Your Transformation GUARANTEED

 

Do you want to have your organization undergo a Project Management transformation? I mean, do you really, really want your organization transformed in PM space? Well, I have great news. I know of a series of tactics that are part of an overall strategy that will, without fail, transform your organization in this area. I have never seen it fail, and am only too happy to provide it to my readers.

Before I provide this can’t miss “solution,” I want to reference Captain Tom Schorsch of the United States Air Force, and his Capability Immaturity Model[i], as the basis for knowing at what rate the transformation is taking place. The Levels of the CIM are as follows:

0. Negligent

-1.  Obstructive

-2.  Contemptuous

-3.  Undermining

I’m sure you have noticed that, unlike the Carnegie-Melon Capability Maturity Model®, Captain Schorsch’s version “advances” in negative increments. There’s a reason for that. Keep these levels in mind as we review the strategy and accompanying tactics of this can’t miss approach.

First, name the person who is in-charge of your Project Management Office or PM Implementation effort one who is familiar with the basics of PM, and who has supreme confidence in their efficacy. This person should believe that no assertion that appears in the PMBOK Guide® can possibly be mistaken, misguided, or not to be universally applied, and each and every part of the current crop of PM literature must be observed in its totality. After all, the head of the PMO must be the face of coerced implementation. Sure, parts of the organization will bristle at, if not push back on, some of the new mandates coming from this person and the PMO, but these people must be assumed to be ignorant at best, subversive to the legitimate PM agenda at worst.

Next, staff the PMO with former accountants and administrators who have recently attained their PMP® certifications. Experienced PMPs® will have lost the enthusiasm for relentless compelled universal implementation, and might actually tend towards picking and choosing which aspects of current PM guidance would be best at achieving their ends, and which techniques should be done lightly, if at all. For guaranteed PM transformation, this will not do. It all has to be implemented, with no exceptions.

Don’t forget to document all of these demands into some sort of officially approved procedure, signed by the highest levels of management. For good measure, have every member of the PMO become familiar with the potential penalties awaiting any Project Manager found to be in violation of approved procedures, and the precise manner in which these penalties may be executed.

Now, as these early tactics are rolled out, the various project teams will attempt to opt-out of compliance with the procedures. Some of the counter-strategies involved include:

• Finding verbiage in the guidance that allows them to claim that the documents don’t apply to their particular work scope. This often involves some pretty intricate word-splitting (“We’re a program, not a project!”), so be on the lookout for this.
• Setting up a “shadow organization,” or a team of PM specialists that don’t belong to the institutional PMO. These shadow organizations, often populated by subcontractors, are beholden to the PMs that hired them, and will attempt to demonstrate a level of competency analogous to the institutional PMO. This is most easily defeated by inserting into the procedures the use of some key software package that only the PMO can grant permission for use.
• Maverick project teams will often attempt to point to their customers as requiring a different type of Project Management reporting criterion as the reason why they should be exempted from the procedures. If this assertion gains traction, the transformation I guaranteed might be thwarted for this particular team. The counter-technique here is the same as the previous bullet – designate one of the software platforms needed for Project Management (the Critical Path Methodology scheduler is ideal for this) as permission-only, as determined by the institutional PMO, and intercept the rogues as they attempt to get around this requirement.

The transformation will be underway! How can you tell? Well, those projects that had previously had a basic (or even medium) level of PM expertise will either now be struggling with the additional costs it takes to comply with the new demands procedures, or else they will be desperately trying one (or more) of the bulleted tactics listed above in order to opt out of them. Even the highly-capable projects will begin incurring additional costs, imperiling overall performance. Soon it will be clear that the previously listed counter-strategies amount to little more than rank obstructionism, the very definition of Capability Immaturity Model Level -1. As the institutional PMO moves to block these counter-strategies, it will become plain that the owners of the opposing PM techniques will become contemptuous of each other, attaining the CIM Level -2, and usually pretty quickly. From here it’s an easy step over to the opposing camps undermining each other, and the transformation is now complete.

“But Michael!” I can hear GTIM Nation exclaim, “this is not the transformation I was seeking! I wanted more advanced PM capability, not a regression!”

Yeah, well, I promised a “transformation.” I didn’t guarantee which direction it would go. Besides, the tactics I listed seem to be fairly commonplace. I didn’t invent them, I simply listed them.

[i] Wikipedia contributors. (2017, November 29). Capability Immaturity Model. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:25, May 13, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Capability_Immaturity_Model&oldid=812639060