I head up a PMO within a small (300 employees) IT company. I am asked on a regular basis for a PM be assigned to what the requestor deems to be a 'project'. Many times the request is for a 'project' that the product team can handle on their own but they want a PM assigned to track their tasks (sometimes as few as 10 tasks) or to manage their meetings and take notes. The requestor is often a VP or C-level executive, so it's hard to so say no. They seem to want the PM to be their secretary. Any help is appreciated. Saving Changes...
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Darren KosaPlanning & Controls ContractorHampshire, United Kingdom
Hi Anon,
Do you have any Project Leads / Juniors / Support who want to take the step up into a PM role?
Sounds like an ideal opportunity for someone to further develop their career in this profession.
Regards,
Darren Saving Changes...
Ian NobleParents And Children TogetherReading, United Kingdom
What is the real problem here that this situation is causing you, and what it the benefit to the organisation of fixing it?
Is it that these requests are a drain on your pool of Project Managers, who could, and should, be busy on other things? Or is it that these “projects” only require admin type support which is a bit beneath an experienced project manager, but they have nothing else to do, so might as well do it?
If it is the former then it does sound like you need an additional role in the organisation, that of Project Admin Support. You can define the roles and responsibilities of both roles, showing the differences, e.g. Project Support take meeting minutes. Then you should be able to take a request and decide which role is needed.
You may have the problem that you do not have the Project Admin Support role today, and where will these people come from, but that needs to part of the solution. Understanding the real problem and the benefits of fixing it, should help you.
Good luck. Saving Changes...
Jiju NairSenior Manager| Fannie MaeReston, Va, United States
It seems as if your stakeholders believe their tasks or 'projects' need a steward regardless of their size. On a positive note, this means that your company's leadership understands the importance of project management or its relevance.
However, if you feel that these requests are straining your resource availability, you will need to start prioritizing the allocation of PMs by having an honest discussion with business leadership. You can start the ball rolling by
a) Establishing 'light weight' project/task management processes, document and publish and set up brown bag sessions so that stakeholders can start executing them with minimal PM oversight.
b) Establishing general guidelines for allocation of a PM to a task by analyzing the task's importance from a business ROI perspective. If it is high, then a PM needs to be allocated.
I would think that you should take this opportunity to project the capabilities of your PMO office in juggling different priorities thereby providing value for your business. However, if budget or resource constraints are a reality for your PMO, this is the time that you should start your discussions in getting more funding by showing the projects that need your office's attention.
Saving Changes...
Diane OhdeIT Project Manager| AZ Department of TransportationGoodyear, Az, United States
Hello,
I agree with Jiju. This is a perfect opportunity for your organization to document what constitutes as a project. Our organization has a procedure for determining what makes a project and also identifies low focus or high focus dependent on the number of effort hours. We have a Project Management process defined and everyone manages projects in the same manner using the same templates/documents. All requests for projects should require a business case submittal. The business case should describe the project request, estimated cost, objectives, benefits, assumptions, and efficiency savings to the organization, and include a 5 year ROI table. All Business Case submittals must be approved by someone in upper management before any resource can work on it. It shouldn't be difficult to justify this to your upper management since it will assure the companies resources are being utilized in a manner that best supports the overal goals of the organization.
The end result in having this requirement will make most managers want to just manage the small stuff themselves to avoid having to fill out a Business Case.
"manage their meetings and take notes" is somewhat alarming, I should think your PMs are pretty demotivate by this attitude indeed. Maybe a very senior PM should attend one of these meetings & give a brief presentation of what PMs can offer. Saving Changes...
Larry RutledgePrincipal Consultant| Value LInk Associates LLCJessup, Md, United States
Lots of good ideas here about using these requests as an opportunity to define a new role or provide opportunities for junior folks on your team. I would suggest that you go back to the requester in a collaborative mode and say something to the effect that "you know, our PMO team has not typically staffed itself to handle this type of work as our current staff is used to larger projects with broader scope of responsibility. If you could give me an estimate of how much of this type of support you would need for smaller projects, I can define a more appropriate mix of resources and provide you this support in the future with more appropriately-priced talent to maximize your value of using our services" or something like that. You then don't appear arrogant to your internal customers (i.e that kind of work is below us) and you maximize your prospects for getting them to realize the higher value-add work that you can provide.
Great question; I have seen this "devaluing" of project management in the early stages of adopting a PMO and if you engage and avoid the "customers just don't understand what we're her for" you're likely to be more successful as an internal resource and grow the group. Saving Changes...
Rakesh TrivediSenior Project Manager| IT CompanyIndore, Mp, India
Agreed with other on this ..Need to revamp the PMO Saving Changes...
