Greetings everyone, I am trying to create a plan for growing our PMO from 5 people (including myself) to about 15 by the end of 2nd quarter next year. I was looking for some ideas on how to organize people. We're too small to introduce a layer of people that only manage other PMs and not projects, but I obviously can't effectively manage (or even track) 14 people by myself. Also, two or three of these PMs will be in other cities. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Gordon Paisley Nexterna [email protected] Saving Changes...
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Michael BrownProject Manager| JPMorganChaseDeerfield, Il, United States
There is a very good, simple book entitled "The Project Office" written by Thomas Block. He provides a nice structure to developing a project office, and I'd suggest that as a place to start in terms of resource and process organization. I was a key member in our Enterprise project support office, and found it a nice reference.
If I hear you correctly, Gordon, you are in the role of "Manager of Project Managers".
I'm in a similar situation with 12 (soon 14) direct reports and no hope of adding another layer of management under me any time soon.
I would say that, although there is a wealth of info available on general Proj Mgmnt, only a small % deals with managing PMs. So, I'll pass on my 2 cents worth from what has worked for us.
Since I cannot get actively involved in every project my folks are working on, my major focus is on:
* Establishing clear job standards for PMs * Ensuring PMs are following internal standards and guidelines * Helping when I can to remove barriers that the PMs are encountering on their projects * Holding performance appraisal meetings with the PMs throughout the year * Soliciting feedback from sponsors / customers of projects on the performance of PMs (I use an open-ended survey.) * Ensuring PMs have the training / tools to do their jobs * Personally mentoring junior PMs * Keeping in touch with Sr. management so that I am aware of upcoming projects to ensure we are adequately staffed
A note on budgets - in our environment, projects are budgeted by the requesting departments. Hence, I personally do not have to budget or track expenses for projects that the PMs are working on.
Another note on job standards - we put the burden of proof on the PMs to show me that they are meeting / exceeding job standards. I cannot be chasing after them. Saving Changes...
Maintenance of the PO is different than management of the PMs. The PO (in which I would include you, the tools you provide, the PM processes, and the fraction of time each PM applies to overall PO activities) should be a low-maintenance, "organic" entity. By that I mean you should build-in policies, enabled by tools, which grow and sustain the POs effectiveness.
Some specific suggestions
Make process improvement part of every PMs job. Don't limit yourself to making sure that every PM "adheres" to policy -- adapt the policies (and templates) to make the PMs more effective.
Limit the friction involved in reporting. Besides making everyone spend less time on Status Reports, time accounting, etc., it makes your operation more scalable.
Similarly, adopt simple standards for reporting (by consensus, if possible) that everyone will abide by. These should allow you to "pour" data from inbound to outbound reports with little or no manual intervention.
Lessons Learned on every project. Lessons Learned documents s/b easily accessible in a common repository to every PM.
