Any of us should feel uncomfortable working in an immature environment, where success is just a matter of luck or the ability of a few very talented People. On the other hand, while trying to implement formal procedures, for example for a PMO, we are always under the threat of the bureaucracy trap.
Bureaucracy has become a bad word. But it was a good one, it was introduced to define the method of government of an organization where order and procedures existed. Max Weber (German sociologist) defined bureaucracy as the systematic processes and organized hierarchies necessary to maintain order, maximize efficiency and eliminate favoritism.
So bureaucracy was created by men as an instrument to help organize in a more mature manner human endeavors. However as any human made stuff, bureaucracy can be used for good or for bad. The bad usage of bureaucracy appears when it is used to justify its existence rather than used as a support to obtain final goal accomplished.
In the case of a PMO, a bureaucracy governance is established. No matter how lean, any procedure is a bureaucracy instrument. If this procedures serve more to justify the existence of the PMO rather than achieving the final goal (the project done on time on budget), then we have fallen in the trap of bureaucracy.
More harm will come: When individuals are faced to the demons of delays, paperwork and low value procedures, resistance to the new procedures increases. The argument is that the PMO is an office of useless work and low value added procedures… and they are right. Because the PMO has fallen in the bureaucracy trap. The trap is completed when the organizations arrive to the consensus that "less process is better" and "no process at all then even better". The whole organization has fallen in the trap… they have not evolutioned to a better way of doing thing, but they are back to old edges.
All PM professional need to be vigilant to not be caught in the trap. The final end is to get projects done within specifications on time, so on… and procedures are just facilitating instruments. If they are not facilitating then they should be corrected, but not removed. Removing formal procedures is the final stage of the bureaucracy trap. In order to avoid dealing with Frankenstein, burn the monster! and go back to medieval times. Correcting procedures is the way out, not removing them.
Community Champion
