PMO Double-Agents

 

Two weeks ago I blogged about the PMO’s natural enemies, and last week I wrote about its natural allies. Now I would like to discuss that odd duck, the PMO double-agents. Of course, in the world of espionage (or, at least, in the theatrical world of espionage) a double-agent is a spy who is ostensibly working for one side, but is actually working for the other. The true nature of the movie double-agents’ loyalties can make such movies’ plots very complex (Where Eagles Dare, I Spy, etc.).  Just imagine what they can do to the technical agenda of the Project Management Office.

“Now hold on, Michael!” you say. “How can a member of my PMO staff be surreptitiously working against my organization? For whom would they be doing this?” Well, I’ll tell you, and it has to do with the dual nature of critical path and earned value management information streams.

CPM and EVM information streams serve two purposes: they indicate how the projects are performing in cost and schedule space, and they provide the data points that support the narrative of how and why the things that happened to the projects happened the way they did.  The first purpose is rather easily attained, using the basic calculations I showed in my blog two weeks ago. The second is a bit trickier. For example, recall from my previous blog how you can get within 10% of an estimate at completion by simply dividing the cumulative actual costs by the estimated percent complete, and this simple trick also works for duration.  Clearly, this takes very little set-up, or even very much expertise, save the estimate of the percent complete. Compare this piece of first-purpose information with the amount of data needed to do a complete forensic analysis of a schedule should a subcontractor fail to perform to the contract specifications.  Their natural defense is to claim that your PMO allowed (or even initiated) scope creep, or gave informal directions for additional work to be performed. At an instant, if you had a poorly set-up work breakdown structure (WBS), or the verbiage in your work packages was anything but complete and detailed, your second-purpose PM information stream has just failed utterly.

To prevent this type of failure there has arisen within the ranks of PMO experts this narrative that, unless your scope baseline is exhaustively thorough, your cost estimate detailed in the extreme, your schedule virtually free of level-of-effort tasks or high levels of float, that the entire system is not just sub-par, it is worthless. The people within your PMO who hold to this narrative – they are the double-agents, and, wittingly or not, they can do great damage to the odds that your technical agenda will be met.

Here’s how it works: the unenlightened members of your organization (outside of your PMO) view what you do with a substantial amount of skepticism.  They think that all of the time, energy, and money spent on detailed baselines and their attendant artifacts are a waste, because they fail to generate the first-purpose information they crave. The baseline documents tend to simply occupy shelf space (like the PMBOK Guide®) unless and until some sort of forensic need arises. In order to sell these people that what your PMO brings to the table is (a) extremely valuable, and (b) well worth the price, you are going to have to stress the relevance, inexpensiveness, and accuracy of the cost-and-performance information stream. Those in your own organization who want to dig in their heels and insist that, without the expensive and (largely) irrelevant extremely detailed baseline documents, the whole thing is a waste are actually helping your opponents, who are only too happy to advance the narrative that your PMO does not deliver an information stream that’s worth the (now considerable) investment.

Consultants can be the worst about this, for, if the information stream that the macro organization craves isn’t really that difficult to set up and deliver, then it does not require any advanced or unique knowledge. Of course these will push the idea that properly-functioning PM information systems need advanced or unique knowledge – otherwise, there’s no reason to hire consultants! Hence the “80% confidence interval” silliness, where the risk management types try to horn in on the you-must-spend-megabucks-or-your-systems-are-worthless tripe.

And here you thought the risk management consultants and baseline integrity purists were working for your side!