PMO Org Structure - aiming for DevOps/Agile future
Suzanne MoranSr. Director, PMO & Enterprise Architecture| Hershey CompanyStokesdale, Nc, United States
Good afternoon, all, I am building an org structure in my PMO that will support enterprise bi-modal programs and projects. The shift will take us from waterfall/ IT only projects to enterprise and hybrid PMO.
I’m curious who has successfully built Centers of Excellence for both Agile (SAFE) and Waterfall methodologies. What were the critical roles to make this transition successful? Saving Changes...
Sort By:
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
I am in the process of helping to implement SAFe in my actual work place. Just take into account we use 5 different life cycle process to create products plus Scrum framework. Inside the life cycle we have agile based and non-agile based. The same person is assigned as project manager to agile and non-agile based initiatives at the same time. Just to comment with the aim you do not think that what I write is mere theory, I am doing this type of things from more than 25 years ago. The key is thinking based on architecture. You have to think as a pyramid: in the basement the approach (agile, lean, etc), on that the life cycle model (adaptative or predictive), on that the life cycle process based on the model (iterative, incremental, iterative-incremental, waterfall, V, etc), on that the method/framework (Scrum, SAFe, DA, SDLC, etc), on that the tool (software and non-softtware). So, for example in our case, we are using SAFe and Azure DevOps to manage waterfall based projects. For example, some people think that Kanban boards are related to agile based environments without taken into account that is a method used in manufacturing from times where agile did not exists then you can use it for other initiatives non-agile based. Saving Changes...
Having supported these transitions at a few companies, I'd suggest that some key roles you'd need are:
1. Change management support for the transformation. These folks would help to define change strategy, plans and support the local change champions across the organization.
2. Agile coaches to support behavior changes at the leadership level, with your LOB partners and at the team level
3. Tooling support for maintaining and supporting the agile tools
You will also need to decide whether to go with a centralized single eCoE or a combination of a small eCoE with federated CoE's for each major LOB. I've seen both approaches and there are pros & cons to each.
