I'm hoping somone can assist. I am working in a new established PMO and need assistance putting together protocols and standards. New at this and wondered if anyone had basic protocols around status reporting, action items updates, etc. Thanks for your help in advance Saving Changes...
I also did an article on RYG status reports that might be helpful:
http://www.alexsbrown.com/ryg-status.html
The PMO SIG is also putting together some standards or best practices for PMOs. You may want to join their volunteer team, to get early access to their drafts, and to help contribute to them.
Contact me personally if you have any questions or specific issues. I have worked a lot with matching project management to organizational strategy, as well as internal audit issues. I find that these issues are central to making a PMO really useful and effective in a company. Saving Changes...
Rob MartinConsulting (Contract)| Microsoft (Thailand)Lam Luk Ka, Pathum Thani, Thailand
Dawn,
This is the vexing problem for all new PMO's.
When setting up a new PMO (or getting my PMO Manager to do it), I make sure I look at the Organisation I am working in, what they like as standards (format, content etc) and I also draw on experiences of the past.
Where I have no experience, I borrow beg and unashamedly, emulate those that have the expertise and experience in these areas. Fortunately I have a good network and this allows me to tap into it (get the hint there?)
There are many templates and ideas on this site and generous offers from Gentlemen such as Alex below should not be ignored.
There is no "golden egg", but there are experiences and examples abounding that can make your job easier.
Rob Saving Changes...
Debbie Clemons, PMPEnterprise Application Project Manager| AvailityJacksonville, Fl, United States
Hello Dawn, I am also working on a new PMO for my company. The biggest challenge I am up against is getting everyone to agree to the process and sticking with it. Our organization has pretty much let everyone do things their own way for so long that now it's hard to put policies in place.
Rob, funny you should mention "borrowing". We hired an outside consultant and all the documents he worked on for 6 months came off ganthead. lol Saving Changes...
Joe MooneySenior Technology Project Manager| Independent ConsultantOviedo, Fl, United States
Dawn,
I have found with the PMOs that I have been involved with starting that the culture of the organization needs to drive the level of governance that the PMO institutes. In an organization that has been very fluid with regards to reporting and statusing practices, you cannot suddenly wield a big club and hold them to every best practice on Day 1.
It is best to ease them into things. Our methodology has the PMO starting out doing the tasks that the PMINO (Project Managers In Name Only) don't want to do. We offer to put together status reports, track progress, and provide budget information. Of course this can't be done without access to the data and project participants.
You can provide forms, templates, WBS samples and such to perform that Education feature that we see as critical to the PMO. The Gantthead docs are a great start - but I suggest that you brand them- especially if you're doing consultant work at Debbie's company :)
The one thing that I would highly recommend is that you develop a Change Request form if you don't already have one. If you can't get everyone to buy into the concept of Change Management, they probably aren't ready for a PMO.......
If you'd like some sample forms, drop me a note and I'll be happy to share with you what we use.
Saving Changes...
Debbie Clemons, PMPEnterprise Application Project Manager| AvailityJacksonville, Fl, United States
You made me laugh Joe :>) and with the week I've had I needed it. We have actually come a long ways from where we started. We do have change control and standard templates. We have also developed an approval process for new project request. I am working on a website that will be on our intranet to assist staff through the process.
Saving Changes...
Mark HipwellSr. Project Manager| Jaguar Land RoverAshby De La Zouch, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
Hi Dawn,
I've done a few of these now, and I've found it helpful to group PMO activity into the following containers:
Cycle Planning / Project Selection:
Process by which we choose to decide which projects we should start.
Engagement:
process by which project teams are formed.
Estimation:
process by which we formally estimate costs at specific points in a project lifecycle (during project selection, after analysis, retrospectively).
Governance:
process of how we ‘go about’ PM (artifacts, gate review etc.)
Tracking:
process of how we know the status of all PM activity.
Resource Management:
process of how we organise resources to match project demand / manage projects to match resource availability.
Project Control:
process by which we execute and control projects: best practice PM, job aids, wiki, lessons learned, etc.
Project Management Competence:
process by which we set a benchmark of PM competence and manage / measure resources to that mark.
This is useful because it shows your audience the wide scope of what needs to be in place in order for a PMO to be fully effective. Without doing this you may be in a situation where your organisation expects all the benefits of a PMO from just introducing a couple of standard templates and processes. You will of course get benefit from those things, but setting up a PMO is a long journey that will run according to the speed at which your organisations understanding and competence grows.
You can't go far wrong if you approach setting up a PMO as a normal project!
