Five Signs Your PMO is not Meeting Your Organization’s Needs
Posted by Brad EgelandI’m assuming that most of you are like I am…you’ve been part of organizations that had good PMO’s, bad PMO’s and no PMO’s. What set the good ones apart from others or at least seemed to make a difference? Or if yours was bad – what made it so? Why, in your mind, was your organization not served well by the presence of or creation of a Project Management Office? And if you do not have a PMO, do you think your organization would be well served by one? Why….what is lacking that you think a PMO would fill?
That’s a handful of questions and I’d like to hear feedback from anyone willing to offer information and answers – either anonymously or not.
Let’s assuming you’re in the category of individuals who think your organization is not being served well by your existing Project Management Office. I’d like to hear your thoughts and reasons, but first I’m going to take a stab and what I believe are five reasons that the PMO sometimes does not meet the org’s needs.
- Executive Management is not Included in the PMO Process
- Training Plans are Non-Existent
- Common Templates and Processes do not Exist
- Poor Upward Project Reporting
- Major Projects Circumvent the Process
Let’s look at each of these in a little more depth…
Executive Management not Included in the PMO Process
This one means exactly what it says. If your Project Management Office acts independently and either doesn’t report detailed project status up to executive management or if executive management doesn’t care what your PMO is doing, then your PMO isn’t relevant to your organization and it isn’t serving it effectively. That may be the PMO’s fault and it may not be. It’s sad if you have a PMO that your CEO does not find important enough to follow, view project status or have any interaction with. Either your PMO Director is not promoting your PMO well, proper and meaningful reporting is not in place to make it relevant, or your CEO is clueless.
Training Plans are Non-Existent
Most project managers could use additional or refresher training. Technology changes, better processes evolve, and – in the case of IT shops – application development processes can change. To stay current, to stay cutting edge – there needs to be training plans in place for the members of the PMO. Otherwise, even if your PMO is important to your organization now, it may become irrelevant in the future as more and more PMO members become disgruntled with lack of growth opportunities and move on to other positions and companies.
Common Templates and Processes do not Exist
If your PMO is flying by the seat of it’s pants, then it’s not functional and it’s not likely to last. It must have repeatedly process to be relevant and for the company to have confidence in it’s effectiveness. Otherwise, no one will no for sure why one project was successful and another was not. With no consistency your organization will not know what to tweak or fix in order to make things right or better next time. Lessons learned will mean nothing if there is no consistent process and no consistent, meaningful templates in place.
Poor Upward Project Reporting
This one takes us back to the first point…the involvement of executive management. Exec management may not care or get involved and that’s bad…but if there’s no meaningful mechanism by which to report project portfolio status (dashboards, etc.) to executive management, then it’s very difficult to show or prove PMO relevance to them. You can show them how the PMO is making a difference if you can’t show them what that difference is.
Major Projects Circumvent the Process
This one may be the biggest tell tale sign that your PMO is not serving the organization well. If smaller and less meaningful projects are being run through the PMO and managed by project managers…then that’s great. But if they major projects go elsewhere within the organization and are managed by individuals that are not part of the PMO, then it’s obvious that executive management lacks the confidence in the PMO that is necessary to make it an integral part of the company’s success.
These are just five signs…if I think of more I’ll post them. If you have some to share please either post them here or email me at brad@bradegeland.com or both.
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Pradeep Bhanot says:
Brad, these are all reasonable reasons for a PMO to be failing. I would like to augment your point about Major Projects Circumventing the Process. PMOs can become consumed by the need to have a single standard, repeatable process for all projects. To avoid circumvention it is a good idea for a PMO to be flexible enough to have a small set of best processes, some of which are better suited to a specific projects needs better than others. The notion of a one-size-fits-all can strain relationships that can lead to such revolts.
Brad Egeland says:
Pradeep – Point well taken. You are exactly right. Too much rigidity leads to failure. Too much flexibility and it seems like we’re doing whatever feels good at the time. But some flexibility is necessary to be able to adjust processes to the needs of the customer as well as the needs of the project depending on size and other considerations. Thanks for the feedback.
Stephen Larocque says:
Brad,
All of these points are valid. However, there are many circumstances where PMO’s with ALL or a large majority of these deficiencies are still successful. Perhaps, looking at what makes a PMO the most successful and once identified, the obvious lack of that component will contribute to its failures. In my experience, the most successful PMO’s are staffed by highly skilled and knowledgeable Project Managers. With that component in place, all the issues above can be resolved. Without capable Project Managers in place, nothing else matters. All those items above are secondary. Very good article. Something that everyone involved in PMO’s should read.
Thanks,
Stephen
Jeff Davis says:
I’d second Pradeep’s comment about lack of flexibility, but add that if the PMO is changing the process frequently, that is also a sign the PMO is in trouble. This occurs when insufficent effort is made up front to define PMO requirements from senior management and other stakeholders. I saw this recently during a six month engagement where additional processes were added literally every other week if not weekly.
Brad Egeland says:
Stephen- I completely agree. Skilled resources, necessary training, and of course effective PMO leadership are key to a PMO’s success. I wrote another article on ineffective PMO Directors – they are definitely a part of the equation that we can’t take for granted. Thanks for commenting.
Brad Egeland says:
Jeff – A very valid point. Too much flexibility is never good. My wife likes to point out how much our kids – from our two 1 yr olds up to our 19 yr old like organization and routines. She’s right – good, repeatable behavior as well as security is based on not allowing too much flexibility. Otherwise they never really know what is expected of them.
The same holds true with a PMO. Repeatable processes are necessary to ensure success. Give them something that your customer can count on because they’ll notice quickly if you’re flying by the seat of your pants. Some flexibility is necessary because not all projects and customers fit the same mold. But too much flexibility and then you never know what really works… Thanks for the comment.
Andy Taylor says:
I would add to the thoughts on flexibility that the maturity models look at appropriate flexing of systems as being in the higher maturity level organisations – 4 to 5 usually (managed process and optimised process in P3M3 for example). Having the standard way of doing things is level 2 – 3 stuff (repeatable process and define process in P3M3).
Shue Han Chou says:
I do agree with the first reason. However, I would say if that happens, it is not the PMO that fails, but the company, as a whole. If a company ever bothers with setting up a PMO, then all the executives and functional managers must be trained or educated with some basic PM knowledge, or to the least, are willing to spend time and effort in understanding the Project performance metric that contain status and EVM numbers. They must learn how to interpret the project reports and how to use the data. It is not the PMO’s job, but fundamental skill and competency for executives to know how to link the project performance with company’s strategic planning and business goals.
Rich Maltzman, PMP says:
Nice post, and a good set of warning signs. I would expand on your idea about ‘training plans’ to include an integrated platform whic includes training (curricula), certification, any internal credentialing, easy resource management, recognition…all of the ‘care and feeding’ issues for the PMs in the staff. Further, I would assert that this platform HAS TO BE tied in to the methodology, and that the organizations that support both methodology and the ‘care and feeding’ need to be either the same or very closely related and in harmony.
Ally Gill says:
I think a key issue is that organisations forget (if they ever knew) what the PMO is there for. The role of the PMO within the organisation has to be clearly defined and communicated for it to have any chance of being successful. Equally important are the boundaries within which it must operate.
I wrote an article earlier this year – PMO Masters or Servants? which discusses this and other issues.It’s available from my website (www.allygill.co.uk/downloads/downloads.html)
Craig Golby says:
Hi Brad and all the additional writers since.
I have worked at companies with and without a Project Management Office through which all Project had to be run. I say all, but this could be easily contested as even where a PMO existed there were many projects that went on in the business, that never came through the normal channels. Many of these were run without a PM, and typically ran over budget, over time or were terminated before reaching a conclusion.
In response to Pradeep, again at a previous Company, we had a concept of a “Flat Pack” project, though it could be called many things. This was a project that would frequently re-occur, maybe setting up a new Client or Partner, or choosing a new Supplier.
We would run it once, document exactly what we did and what worked and what didn’t, and then park that resulting output in the Flat Pack Folder. Next time a Project of that type came up again, the Flat Pack would be checked out and project run as previous, any modifications or new lessons learnt would be factored in when the project was completed, the Flat Pack would be updated accordingly and checked back in ready for the next occurrence.
This worked really well and the desire since has been to, where appropriate, Flat Pack as much as possible.
Throwing caution to the wind however, not every project run is a candidate for Flat Packing !!!
Anders Sonderby says:
As for a successful PMO I think much in terms of customer satisfaction (internal customers, that is!). Customers are exec mgm, line mgm and project leaders (we try to make a point of being leaders, not managers). Each have different needs and criterias for effective PMO.
Exec mgm look for strategic execution and decision support – maybe recommendations but surely that the decision material is straightforward and through
Line mgm look for ressources (project management/leadership). My hope is someday to experience a line manager asking for project management and upon hearing decision by exec mgm that he has to wait for e.g. 6 months will happily conclude that it is worth the wait.
Project managers (ups: leaders!) look for clear directions and support. On establishing our PMO I have repeatedly stated that “even if I tried my best I do not believe I could make a template or procedure that makes it impossible for the good PM to perform. My highest ambition is to make it easier/more effective for the good PM – and to raise the odds that an inexperienced PM will perform”.
Looking over all 3 of them, Stephen already said it: There is no substitute for good PMs!
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