The Business Driven PMO

I attended Gartner’s 2011 PPM and IT Governance Summit last week with the Daptiv team . Here are a few insights on Gartner’s latest thinking I picked up from the conference:

1. Project Management is in transition.  IT Organizations have realized that not all work can and should be managed as a project.  Moreover, all projects are not created equal and gone are the days of using a waterfall approach for managing all projects.  This is reflected in Gartner’s latest thinking on IT work  which includes  a new framework that categorizes work based on the certainty of requirements and their time to value.  This helps organizations choose the methodologies that best fit the type of work such as agile projects, waterfall projects, service requests, operations, etc.
2. The nature of PMOs in organizations is evolving.  Given how many PMOs have failed due to their perception as “Methodology Police”, PMOs in the future will be less about being the central enforcers of project and program management, governance and compliance.  Instead, PMO functions are more likely to be embedded in business units and more focused on business outcomes.
3. CEOs expect IT to deliver competitive advantage.As we pull out of recession and more investment funds are becoming available, innovating and taking calculated risks are the key to success.  Taking a portfolio approach to IT initiatives will give companies the ability to assess risk vs. reward and make informed decisions on what initiatives best meet their portfolio and investment criteria.
4. PPM is the glue that ties IT Governance, IT Service Management and Enterprise Architecture.  As programs and projects are the methods for creating change, and portfolios the organizing “glue”, a PPM framework , along with well-defined processes, is the best way to tie together the practice areas of IT Governance, IT Service Management and Enterprise Architecture.  PPM vendors looking to serve the IT management space must develop solutions that integrate with these areas.
5. It’s organizational alignment that makes PPM successful.  Gartner re-iterated what many experienced PPM practitioners have learned: If companies don’t have their people and processes in alignment, it is very difficult to achieve success with a PPM tool.  Companies looking to realize business value through PPM should not just select vendors based on the capabilities of a tool but look at the vendors based on their domain expertise and their ability to look at people and processes.

We’ve all heard this before: “It’s really important that everyone starts using this (tool/process/system) right away so that we will be more efficient and have all the information we need to run our business.  But remember, everyone here is very busy and we really can’t let this change interfere with their everyday work.”

In other words – this change is important, but not important enough to invest the time and attention to ensure its success.   Even worse, when efforts fail, the blame gets laid at the feet of the implementers or whatever is being implemented.  Then the effort begins again, with a different set of players only to suffer the same fate.

In contrast, organizations that are successful at change recognize that implementation and adoption are neither instantaneous nor automatic.  They recognize that the investment goes beyond the cost of the new system or the labor to implement it; there is also a significant investment of time and attention required from those stakeholders who need to adopt the new process, tools, etc. 

Successful implementers and adopters know that that additional time is filled with activities focused on making a successful transition.  While training is important, practice makes permanent as the adopter adjusts their work practices and builds expertise in the new way.  Open recognition by leaders of the additional effort is also key; it reinforces the importance of adoption, helps the adopter balance their priorities between getting work done the old way and learning the new and, it helps reinforce new behaviors.

Last, but not least, the transition from old to new is always eased by strong advocates and proficient guides.  These are the people on the ground during the transition – answering questions and helping the adopters be successful.  Ideally these people have strong first-hand knowledge of both the old and the new and are comfortable recognizing and addressing objections and resistance.   And, most importantly, they have the time.

So, even though whatever is being implemented may ultimately save time, up-front time is required  to ensure adoption.   A couple of years ago I was in a meeting where a customer was sharing lessons learned on adoption from the implementation of a new ERP system that had been introduced two years prior.  As he reflected back on the adoption over the past two years he observed:  “The first year we worked for the new system and then the second year it worked for us.”   We can always wonder how much pain could have been avoided with just a little bit of extra time.

As both an IT-PMO Director and CIO, I've had occasion to hire and evaluate quite a number of project managers. During one of those stints a colleague of mine and I decided project managers generally fell into two camps - what we called task managers and project leaders.

The task managers had the "science" of project management down pat. They could put together great task plans, log issues and risks, and produce project status reports. They loved checking off tasks as complete, checking off requirements as done and completing projects on time, on budget, and on scope. 

Problem was, they often missed the target. Say we started a project to enable customers to configure their product on the Web. We had one of these that was proceeding apace using the then-current technology. The PM dutifully checked off the tasks, kept the project in scope, and we were well on our way to having working screens and data. But as I looked at the result, it seemed to me to be difficult to use and required a lot of maintenance. One of the Web developers on my staff suggested a new technology that she claimed could be used to get a better result in half the development time - and she was right. I killed the project and we started a new one. I put the developer in charge of the new project (not a formal PM by training), and we ended up with a great interface that was easy to use and easy to maintain and modify.

What was the difference? The technical project manager did not understand the business target. Indeed, he was not trained in Web development and did not know the technologies. But he did know how to "manage" a project. The problem here is a project isn't something to be managed - it as a process that is intended to achieve certain business outcomes. Without achieving those outcomes, the money and time are both wasted.

Project Leaders, on the other hand, have a good sense for business and understand the desired outcome. They then lead and motivate a team to accomplish that outcome. In one of my favorite projects - an ERP implementation - the project manager knew that managing users expectations as we migrated from one major system to another would be a big challenge. She worked with me on the internal political problems that inevitably arose, and made an ally of the biggest internal skeptic. I knew we were ready to go live when I talked to the skeptic and she said "I didn't think we could do this, but you know what? We're ready". If the skeptic says you're ready, you probably are, and we successfully went live that weekend. This project manager was also not shy about changing scope and requirements if needed to make sure the processes we were implementing turned out right in the new tool, and asked for a slight extension and budget increase. We were slightly over budget and time, with numerous scope changes but guess what - we had a successful ERP implementation in a global company. Not a small achievement by any means.

So what do I look for in project managers? People who understand that project management is as much art as science. People who have the soft skills to understand the business outcomes and lead a team to deliver those outcomes. They need to know the fundamentals of project management, but even more so they understand project management is a craft - and they are masters of that craft.