to requirements, and you can then answer your own question. Better than trying to sell the benefits of a PMO, you will actually be demonstrating the very reason for having a PMO to the stakeholders that must understand, define, and support the PMO in the first place. What a concept!
October 30, 2006 1:15 PM
 

UKprince2 said:

I am a project manager working for a local council in the UK. I recently set up a PMO to support a programme of projects ranging from community services through to IT infrastructure. I found that the employees that make up the PMO need to drive the rationale behind what project managers expect from the PMO.

Through this i am currently recommending automatting through Microsoft EPMS, creating a environment for stakeholders, PMs, Proj Leaders, etc to interact with the PMO and reap the benefits of PMO methodology.

Also building a physical library of books such as Body of Knowledge, Managing Successful Projects, etc will show resistant parties that the PMO is also about learning, advising and growing with each project.

November 9, 2006 2:28 PM
 

Michael H said:

Dan - you nailed it. The introduction of a PMO is 'just another project...' albeit a very VERY important one, and challengingly, this one might be attempted while also maintaining business as usual under the old organization & structure.... (probably a good theme for a seperate discussion sometime).

In my original post I mentioned writing a 'project statement' and you went further to suggest that this plus some other information elements could be called the 'charter'. Gerard Hill (Pp 142-9 The Complete Project Management Office Handbook, Auerbach Publications, 2004)  calls this document the PMO Charter, which he says is [begin quote] constructed to:
- Describe the PMO's purpose relative to the achievement of business objectives.
- Show the PMOs org alignment with other business functions.
- Guide the development of the PMOs functional capability.
- Confer appropriate authority for the PMO to accomplish its mission.
- Identify PMO funding." [end quote].

As mentioned, I am working on just such a PMO implementation project, and we will be starting with the PMO Charter, and will also be scheduling and monitoring the PMO establishment project in the enterprize portfolio management system - just like all the projects in the portfolio.

This makes the PMO project visible, accountable, and - hopefully - a good example of what a centrally monitored & professionally delivered project looks like. If done well, I am hoping that this will support the adoption of the PMO as an entity in our organization by the various stakeholder groups.

December 18, 2006 10:51 AM

About Dave B

David is an experienced CIO/CFO, and the former PMO Dicrector for PeopleSoft IT. He founded EffectiveIT™ Group in order to provide high-level IT and PMO management consulting to businesses of all sizes. David has over 20 years of management experience, and a depth of IT knowledge developed through hands-on experience with hardware, software, and networks. From his finance days, David developed a keen business sense and knowledge of business processes that he brings to the targeted deployment of information technologies.

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