The PMO Director’s New Enterprise System

 

A PM take on the classic Hans Christian Andersen story, with apologies to Hans Christian Andersen himself, his descendants, the Danish literary tradition, and the entire nation of Denmark, among others.

Many years ago, there was a new PMO Director, who was so excessively fond of cutting-edge PM tools, that he spent most of his budget on them. He did not trouble himself in the least about his schedulers; nor did he care to go either to the project reviews or the Baseline Change Control Board meetings, except for the opportunities then afforded him for displaying the reports from his latest PM-related software package. He had a different performance assessment technique for each project within the portfolio; and as of any other PMO executive, one is accustomed to say, "he is in meetings," it was always said of him, "The PMO Director is testing a new software."

Time passed merrily in the PMO; contractors arrived every day at the office. One day, two rogues, calling themselves consultants, made their appearance. They gave out that they knew how to create a comprehensive enterprise-wide Management Information System (MIS) of the most insightful nature and elaborate complexity, the status reports manufactured from which should have the wonderful property of generating output too complex to everyone who was unfit for the office he held, or who was extraordinarily simple in character.

"This must, indeed, be a splendid enterprise system!" thought the PMO Director. "Had I such information streams, I might at once find out which PMs in my Team are unfit for their office, and also be able to distinguish the wise from the foolish! This information must be generated for me immediately." And he caused large sums of money to be given to both the consultants in order that they might begin their work directly.

So the two consultants set up two desktop computers, and affected to work very busily, though in reality they did nothing at all. They asked for the odds of activities incurring unexpected events, and cost and duration estimates of those things actually occurring. These they put into their own spreadsheets; and then continued their pretended work at the desktop computers until late at night.

"I should like to know how the consultants are getting on with my enterprise system," said the PMO Director to himself, after some little time had elapsed; he was, however, rather embarrassed, when he remembered that a simpleton, or one unfit for his office, would be unable to understand the output. To be sure, he thought he had nothing to risk in his own person; but yet, he would prefer sending somebody else, to bring him intelligence about the consultants, and their work, before he troubled himself in the affair. All the people throughout the organization had heard of the wonderful property the MIS was to possess; and all were anxious to learn how wise, or how ignorant, their coworkers might prove to be.

"I will send my faithful old Quality Manager to the consultants," said the PMO Director at last, after some deliberation, "he will be best able to see how insightful the information is; for he is a man of sense, and no one can be more suitable for his office than he is."

So the faithful old Quality Manager went into the hall, where the knaves were working with all their might, at their nonsensical spreadsheets. "What can be the meaning of this?" thought the old man, opening his eyes very wide. "I cannot discover the least bit of relevant information in these reports." However, he did not express his thoughts aloud.

The impostors requested him very courteously to be so good as to review additional reports; and then asked him whether the data actually informed him, and whether the processing techniques were not very sophisticated; at the same time pointing to the incomprehensible screen shots. The poor old Quality Manager looked and looked, he could not discover anything insightful, for a very good reason, viz: there was none there. "What!" thought he again. "Is it possible that I am a simpleton? I have never thought so myself; and no one must know it now if I am so. Can it be, that I am unfit for my office? No, that must not be said either. I will never confess that I could not see the importance of the information in the reports."

"Well, Sir Minister!" said one of the knaves, still pretending to work. "You do not say whether the reports please you."

"Oh, they are excellent!" replied the old minister, looking at the computer displays through his spectacles. "This format, and the contingencies, yes, I will tell the PMO Director without delay, how very informative I think them."

"We shall be much obliged to you," said the consultants, and then they named the different analyses and described the insights of the reports. The old minister listened attentively to their words, in order that he might repeat them to the PMO Director; and then the knaves asked for more budget, saying that it was necessary to complete what they had begun. However, they put all that was given them into their bank accounts; and continued to work with as much apparent diligence as before at their desktop computers.

The whole organization was talking of the splendid MIS which the PMO Director had ordered to be generated at his own overhead budget’s expense.

And now the PMO director himself wished to see the costly information system, while it was still in development. Accompanied by a select number of experts, he went to the crafty consultants, who, as soon as they were aware of the Director’s approach, went on working more diligently than ever; although they still did not pass a single data point through a legitimate processing step.

"Is not the work absolutely magnificent?" said the Quality Manager, already mentioned. "If you will only be pleased to look at it! What a splendid report! What amazing insights!" and at the same time he pointed to the confusing computer screens; for they imagined that everyone else could understand this exquisite piece of analysis.

"How is this?" said the Director to himself. "This means nothing! This is indeed a terrible affair! Am I a simpleton, or am I unfit to be a PMO Director? That would be the worst thing that could happen--Oh! the output is astute," said he, aloud. "It has my complete approbation." And he smiled most graciously, and looked closely at the summary lines; for on no account would he say that he could not understand what the Quality Manager had praised so much. All his retinue now strained their eyes, hoping to discover something relevant in the reports, but they could see no more than the others; nevertheless, they all exclaimed, "Oh, how profound!" and advised the Director to have regular reports published from this sophisticated analysis technique, for the approaching Independent Project Review. "Brilliant! Comprehensive! Complete!" resounded on all sides; and everyone was uncommonly gay. The Director shared in the general satisfaction; and presented the consultants with the maximum award fee.

The rogues sat up the whole of the night before the day on which the IPR was to take place, and had sixteen lights burning, so that everyone might see how anxious they were to finish the final draft of the enterprise’s performance reports. They pretended to crunch the numbers; sorted and filtered data; and pushed it into colorful graphs and charts. "See!" cried they, at last. "The Director’s new reports are ready!"

And now the Director, with all the senior managers in the PMO, came to the consultants; and the rogues gave him binders of charts and tables, as if in the act of completing a deliverable, saying, "Here are your reports! Here is the backup data! Here are the guidance references! The whole binder is comprehensive; one might fancy one summary sheet explained it all, when presenting it; that, however, is the great virtue of this analysis technique."

"Yes indeed!" said all the senior managers, although not one of them could understand anything of this data processing method.

"If you will be pleased to take this binder – and this binder alone – into the IPR, you will be triumphant."

The Director was accordingly relieved of the other presentation materials, and the rogues gave him several copies of the binder, along with some overhead slides.

"How intelligent you look with these new reports, and how accurately they describe the portfolio’s status!" everyone cried out. "What an analysis! What insight! These are indeed advanced reports!"

So now the Director walked into the conference room where the IPR was being held; and all the participants standing by, and those attending virtually, cried out, "Oh! How smart are our Director's new reports! How comprehensive and visionary!" in short, no one would allow that he could not understand these much-admired reports; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit for his office. Certainly, none of the Director’s various performance analyzers had ever made so great an impression, as these incomprehensible ones.

"But the Director has nothing relevant at all to report!" said a student intern.

"Listen to the voice of innocence!" exclaimed his Line Manager; and what the intern had said was whispered from one to another.

"But he has nothing relevant at all to report!" at last cried out all the reviewers. The Director was vexed, for he knew that the reviewers were right; but he thought the IPR must go on now! And the managers of the PMO took greater pains than ever, to appear to be actually managing the portfolio, although, in reality, they had no idea what was going on with it.