Project Governance, Risk & Compliance: Finding the Right Balance

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  PMO   Risk Management  

There is a fine line between having overly burdensome project governance and not having enough.

• Too much, and productivity is hampered and creativity stifled. Instead, focus shifts to being in compliance with checklists and form submittals versus maintaining inertia and momentum on achieving project objectives.
• Too little governance, and defects can weave their way into the project management process and increase the risk of project budget and time overruns, not to mention increased failures.

Finding the optimum level of governance, risk management and compliance enforcement is part of the secret sauce that makes for a successful PMO.

Having led projects in very lax PMOs—and in progress-suffocating ones—I can unashamedly say that I prefer the former. Let’s face it: If you have masterful PMs, they are almost always self-governing and they hate painting by numbers. For these professionals, the risk of under-managing them presents little risk of failure but can result in impressive successes.

However, if your PM squad is average—if they lack strong leadership and stewardship skills—then it is best to keep a steady hand on the governance tiller lest the projects begin to run amuck.

For my money, the best governance, risk and compliance (GRC) framework is one that bakes compliance metrics into the normal course of the PM process …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.