Restructuring within my organisation has led to a reduced pool of permanent Project Managers and we have therefore changed the way that we resource projects, with permanent employees providing oversight of contract project managers. Consequently all project budgets must now include funding for project management resource. We are using market rates provided by our managed service providers to estimate costs.
This works pretty well for larger projects but for smaller, less complex problems we have two problems. Firstly, it is difficult to onboard a project manager for just a few days work if that is all that is required (we are only able to charge for actual time worked and cannot hold any charges against BAU cost centres for charge back at a later date).
Secondly, many of these pieces of work are very small projects that only just fall outside of the realms of normal operations (we are calling these complex service requests). They don’t really require project management but more coordination and guidance. It is hard for us to justify the rates that we would ordinarily charge for a project manager to perform this type of work. We have fairly well-established project management processes that could be scaled down for this type of activity.
This has led us to consider the creation of a new role to oversee these activities. I would anticipate that this would not require a high level of project management expertise but some level of understanding would be beneficial.
I would be grateful to hear the experiences of anyone else who has created a role like this.
Saving Changes...
Darren KosaPlanning & Controls ContractorHampshire, United Kingdom
Hi Sharon,
Depending on the range of skills within your organisation, its willingness to invest in employees and how your teams will respond to the challenge, this sounds like an ideal situation to promote an initiative that could have a positive impact on your company.
By the sounds of it, these projects will be so small they can probably just be managed as work packages and here lies your opportunity. They don’t need to be managed by project managers they just have to be owned by them, similar to how a project sponsor would have ownership of what I would describe as a traditional project. It makes sense the actual end-to-end delivery of the ‘project’ could then be given to a pool of junior project managers / project leaders.
It should be possible to create this community within a functional environment, they may be graduates working in your PMO or even cleaning the offices, the point being, these individuals already exist in your organisation, it’s just a matter of finding them and convincing them to give up their personal lives, work 16 hours a day, not have any contact with their families, shun their friends and come on over to the dark side. ;o)
If they have an interest in project management and show an aptitude for it, why not start at the ground level and mould them into a sustainable resource with the skills to deliver these low-level projects? Who knows you may uncover your organisations next generation of senior project managers.
This new group can work in a hybrid role and function in osmosis with your existing project management community, you just need to do a little preparation first.
1) Tailor your processes so there are more nimble / flexible and eliminate excessive layers of documentation.
2) Create a mentoring scheme with existing project managers so they can tap into your company’s skills and expertise.
3) Provide a forum, or encourage them to use gantthead, where they can ask all the dumb questions I’m sure every single one of us has asked at one time or another.
4) Give them a career path, show them how they can progress through the ranks to become fully fledged project managers / PMO managers / programme managers / etc.
5) Provide modular training in tools and techniques
Essentially all you’re asking them to do is take a piece of work that should be clearly defined and asking them to deliver it on time and to budget. If you don’t bamboozle them with project management speak and weigh them down with paperwork, their willingness to listen and learn should see them through.
What you absolutely must give them is project management experience, there simply isn’t an adequate substitute for the skills they will gain at the coalface. However, in situations such as this, what remains to be seen is whether organisations have the foresight to choose such a path, or are found guilty of short sightedness.
"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore."
