To Solve the Problem, You Have to Own the Problem

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  PMO  

I recently had an exchange with someone who reached out to me after hearing a presentation that I did which, in part, talked about the importance of effective governance. They wanted to know what they should do if they had an effective PMO and a solid governance model, but were still experiencing issues because decision-makers were taking too long.

On the face of it, that might seem like a reasonable question. If the PMO is effective, shouldn’t it already be addressing any problems with delayed decisions? And if the governance model is effective, shouldn’t that also be helping to address (or prevent) that issue? It seems to me that there is something else going on here.

I don’t know the details of the particular environment this individual was asking about, but that’s okay. Rather, I want to use it as an example of the issue that I am going to try and address here: That’s the idea that too often in project environments, there is a lack of self-accountability for issues that arise—too much is seen as someone else’s problem.

You have to be invested to solve a problem

That is nothing new. When I first started managing projects, it was all too easy to say that a problem had come about because a stakeholder couldn’t make up their mind, because the requirements were unclear, or because the project was being undertaken …

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