Job: Project Management Officer, London Borough of Tower Hamlets

• Employer: London Borough of Tower Hamlets
• Posted: 18 Jun 2009
• Location: London, Tower Hamlets
• Sector: Local Authority
• Position: Project Management Officer x 2
• Salary: £34,707 – £37,476

This post is within the Development and Renewal Directorate which brings together a number of key service areas including Strategy, Regeneration and Sustainability; Major Project Development, Development Decisions and Strategic Property; and, Olympic and Paralympic Games Liaison.

The Directorate also includes a dynamic Programmes, Performance and Accountability Team which is responsible for managing a number of strategic funding and grant programmes. Together the Directorate’s services offer a seamless approach to the co-ordination of the regeneration of the Borough in line with the needs and aspirations of local communities and the government’s agenda to build sustainable communities.

We are currently seeking 2 Project Management Officers to join our Programmes, Performance and Accountability Team. You will be responsible for monitoring funded projects to ensure that outputs, outcomes, service standards and expenditure targets are being met and appropriately evidenced. This will include making scheduled visits to advise/support lead partners and delivery organisations; the receiving, checking and verifying of projects claims and reports in line with agreed procedures.

Apply here..

Job : ASSISTANT PMO PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE (H/F)

Edelway SA is now looking on behalf of its leading multinational End Client in Geneva for a highly motivated IT/IS PMO Assistant. This will either be a permanent position or a long term contract. Fluent English is required. French and/or German will be appreciated. This is a fantastic opportunity for a career minded individual who is passionate about developing and maximizing his/her potential to join an international and established company.

THE ROLE:

PMO Assistant Assist the PMO Director in administrative tasks:
timesheets, progress reports, reporting, preparation of meetings, follow-up of scope, etc Providing budgeting, planning and forecasting information relating to ongoing projects Draft and circulate correspondence and internal and external reports.
Coordinate internal projects and provide regular updates Assisting with ensuring that all data extraction routines are in accordance with actuarial specifications Enriching the Dialog management control data with minimum required metrics such as resources, financial indicators, dashboards, activity evolution calculation and analysis of financial differences due to technical problems in collaboration with the controlling Department

YOU NEED:

Previous experience as a Junior Project Manager/Project Coordinator (2 or 3 years) in a multinational environment.
Ability to plan, prepare, analyze documents and assist in management of construction contracts valued into the millions.
A quantitative or IT bachelors degree (IT, finance,…)
Assist the PMO Director in administrative tasks:
timesheets, progress reports, reporting, preparation of meetings, follow-up of scope, etc Providing budgeting, planning and forecasting information relating to ongoing projects Draft and circulate correspondence and internal and external reports. Coordinate internal projects and provide regular updates Assisting with ensuring that all data extraction routines are in accordance with actuarial specifications Enriching the Dialog management control data with minimum required metrics such as resources, financial indicators, dashboards, activity evolution calculation and analysis of financial differences due to technical problems in collaboration with the controlling Department

Apply here..

New Methodology Strengthens Risk Management/Quality Control

Every project has a beginning and an end. The Project Management Institute likes to say that “a project is a finite endeavor (having specific start and completion dates) undertaken to create a unique product or service which brings about beneficial change or added value.”

To ensure that a beneficial change does occur or that value is added, controls must be established up front to minimize risks… or prevent failure. A new business methodology, one that was patented less than a year ago, should interest risk and project managers, because, when applied with a computerized communications and workflow system, it offers quality assurances, improves administrative and operational efficiencies and strengthens transparency — all ingredients for success. The new approach sets up controls throughout the life of the project. At the very beginning before any production ever begins, project specifications are defined and suppliers are identified and vetted.

Kickoff and Exploration: VIP Admission Only

I’ve written a lot of words about the need to keep the Kickoff and Exploration sessions streamlined.  Too many cooks in the kitchen during these two phases can almost kill a project even before it really gets off the ground.  I’ll look at a case where this proved damaging to one of my projects and then we’ll look at ways to try to mitigate this issue early on in the engagement.

An Example Project

During one of my projects – I wrote about it in “The Worst Project I Ever Managed” – it seems as though nearly everyone in the client’s company was involved in the Kickoff session and most of those continued to hang on for the Exploration phase where we further hammered out requirements, business processes (because neither of these were done well before the engagement) and worked on gap analysis.

One I went onsite with my PMO Director, a VP, and the Business Analyst for Kickoff, it was clear we were horribly outnumbered.  That’s not really a bad thing, but there’s no need for the client to take an army of people into an engagement Kickoff unless something is missing.  And it was….pre-engagement client training (which is highly advisable for this type of software implementation), high-level requirements agreement, and client business processes thoroughly documented.  Remember, this is the engagement where my Business Analyst broke into tears during and outside of the Exploration sessions.

Could be Avoided

Not to be making excuses, but I had just been assigned this project the week before while I was kicking off what turned out to be a very successful project in Chicago.  I immediately traveled to the new client’s location to perform Kickoff duties and walked into the customer onslaught. 

I was prepared for the Kickoff session on my side with all the information, etc., but in hindsight I should have had some direct communication with the customer on meeting attendance and participation.  As the title states, Kickoff and Exploration session attendance should be “VIP Admission Only.”  The only people who need to be there are the ones who will be heavily involved in the project and who will be critical the decision-makers. 

Instead, we had a very broad level of attendance – it seems as if nearly every department sent a couple of representatives.  The result, as you can guess, was a bombardment of questions about things that the company should have already resolved on their side by attending the suggested pre-engagement training and centering around their own business processes – things that should have been ironed out before we even arrived.  They were actually carrying on those types of discussions openly during the Kickoff meetings while we would pause to the let them argue…er…discuss.

How to Handle It

What should have happened is this….

• Delay the Kickoff meeting until pre-engagement training has been completed
• Delay the Exploration phase (and possibly Kickoff) until the client SMEs have fully defined the ‘as-is’ and ‘to-be’ business processes
• Strongly recommend that the client limit Kickoff and Exploration attendance to those decision-makers who are critical to the project

My BA and I were eventually able to re-direct the customer, but this didn’t happen until further into the project and by then we had wasted valuable time on these issues that could have been avoided and the customer had already experienced a significant level of frustration that we still had to overcome.