Krista McCordDirector, Project Management| Fox RacingIrvine, Ca, United States
IT PMOs (small to mid-size companies) - do you outsource IT application functions for projects? If so, how do you balance internal resource time for knowledge share with the consultants? We are being tasked to be more creative to accomplish an ever growing project list (mid to large projects) but have internal resource constraints. However, when we engage with outside consultants, the engagement needed with our internal resources have negated the intended result.
Big picture - how are your IT departments structured to take on increasing project requests, while maintaining general support? Saving Changes...
This is a project prioritization & talent management issue where concurrent demand is greater than short-term supply. The solution is to cut back on the number of concurrent projects while investing in cross-training and growing bench strength so you can (over time) take on more project work.
Otherwise the situation you refer to is a variant of Brooks' Law (adding people to a late project makes it later) - adding (external) people to a constrained talent pool makes existing projects later.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Amany NuseibehSpeaker, Global Leader | Optimal ConsultingSydney, Nsw, Australia
Krista,
As Kiron stated, the demand imposed on resource time and effort need to be taken into consideration when determining the capacity required for projects hence influencing the prioritization results.
This component is usually under estimated, as knowledge sharing and transfer is an ongoing piece for those who are liaising with external entities/consultants.
Once a clear picture of available vs required capacity emerges (along with all other relevant criteria), the PMO will be able to recommend which projects/initiatives need to be de-prioritized.
Amany Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
The seems to be an inherent problem here that will not be solved with a continual bandaid approach. Leveraging a consultant firm to build out the knowledge necessary within the organization for long-term sustainability should be the play here. If the size of the internal talent pool has proven to be consistently undersized, there is a different need here. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Is not about IT. Is about the strategy to follow for outsourcing. That´s belong to the field of strategy and there are lot of information outside there (including an article on the matter that the PMI has published and was written for me time ago...jejejejeje). So, my intention with this comment, is putting here the information about the focus. Just to remember, when you do that, you have to take into account your organization as a whole because when you outsource you are pulling other components that belongs to other layers inside your enterprise architecture. For example, supposse you decide to outsource your IT infraestructure, will you push your top management data inside hardware you are outsourcing? Things like that. Saving Changes...
