How To Obstruct A PMO

I believe one of the most difficult barriers to PMO success lands squarely in the organizational behavior and performance realm. You’re not failing to advance PM in your organization because its basic principles are invalid – in many cases, it’s because others in the macro-organization are dead-set against it, but can’t articulate their reasons out in the open, lest they be exposed as charlatans and Jungle Fighters[i]. So, if they need desperately to slow or even stop altogether your PM-maturing initiatives, but can’t say so (or why) out in the open, what are they to do? Well, obstruct, of course.
How does this devious obstruction take place? How is the honest PMO Director to recognize it? Fortunately, the obstructionists themselves are often rather thick, and their tactics are readily uncovered. Unfortunately, even the thickest of them, wielding highly disingenuous tactics, will often find traction, particularly among others within the organization that, for various reasons, do not want an effective PMO in-place. What follows is a partial list of some of the more common obstructionists’ tactics.
·The Silent Veto. This occurs when the executives, managers, and actual workers will tell you to your face that they’re all on-board with your attempts at advancing PM maturity within the organization – but, in reality, they are absolutely set against it. So, when it comes time for them to do something other than offer verbal support in a meeting, you know, actually do something, even if they’ve stated clearly that they will – they just don’t show up.
·The Silent Veto’s near-cousin is the Slow Roll. Years ago, when I was a columnist for PMNetwork magazine, one of the other columnists was the brilliant Bud Baker, who would go on to become a Professor Emeritus at Wright State University’s Business School. He was helping me with my first book, Things Your PMO Is Doing Wrong (PMI Publishing, 2008) when he told me about this technique. Like the Silent Veto, people will tell you to your face that they think you’re doing the right thing, and will also promise to help. However, in this variant they actually do help – just not enough to get you to a point where your advancement doesn’t retreat at the first sign of resistance. It’s almost as if these members of the organization know exactly how much energy is needed to get you to the next level, and will deliberately provide a fraction of it. That way no one can accuse them of enacting the Silent Veto, even though the results are exactly the same.
·The less-devious opposition members will often claim that even basic PM techniques are prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, and difficult. Essentially, they’re saying the information streams being generated aren’t worth the problems involved in gathering the necessary data. Few things will scare off willing participants faster than the notion that they will be expected to work harder for limited – or even no – additional rewards. Now, GTIM Nation is aware that I maintain that every manager of a Project does basic Earned Value analysis, whether they’re aware of it nor not. Here’s my proof: on any job, if you are informed that you are half-spent, what’s the first thought that enters into your mind? Is it not, “am I half-done?” At that moment, an Earned Value analysis has been performed. Basic PM techniques aren’t difficult nor expensive, and any assertion to the contrary is indicative of another agenda in-play.
·If you do successfully navigate the juice-not-worth-the-squeeze gambit, its evil opposite may well make an appearance. This obstruction is based on the (equally idiotic) notion that, even if the sought-after cost and schedule performance information didn’t come at too-dear a price, it still isn’t worth it, because the accountants have the cost side of things covered, and their milestone lists or action item logs are sufficient for managing the schedule. But of all of the Hatfield’s Incontrovertible Rules of Management, I am most confident in the one that states that there is no cost performance possible without earned value, and only very poor schedule performance possible without critical path (interestingly, a crude but very usable schedule performance information stream can be derived from Earned Value alone, but that’s a subject for a future post). As with the earlier example of performing an EV analysis almost automatically, the percent complete data point is central to any and all Project-related performance measurement. Self-identifying PMs who eschew even basic cost and schedule performance management have either already experienced huge delays and overruns, or they will in the near-to-mid future.
Obstructionism within the macro-organization has to be one of the most frustrating barriers to advancing PM capability (or any capability, for that matter), and there’s really no universally-applicable method for overcoming it. I’m beginning, though, to understand why Machiavelli advised the new prince to do away with all of the former prince’s courtiers – institutional obstructionism is not new, but it was dealt with far more severely hundreds of years ago.
Maybe I’ll go back and re-read The Prince.


[i] Maccoby, Michael, The Gamesman, Bantam Books, 1978.