Criteria for Successful Project Management Offices

I was recently reviewing articles that I’ve written about successes and failures of Project Management Offices (PMOs) and some of the things that make that success or failure happen. I started making a list of these items and thought it might be helpful to share that info with the readers here on PM Tips again in this very condensed format. Remember, these are just my opinions that I’ve expressed in some of my articles along the way.

For PMO to be Effective:

• Director must be a key role in the organization
  • Must have backing and support of executive management
• Director must champion the efforts of the PMs
  • Don’t take credit for their actions
  • Provide ongoing support
  • Assist on critical/visible projects
  • Help breakdown resource acquisition barriers
• Director must run the PMO, not many projects
  • Project focus for the director should mainly be on the highly visible projects where exec decision-making is going to be needed on a regular basis or the business is extremely critical to the organization
  • Organization must value the PMO enough to ensure the director is not bogged down too much to be a successful leader

PMO Promotion

It is the responsibility of the PMO leadership to properly promote the PMO and help ensure its viability and visibility. Its viability is maintained by doing the following:

• Implementing proper and repeatable processes to consistently and successfully manage projects
• Implementing consistent templates for managing project and reporting status to customers and executive management
• Hiring competent, experienced Project Managers to lead projects for the organization
• Implementing proper compensation plans to retain good PM resources
• Implementing adequate training and on-boarding programs and processes to ensure that PMs are well-trained and up to speed on the PMO processes and practices

The PMO’s visibility is maintained by doing the following:

• Reporting project portfolio status on a regular basis and in a meaningful and useful format so that executive management realizes the PMO’s value
• Implementing solid PMO practices to ensure that the high-visibility customers are happy and referencable and the high-visibility projects are successful
• Inviting executive leadership to regularly attend weekly PMO meetings and sit in on project status meetings for the critical, high-visibility projects
• Managing project budgets thoroughly and reporting budget status up through executive leadership to show bottom-line PMO and Project Manager value

The PMO Director, as the leader of the PMO, must be a strong leader with pull inside the organization to ensure that these things happen. Otherwise, the PMO runs the danger of becoming obsolete or, at the very least, insignificant…and the mission critical projects will pass right by the PMO to special teams outside the PMO’s jurisdiction. Executive leadership must see value and ensuring that happens begins with the PMO leadership.

PMOs fail usually for one of the following three reasons:

• Lack of strong, focused leadership
• Lack of repeatable process
• Lack of executive leadership support

Five Signs Your PMO is not Meeting Your Organization’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

All successful PMOs feature four basic components:

• The right processes
• The right tools
• The right people
• Executive level organization support

You can always hire different people. You can bring in consultants to help define better processes or identify better tracking tools. But without the executive-level support, none of it will happen or at least it won’t succeed.

Successful PMOs make an impact on organizational success by performing the following tasks:

• Aligning project delivery with strategic business goals and priorities
• Requiring that every project have an effective PM
• Implementing an appropriate PM methodology
• Consistent management and oversight of the project portfolio
• Obtaining and maintaining company leadership support

Book Review: Project Governance

The July 2009 book review from Project Management Tipoffs (brought to you by Arras People) covers Ralf Muller’s book entitled, “Project Governance.”

The concept of the book is that without a governance structure, an organization runs the risk of conflicts and inconsistencies between the various means of achieving organizational goals, the processes and resources, causing costly inefficiencies that impact negatively on both smooth running and bottom line profitability. Please read on…

Project Governance

A night to read and some real practical solutions to implementing governance in your organisation – either at portfolio, programme or project level. “Project Governance” from Ralf Muller is a little misleading as it doesn’t just cover project level governance. Starting at the corporate level, with academic theory, the book soon moves onto programme and project governance taking into account different organisational models. Is your organisation a “Flexible Economist Paradigm”? Or in others words has your organisation established project management as a core competence, with professional project managers? Governance within this environment will follow a different path to that of a “Conformist Paradigm” organisation where project management is performed by technical experts as an on-the-side task.

So what is governance and why would you want to know more about this area of project management? Governance is defined in the book as:

“Governance provides a framework for ethical decision making and managerial action within an organisation that is based on transparency, accountability and defined roles”

This book covers everything from portfolio management, sponsors & steering groups, strategic and tactical project management offices, programme management, in fact it brings together a lot of areas and topics already within the public domain. There are two sections that are particularly worthy of note; a governance framework for project management and how much governance is enough? The framework provides a three step process which enables an organisation to increase its PPM governance. Within each step there are three areas; what can be done, what should be done and what is done. Step 1, includes basic training and methodology use (it talks about the adoption of methodologies such as PRINCE2), introducing steering committees (ensuring what is learnt is adopted and put into use) and the use of audits and reviews to ensure the “what is done” or learnt has translated to successful project delivery.  A simple framework which covers the different levels of organisational maturity has been conveyed well in this book and would be a welcome addition to any programme office manager, portfolio manager or organisational change specialist’s bookshelf.  That said, this is also a book aimed at the project manager, especially their role within project governance but also programme level, portfolio level and ultimately how their delivery impacts the corporation as a whole.

Knowing when there is enough governance – appropriate to your organisation and the programmes and projects it delivers – is also covered. A simple approach which focuses on the relationship between project manager and steering group and the roles & responsibilities of each may be useful insight for any project manager.  Like much in project management, communication is the key for effective governance at each level of the organisation and Muller’s book goes a long way to showing how to utilise effective communication to achieve a integrated governance model.

More information and review text about Mr. Muller’s book, as well ordering information, is available at Gower Publishing.

Senior Expatriate Project Manager Needed

Location: Libya
Salary: Senior Expatriate Project Manager
Company: Bridge Recruitment Services
Sector: Building services
Job role: Project manager
Job type: Permanent

We are working with a well established project management and construction consulting business that is searching for an experienced Project Manager.

This client has managed all phases of the construction process. From pre-design through completion, they have experience in all facets of project management.

The successful candidate will have 10 + years working experience in project management with in the Middle East or North Africa on mixed major projects including high and low rise buildings & infrastructure.

You will be degree educated, have 10+ years experience within Major construction projects within the Middle East or North Africa.

This position reports to the Project Director.

Immediate starting position.

Apply here.

How to Make Your PMO More Visible

Visible? Did I say visible? What I think I really mean is viable. We all want our Project Management Office (PMO) to be visible, right? And, if the projects are flowing through it like they should be, then it probably is visible. The scary part is when some projects flow through it and others – possibly the big ticket, high dollar projects – aren’t.

Separate is Not Equal

It’s not wise to segregate like that. I worked at one very large aviation and engineering company in the late 90’s and early 2000’s leading all internal web development projects just prior to helping them build their PMO. There was an internal struggle to be the web project provider between our group, the Internet Team, and the other group, the Graphic Design Team. I truly was some strange internal political struggle. Our team eventually came out on top meaning all web development projects were channeled through us, but it was strange to see such an internal battle going on like that.

The same can be said for the PMO and the projects that are allowed to run through it. If you have a PMO in place, or are building one, then all projects should at least run THROUGH it – if not all are run BY it. All projects should be tracked by the PMO and status reporting should be run up through the PMO, even if the project ends up being managed elsewhere within the organization. If the high visibility projects aren’t even being channeled through the PMO for documentation and tracking, then you have a real problem brewing.

PMO Promotion

It is the responsibility of the PMO leadership to properly promote the PMO and help ensure its viability and visibility. Its viability is maintained by doing the following:

• Implementing proper and repeatable processes to consistently and successfully manage projects
• Implementing consistent templates for managing project and reporting status to customers and executive management
• Hiring competent, experienced Project Managers to lead projects for the organization
• Implementing proper compensation plans to retain good PM resources
• Implementing adequate training and on-boarding programs and processes to ensure that PMs are well-trained and up to speed on the PMO processes and practices

The PMO’s visibility is maintained by doing the following:

• Reporting project portfolio status on a regular basis and in a meaningful and useful format so that executive management realizes the PMO’s value
• Implementing solid PMO practices to ensure that the high-visibility customers are happy and referencable and the high-visibility projects are successful
• Inviting executive leadership to regularly attend weekly PMO meetings and sit in on project status meetings for the critical, high-visibility projects
• Managing project budgets thoroughly and reporting budget status up through executive leadership to show bottom-line PMO and Project Manager value

The PMO Director, as the leader of the PMO, must be a strong leader with pull inside the organization to ensure that these things happen. Otherwise, the PMO runs the danger of becoming obsolete or, at the very least, insignificant…and the mission critical projects will pass right by the PMO to special teams outside the PMO’s jurisdiction. Executive leadership must see value and ensuring that happens begins with the PMO leadership.

Summary

I’ve personally helped setup PMO’s and I’ve personally watched PMO’s fail. They’ve always failed for one of the following three reasons:

• Lack of strong, focused leadership
• Lack of repeatable process
• Lack of executive leadership support

The PMO must be formed and move forward with all three of these in place to ensure it’s success.

A Vision for an Engagement Management Services Organization

I’ve talked about this one before as well as re-iterated my discomfort with having an organization that separates project management completely from the sales or project initiation portion of an engagement. In my opinion it is wrong and it puts not only the PM but the company as a whole behind the 8 ball from the beginning in trying to deliver the right solution to the customer and keep them happy.

Any startup, small or even well established company that is proceeding down the path to a more structured and standardized organization could benefit from this mentality. Project Management needs to be first and foremost in their minds as they work to engage a new project or customer. Nothing bad will come from this early injection of PM, only good will be realized.  PMs or a PMO can provide an organization with proven leadership and defined processes that will help fill the gaps as an organization works to not only acquire new customers  but to really excel in performing for all customers.  The right processes will take an organization from a $50 million company to a $500 million company.  Product excellence and retention of customers is key, and you get there by engaging the right experience early in the process.

What I am really proposing here as an ideal solution is an internal organization that oversees not just Project Management, but the entire delivery process and what that means to various parts of the organization (Sales, Accounting, Legal, IT, etc.).  It would eliminate the surprises that an organization is hit with on a weekly basis because they are still lacking particular structures and defined processes within the Sales to Delivery functionality.

I’ve included below a basic high-level definition of what I see the Engagement Management Services organization to be in a typical company.

Engagement Management Services

Engagement Management is a systematic approach that initiates with the sales process and ends with the engagement closing.  This typically has an accounting component associated with it – overseeing the profitability of project engagements within the organization.

Engagement Management would provide direct oversight of Project Management within the company.  Additionally, it would have touch points with Sales, Legal, Technical Professionals (developers, business analysts, network administrators, etc.), Accounting, and others as necessary.  The processes that Engagement Management follows would support the organization as a whole in delivering products and business capabilities, not just the individual groups.

Project Management is a more narrow focus of providing management of an organization’s projects.  Engagement Management would include Project Management, but would also focus on providing an organization’s enterprise-wide capabilities and services to outside customers and partners in an attempt to increase revenue and profitability while overseeing much of the Sales and other related areas that interact with the project and project teams as well as the customer.

Engagement Management would provide the tie between Sales and the actual technical solution.  It would be the glue that holds the delivery process together with the intent of avoiding many of the disconnects faced by organizations when Sales, IT and PM are all working under their own assumptions and priorities.  Currently, many organizations experience frustrating disconnects between Sales and Delivery.  I’ve been a part of organizations that experience these frustrations on a weekly basis.  An Engagement Management structure would help “standardize” the sales process and how that “sold” solution translates into a “delivery” solution.

A Proposed Organizational Structure

• CEO
  • Sales
  • CIO
    • Technical Staff
  • Engagement Management
    • Project Management Office
  • Operations
  • Etc.

Benefits of an Engagement Management organization:

• Customers see a standardized and professional engagement process across all implementations
• Brings all of PM together and allows for future growth
• Allows for the ability to standardize the PM approach and reporting
• Ability to define standardized PM templates and processes
• Not hindered or biased by a reporting relationship through Operations or IT
• Ability to define a change management process and change order/scope management process
• Engagement Management provides general oversight to all inputs and deliverables in the delivery process
  • Business Requirements Docuement (BRD) delivery and signoff
  • Statement of Work (SOW) delivery and signoff
  • Project Plan/timeframe definition
  • Solution or product implementation
  • Post-implementation reviews
  • Customer satisfaction

In my solution there would still be a PMO led by a PMO Director or at least a structure of PMs leading projects and reporting to a centralized leadership. The Engagement Management Services organization must be led by a very senior individual – preferably a VP.  All PM support personnel would report up through this person’s organization.

Summary

Some organizations are probably doing this now and doing it right. What I’m trying to say here is, if your organization is floundering because of the disconnect between PM and other support organizations, then incorporating an Engagement Management Services type structure to ensure that the proper oversight is given to mission critical engagements may be an answer. It’s frustrating for the customer and for the PMO to continue to deliver projects that are not what the customer wants and not in either organization’s best interests and and to continue to experience issues that could have been avoided had project management been brought into the process at the beginning.