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The PMO Attitude Litmus Test
| I think I’ve mentioned a couple of times in this blog about the time that I interviewed with a fairly young, mid-sized company with an opening for the lead of their Project Management Office (PMO), and how that interview went. A quick recap: I was already in a great position, but agreed to the interview because a friend of mine from a previous gig had begun working for this company, and thought I would be able to fix many of the problems they were facing. The interview was scheduled for the evening, after normal business hours, and I walked into a conference room occupied by around six or seven managers and engineers, and the head of their Human Resources department. The managers and engineers had some really good questions for me, and I answered to the best of my ability, but towards the end of the session the HR director took over. “Why do you want to work here?” she asked, rather sternly. “I’m not sure that I do. What about this organization makes it attractive, would you say?” I answered. While the managers and engineers appeared to be mildly surprised by my answer, the HR director looked to be positively furious. And so ended the interview. This wasn’t the first time I had encountered this kind of vibe from an organization that was interviewing me for a job. One time – again, at the behest of a good friend who had gone to work for a new company, and wanted me to join him – I flew out to the east coast for a job interview that took place over a weekend. As with the previous example, the first couple of rounds were with technical and managerial staff, but the last interaction was with their Human Resources manager. The technical and managerial staff posed some challenging questions, and I did my best to answer, but it was kind of different with the HR director. She spent much of our time together discussing the advantages of living in the area of that company’s branch office, and wrapped up that part of the discussion by saying “And, if you drive just one hour that way, you’ll see an actual mountain!” I smiled to myself, and she saw it. “What, they have mountains in New Mexico?” she demanded, incredulously. “Actually, my house sits one mile above sea level, and right out my back door is a mountain that stands another mile above sea level.” I never heard from that company again, not even to say they had selected another candidate. I probably shouldn’t have copped an attitude. Then again, I’m not sure that I would want somebody who doesn’t know eighth grade U.S. geography being in a position to influence my career trajectory. These two episodes (and several more besides) led me to the conclusion that organizations tend to view their existing employees (as well a prospective ones) in one of two ways. At one extreme is the notion that the employee/candidate is lucky to be working or considered for employment there, and at the other end of the scale, that the organization is lucky to have that employee/candidate as part of their team. Depending on where on this spectrum the organization in question lands, it can either drive or point to other characteristics of the current business culture. The first such manifestation has to do with the encouragement or discouragement of innovation. In organizations where the zeitgeist is that of you’re-lucky-to-be-here, innovation is not just discouraged, I’ve actually seen it punished. Loyalty to the existing management structure is the coin of the realm here, and any challenge to their stated (or even unstated) technical agenda, no matter how insightful or sincerely brought, is typically seen as disloyal. Conversely, in organizations that view their employees as true assets, the tendency is to be more willing to listen to the outlandish, the fanciful, or even bordering on unbelievable, because often times the brilliant is hiding in there, somewhere, and those generating such ideas will only continue to do so if they are comfortable doing so. Alert GTIM Nation members probably caught the reference to employees being a “true asset.” The whole our-employees-are-our-greatest-asset sub-narrative is so ubiquitously present in official mission statements and other corporate self-referencing documents that it may as well have its own keystroke on the public affairs team’s keyboards. But if the organization is of the mind that its employees are lucky to be there, then those same employees will recognize that any such assertion is patently false, no matter how often or forcefully repeated. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, as they say, and before you can say “our employees are our greatest asset,” nobody believes anything coming from these people’s mouths or keyboards. The free flow of information is the life blood of the organization, it’s been said, but now that life blood is tainted, and there’s no going back. For these (and many other) reasons, any organization – PMOs included – that manifests an attitude towards its employees that they are lucky to be there, is likely to fail, sooner or later. If you happen to be in such a PMO, well, I’m sorry. If you direct such a PMO, check the beliefs that drive attitude. Before it’s too late. |
Posted on: November 28, 2025 10:12 PM
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PMI® Saves The World!
| This blog’s title is preposterous, you say? PMI® is simply a professional organization devoted to advancing Project Management within the realm of management science, you believe? Well, have I got news for you: our beloved Project Management Institute is front and center in the fight for saving the World (from bad management, at the very least), and I’ll show you why. As a point of comparison, let’s look at another entity known for consistently saving the World (or Western Civilization, anyway): James Bond. As he saves the World, whom does Bond overcome? Well, usually it’s SPECTRE, the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion.[i] While SPECTRE is depicted as vast, it’s actually controlled by only 21 people.[ii] What are these 21 people after? Wealth, basically, expressed either in power, political influence, destructive weapons assets, or currency. Consider the following table[iii] (warning! Spoilers ahead!):
As alert members of GTIM Nation have no doubt noticed, a common theme among Bond villains is that they are trying to maximize various forms of wealth. Now, where have we seen this motive before? Oh, I know! It’s from the assertion maintained by many business schools that the point of all management is to “maximize shareholder wealth.” I have often mocked this concept, but it’s still prevalent throughout much of the business world. And it’s not just James Bond films pointing to the ubiquitousness of this goal – other examples abound. Michael Keaton was in a film entitled Mr. Mom, where he is forced into the role of housekeeper due to a layoff from his automotive engineer job, because his organization is perceived to not be cost-effective. If only there were an internationally-recognized institution that offered an alternative to this whole notion that maximize-shareholder-wealth is the exclusive goal of management. Wait! There is! Compare and contrast that narrative with Project Management’s, that the point of our management is to fulfill the customers’ scope requirements, on-time, and on-budget. Maximizing our service to others is a common component of many highly-regarded philosophical works, and its monetized derivative doesn’t fall far from those decent roots. Of course, if the customer seeks to do something illegal or immoral, then we’re talking something completely different. But that’s on the person defining the illegal or immoral scope – not on those who strive to perfect delivering on (legal, ethical) project objectives in the most efficient and effective ways possible. While James Bond (and his many derivatives) may be turning back the villains attempting to maximize their wealth by using fisticuffs, guns, tanks, exotic cars (including ones that can turn into submarines), and even space shuttles, PMI® uses the furtherance of superior business models and techniques to advance our epistemological goals. To be sure, I am not recommending any over-the-top direct action against those who appear to be opposed to the things your PMO is attempting to accomplish, even if you have some really cool gadgets by which you could do so. But I would like to suggest this: if the executive who seems to be anti-PM in his words and decisions just happens to bring a hairless cat into the conference room during the Project Reviews, while the director of your PMO just happens to be wearing an Omega Seamaster wristwatch, you may indeed be involved in a higher-level management science conflict than you had realized. [i] Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECTRE on November 18, 2025, 16:15 MST. [ii] Ibid. [iii] Ibid. |
Posted on: November 21, 2025 08:38 PM
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Change Management Is Really Conflict Management
| Let’s admit it: change (ProjectManagement.com’s theme for October) only really comes about within a Project Management Office (ProjectManagement.com’s theme for November) when ideas and agendas collide, or are mis-aligned in some fashion. If everyone within the PMO was in complete agreement with both the technical agenda and its implementation approach, along with the rest of the macro-organization, then nothing would need to be changed. The Nash Equilibrium would be in perfect, well, equilibrium – no advancement in capability maturity would be made. Barring trajectory-altering events from outside the organization, that ship will sail on its current course indefinitely. Alas, such business environs never exist, at least not for long (and, by “for long,” I mean intervals measurable in microseconds). There will always be mis-alignments in agendas and ideas, not to mention those outside the PMO but within the macro-organization, as well as outside event intrusions. In a sense, the whole point of management, contrary to the asset managers’ notion that it is to “maximize shareholder wealth,” is to handle these agenda mis-alignments in such a way as to maximize the benefit the organization, or, at the very least, to minimize their negative impacts. S o, if we assume that conflict, or shall we say competition between ideas and agendas, are inherent in the formulation of business models and management approaches, it stands to reason that some attention needs to be focused on exactly how PMO directors handle such collisions, since that approach can (and will) have a direct bearing on PMO success or failure. I have observed, broadly speaking, two modes of dealing with competing/conflicting agendas and ideas within organizations, and their impacts on the macro-organization and the PMO specifically. One of these modes I hold to be the most beneficial, both towards resolving problems faced by the PMO and its owning org; and the other, which I view as rather toxic, leading to unnecessary strife, poor problem resolution performance, and, ultimately, PMO decline, if not collapse. I’ll address the beneficial one first. I believe that the optimal method of managing competition and conflicting agendas in a business environment is (ironically) what I will call the Adversarial Approach. This is where any notions of how a given problem’s solution should be formulated is challenge-able by any member of the Project Team, given that such challenges are offered on a good-faith basis and grounded in legitimate management science theory, valid premises, and supported by verifiable (or, at least agreed-to) facts. My favorite Niels Bohr quote is one delivered to a young physicist, “Your theory is crazy, but it’s not crazy enough to be true.” In the quest to solve a problem, no one should be afraid of suffering repercussions for putting forth an idea that they genuinely believe might provide a solution. In this sense, what I’m calling the Adversarial Approach is similar to what happens in courts of law, where strict rules of evidence and law are enforced in order to maximize the odds of arriving at the truth and, subsequently (and hopefully), justice. In the PMO version of this approach, elements of the technical agenda and implementation approach are fielded, scrutinized, and eliminated or resolved, until what remains is a foundation for formulating the business model and management approach to the issues being addressed. Compare and contrast this approach with the other, one that I will name the Isolate-and-Diminish style. This version is marked by assigning validity, not to the superior idea or agenda, but to the person making the case for any given decision (a sure-fire way to determine if the PMO is engaged in this mode of problem solving can be observed when the Subject Matter Experts get into a conference room to discuss the technical agenda. If any of them recite their credentials prior to discussing the problem’s particulars, it’s almost certainly an Isolate-and-Diminish-tainted org). If the PMO Director is incapable of accepting criticisms or challenges, no matter how well-intentioned or relevant, then those with the best ideas will be quickly cowed into silence, lest they suffer repercussions for daring to disagree with their “superiors.” Such organizational environs turn toxic quickly, since perks are usually given to those who make their managers feel good, and those who don’t tend to become isolated from the rest of the Team. Once isolated, their status often experiences degradations and diminishments, as their reputations suffer at the hands of their more cooperative colleagues. I believe that it’s notable that this corporate culture is a perfect environment for the Jungle Fighter[i] archetype, who heavily depend on ex parte conversations to advance their careers, while the Craftsman and Gamesman archetypes are repelled by this manner of resolving competing ideas. Look, I’m not naïve (at least I try not to be): I’m fully aware that in many PMOs (and organizations in general), the coin of the realm isn’t talent or merit, but displayed loyalty to the executive’s agenda. Even so, organizations in general, and PMOs in particular, that use the Isolate-and-Diminish model for conflict resolution are on a toxic path to dysfunction. If you are in a position to set, or even influence, the manner of evaluating competing notions within your PMO, avoid Isolate-and-Diminish. And, if you find yourself in such an org, you might want to find a way out. Poorly-managed idea competitions and conflicts will simply make things harder all the way around. |
Posted on: November 08, 2025 10:15 PM
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What Is It That Changes By Remaining The Same?
| The answer to the title’s riddle is, of course, change itself, but besides being a play on words, I think it points to a larger truth, one that has the capability of influencing the way that PM-based business models are formulated. Because when we talk about Change Management (ProjectManagement.com’s theme for October) we’re not really discussing managing change per se. “Change” cannot be managed, at least not from a PM perspective, since change happens in the future, and the future does not exist. Rather, what we PM-types mean when we discuss Change Management is altering the plans (“baselines”) that we had set in-place prior to the start of a project, alterations that typically require a significant amount of scrutiny prior to approval, and integration into, those same cost, schedule, and scope baselines. Such scrutiny is warranted due to … well, let’s load everything into the Game Theorist’s favorite analysis tool, the payoff grid, shall we? Consider:
As per custom, we’ll dispense with the all-good scenarios first. If a Change Proposal isn’t called for, and it is not submitted (B 1), it’s all good. Similarly, if a BCP is indicated, and one is filed (A 2), again, everything’s okay. Things only get gnarly with the other two scenarios. In Scenario B 2, a BCP is submitted before the Baseline Change Control Board, but it really should not have been. Unscrupulous PMs (not GTIM Nation members!) have been known to submit a BCP seeking additional budget or time added to the schedule for reasons that don’t really pertain to unpredictable, uncosted changes to the original baselines, including:
Customers issuing Firm Fixed Price contracts don’t have to worry about any of this, but pretty much all clients issuing Cost Plus contracts (or their derivates) do have to be concerned, lest they end up paying for their contractors’ errors. Avoiding Scenario B 2 is essentially the raison d’etre of Baseline Change Control Boards, who can be counted on to ferret out proposed changes that are being advanced that have even the slightest whiff of being driven by the above-bulleted reasons. Unfortunately, there is no objectively reliable Litmus Test for when a given Baseline Change is solely due to an unforeseen change in the Scope Baseline which, in turn, drives higher costs and longer durations. It’s rather subjective, leading to the need for a relatively high level of PM expertise on the BCCB – otherwise, poorly-performing Project Teams are in a good position to take advantage. However, as odious as B 2 is to customers, from the PM’s point of view Scenario A 1 has to be considered even less desirable. In those situations where the Scope Baseline is being changed informally, with no Baseline Change Proposals/Requests being submitted, a condition known as Scope Creep enters in. The clearest example I have witnessed first-hand had to do with an environmental engineering project, where the customer would regularly ask the PM to “just” add one more analysis, or “just” expand the reliability study. Soon the calculated Estimate at Completion jumped above the Budget at Completion, and wasn’t coming down in subsequent reporting periods. I finally had to approach the PM, and told him “For cryin’ out loud, the next time (your customer) comes to you and asks for ‘just’ one additional item, tell him ‘I’d be happy to do that, and I’ll have the cost estimate ready for you tomorrow.’” Sure enough, another request came in, and the PM had an estimate prepared. “I had no idea it would cost this much!” the customer complained, completely ignoring the fact that, low cost or high, he should not have been leveraging the PM’s willingness to stay on his good side to extract non-baselined performance from the Project Team. The informal scope addition requests did stop, though. There’s a reason Scope Creep is often identified as the number one danger to completing projects on-budget, on-time. PMs are often under Mariannas Trench-level pressure from their home organizations to expand the project base, and keeping existing customers happy is axiomatically asserted to be far easier than attracting new ones. Scenario B 2 guardrails entail entire BCCBs standing ready to enforce boundaries. Scenario A 1 protections are typically borne by just the PM. And I have a sense that, for as long as PM remains a distinct management discipline, the threat of Scenario A 1 unfolding will never change.
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Posted on: October 29, 2025 09:50 PM
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A GTIM Baseline Change Proposal
[i] Template is a derivative of one from ProjectManagementDocs.com. [ii] Retrieved from https://en.tigosolutions.com/the-standish-group-report-839-of-it-projects-partially-or-completely-fail on October 20, 2025, 20:19 MDT. [iii] Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonsnyder/2025/08/26/mit-finds-95-of-genai-pilots-fail-because-companies-avoid-friction/ on October 20, 2025, 20:21 MDT. [iv] Retrieved from https://teamstage.io/project-management-statistics/ on October 20, 2025, 20:24 MDT. | ||||||||||||||||
Posted on: October 21, 2025 11:50 PM
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