Building the PMO, One Cookie at a Time

Following 20 years at a large Canadian telecommunications firm, Bruce established the project management consulting firm Solutions Management Inc (SMI). Since 1999, he has provided contract project/program management services, been a source for project management support personnel and created/delivered courses to over 7,000 participants in Canada, the United States and England.

  PMO  

It is mid-December, which means two things at the North Pole. First, panic. Second, more panic. Snow is blowing sideways so fiercely that even the reindeer are considering indoor careers. Inside the workshop, elves sprint around with clipboards, cocoa mugs, and expressions usually seen in late-stage project audits. Every project must be done by December 25th, which is the least flexible deadline in human history. It is legendary for having exactly zero allowable extensions.

For centuries, Santa somehow delivered without a formal PMO. Everything ran on tradition, optimism, and sugar. Elves insisted they had a system, although their system was mostly sticky notes on candy canes and the belief that “if we ignore the risks, maybe the risks will ignore us.” Santa eventually realized, after hundreds of years of running his workshop, that magical thinking is not a scalable methodology.

The breaking point came during a toy drone production review. Sparkle Twinkleberry, Senior Elf of Production, let out a shriek so intense that it cracked an icicle in the hallway. She discovered that half the drone parts were stuck in Helsinki; the 3D printers were overbooked until St. Patrick’s Day; and the Sleigh Optimization Team had scheduled a complete aerodynamic overhaul during the exact same week the Delivery Crew needed the building for load tests. Sparkle stared into …

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