Misplacing Project Management in the Organization

Have you ever stepped into a situation that just didn’t feel right? Have you ever felt like you were the only one who sensed the impending doom? I realize that not every organization is aligned for success, but with good people and processes they can probably get there. But sometimes…you can see those situations that just aren’t going to work.

The PMO Reporting Through Whom?

What I’m describing here is a situation I nearly walked into back in 2002. I was being interviewed by a company in the Midwest to head up their PMO. I met with the VP of Software Development and several developers, project managers and other IT personnel. Everyone seemed great and the interview process was very smooth. Verbally I was offered the job. And then the wheels feel off.

What became apparent, but was masked previously, was the fact that the PMO Director position reported into the Software Development track – reporting to this VP of Software Development. If the job was a must-have and in the same town I was currently living then, yes, I probably would have gone ahead and accepted and worked to make the PMO visible and hopefully make a case for changing the reporting structure. However, since the position was a two-hour move for my family and since it wasn’t critical that I accept that position at that time, I had the ability to step back and consider. And what I saw in my head was a train wreck.

Separate and Equal

To be successful, a PMO needs good leadership (something I was excited to provide….the PMO concept was new to the organization), executive management buy-in, skilled PMs, and good processes (and I was ready to set those up). But it needs something else – it needs to be it’s own separate entity and not under the thumb of Sales, or Accounting, or Business Development, or Software Development. Especially Software Development.

If anyone out there can convince me that having your PMO report up through Software Development is a good thing and they’ve seen it work successfully, then I’d like to hear from you. You can even tell me why I made the biggest mistake of my life by not taking this job. But in a matrix organization, the PMO must acquire resources from all areas of the company – especially software development in an IT organization – while reporting up through a VP somewhere to the CEO…not even the CIO, in my opinion.

To be under the thumb of Software Development can put a cramp in your ability to get the right resources for the right projects. The VP of Software Development can make the call that a particular key resource is needed on a product development or upgrade effort, thus making them unavailable for a critical project. If the tables were turned and Software Development and the PMO were on the same level, then both would need to justify their resource needs to another authority and the decisions to disperse the proper resource to the proper areas would be made based on needs, company goals, and the organization’s customer needs.

Summary

In the end, I felt comfortable with my decision to skip this opportunity. No doubt about it, it would have been a challenge, but looking back there were some red lights before I found out about the reporting structure issue. These red lights – when I put it all together – screamed, “don’t take this job!”

I am a firm believer that in order to have the proper authority within the organization, the PMO needs to be separate and have the ability to request the resources it needs and not be subject to an entity that it will be acquiring resources from.

Related posts:

1. June Survey: Project Management and the PMO
2. Leading and Following in a Hierarchical Organization
3. Don’t Kill Your Customer – It’s Bad for Business
4. How to Make Your PMO More Visible
5. A Vision for an Engagement Management Services Organization