Onboarding with Success

When you’re asked to jump on a new project how do you go about doing that to ensure your best chance for success? That may often depend on why you’re being asked to take over the project … and it can be for any one of the following reasons:

• Previous project manager failed to manage the team and project effectively
• Previous project manager lost the customer’s confidence
• Previous project manager lacked the expertise to lead the project based on new direction
• An emergency necessitated an early departure for the project manager
• Co-management became a necessity due to changes on the project Read more »

The IT Auditor’s Role in Risk Assessment

In continuing our discussion of the IT Auditor’s Role in the Project Management Process, we will now look at the auditor’s role in risk assessment. Much of this information comes from the book “Information Technology Control and Audit” and it identifies that the auditor’s role in assessing risk focuses on conducting an assessment of the risks associated with the processes that are being utilized in project management within the organization the risks associated with the project itself.

Audit Risk Assessment

Depending on the organization, auditors may not have enough time to be involved in all phases of every project. Project involvement will depend on the assessment of process risks and project risks.

Process Risks:

• Lack of strategic direction
• Lack of project management standards
• Lack of a formal project management process
• Negative organizational climate

Project Risks:

• Resource unavailability and budget
• Project complexity and magnitude
• Inexperienced staff
• Lack of end-user involvement
• Lack of management commitment

The level of risk may be a function of the size of the project, scope of organizational change, complexity of the system being developed, the number of people involved, and the importance of the project to the organization.

The scope of the audit involvement will depend on the maturity of project management in the organization. Audit involvement may be minimal if the IT group has a well-established project management lifecycle and project of?ce that perform regular oversight and tracking activities. In this case, the auditor may focus more on project-speci?c risks rather than on project management risks. For less mature organizations, the auditors may take on the role of oversight and tracking for the project.

As discussed in the previous article, the level of auditor involvement will likely also depend on the types of projects being handled. For projects and programs involving a government agency as a customer and formal status meeting presentation process, the need for or requirement of the involvement of a formal auditing process is much higher. In those cases, regular auditing of the PM processes in the organization – no matter how mature the process are – may be required with the findings presented on a monthly or quarterly basis to the customer as well as to executive leadership within your organization.

Project Communications: The Project Manager’s Responsibility

I’ve long held (and documented deep in these articles) that one of the project manager’s key roles on any given project is that of primary communicator. The PM must disseminate information all the time – in the form of emails, phone calls, status reports, project status meetings, issues and risks lists, etc. Not all project communications originates from the PM, but it all goes through the PM at one time or another and if there’s a communication breakdown, the PM must be on it to correct it.

I was reviewing Carl Pritchard’s book “The Project Management Communications Toolkit” and was particularly interested in his section on The Role of the Project Manager in Communications. I’m not saying I wholeheartedly agree, but I think it’s one person’s good view on the topic. It can be expanded further, as I’ve described above and for those of you interested, I do have a Communications Plan template available by email just for the asking – many readers have already received this from me over the last few months. Here’s Mr. Pritchard’s take on the subject…

The Role of the Project Manager in Communications

The role of the project manager is one of communications facilitator. That does not mean he or she sends all of the communications. It means that the project manager is responsible for ensuring that communications are sent, received, and (to the degree possible) understood. To accomplish that, the project manager can identify preferred communications modes for the critical stakeholders, assess the best means to enable those modes, and ensure the integrity of the process as the project continues.

To identify preferred communications modes, the project manager should assess a representative sample of the project’s stakeholders. In a small project, this may be done by interviews. In larger projects, this may be accomplished by surveys.

Once the communications modes have been identified, the next task in the communications plan—enabling those communications modes—is critical. The project manager may need to establish e-mail protocols or telephone voice-mail etiquette. He or she may need to invest time and energy in constructing a project Web site or “virtual community” on the local-area network (LAN). He or she may need to identify the specific tools to be used (and tools to be avoided) based on customer and team needs. Regardless of the choice of technology or approach, guidance needs to be established to ensure consistent application. Without consistency, communications will eventually break down.

To ensure the integrity of the process, the project manager must test the system occasionally to ensure that messages are being received and understood. In one training organization, the president would occasionally plant brief, bizarre messages deep in his memoranda to test whether or not the entire message was being received. He learned that only a handful of his staff were really reading the entire document, and he changed his protocols as a result. The project manager who communicates well will find ways to test the integrity of the system, both in terms of message receipt and understanding. Just because an email is marked as “received” doesn’t ensure that it was actually read or understood. Validation through spot-checks is a reasonable means of working to improve the quality of message as it moves from sender to receiver. Talking to the senders about feedback and receivers about the messages is a first step toward identifying potential gaps.

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

Does the Project Manager Drive or Just Steer?

Sounds like an odd concept, doesn’t it? But seriously, does the project manager drive or just steer? Are they the ‘straw that stirs the drink’ (as Reggie Jackson of the NY Yankees and Darryl Strawberry of the NY Mets used to say about themselves)?  Or are they merely someone who lets others lead while they help steer the project toward a successful conclusion?

The Alternatives

In some organizations, overbearing PMO Directors want ultimate control over the portfolio of projects – even to the point of participating in all visible, critical projects on at least the status meeting level. I’m not of the opinion that PMO Directors should actually be leading many, if any, projects themselves – they should be concerned with the PMO, the overall portfolio of projects and the processes that make the PMO and the organization successful. But clearly the PMO Director who insists on participating in every visible project’s status meeting and kickoff sessions just needs more to do…they must have too much time on their hands or their responsibilities have not been clearly defined to them.

In other organizations, I’ve seen other managers have major control over a project. This most often happens on software projects where the software development manager – or possibly the tech lead – ends up with ultimate control of the project. This can happen for two reasons:

• Company policy or general practices dictate this
• Because the project manager lacks the authority, confidence or leadership ability to maintain control of his/her own project

The PM Must Take the Lead

Obviously, I’m of the opinion that the project manager is the straw that stirs the drink. The customer expects there to be one central leader on the delivery team side and customer confidence is usually much higher if that leader – that central point-of-contact – is the same individual who produces the status report, manages the budget, leads the status meeting, kicks off the project, handles the scope management and leads the delivery resources. That person needs to be the project manager. It’s what the customer expects and it’s what they should be allowed to expect.

Many of the projects I’ve been called in to fix or re-set customer expectations on or take over because customer confidence has been lost have been projects that were being led either by a business analyst acting in a dual role, a developer acting in a dual role or a project manager with little to no customer handling experience.

BAs and developers have enough on their plate without asking them to also be the organization’s main face to the customer and lead meetings and handle the normal daily project management communication and deliverables that every customer should expect. They have critical jobs to do and usually excel when they’re not interfered with and expected to lead the project.

Summary

The customer expects and strong leader on the delivery side and in order to maintain customer confidence and satisfaction, it is critical – especially on highly visible projects and projects with tight schedules and budgets. On these projects, the role of the project manager and the tasks that they perform are even more critical and should not be passed on to another manager or a talented resource on the team who is also expected to develop requirements and the ultimate solution. The project manager needs to be that straw that stirs the drink. They must be the one driving.