Mark MullalyPresident| Interthink Consulting IncorporatedToronto, Ontario, Canada
The PMO Mystique is a new discussion forum to explore the issues and challenges associated with selling, developing and managing Program and Project Management Offices.
I encourage you to share ideas, ask questions, suggest solutions and contribute experiences from your own background and work.
In my article The PMO Department - A New Face I laid out some of my thoughts and ideas for the direction of the PMO department on gantthead.com
What isses would you like to see explored in the coming months? What challenges are you facing with your PMO (as a staff member, a customer or a sponsor...)? What solutions or approaches have you found that work?
Alexander Matthey, PMPSenior Program Manager & PMO Lead | Tonomus.NEOMAbu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Dear Mark,
I've been charged to set-up the PMO in a mobile telecommunication company.
The hosting will happen at Corporate level, in a trans-functional division attached to the CEO, called CDO (Corporate Development Office). The rational being it needs to be : - neutral (not IT, not Marketing, not F&A) - cross-functional - higher level of authority.
All senior and middle managers have great (and diverging) expectations from the PMO. None of them have deep understanding of what it is.
I've been personally transferred from the F&A division to the hosting business entity. But as it is not our company culture to have clear-cut statements, responsibilities and authorities assigned, a Mandate has NOT been issued to me. Moreover, for headcount and personnel freezing reasons, I'm still on F&A's budget, and an official internal statement has not been released yet that there is a new PMO manager, who's first role is to set-up the PMO.
I'm about to write the PMO Charter. It'll be presented on the 23 Dec 2002 to the board.
But before that, with the draft I'll come up this week-end and share with my colleagues on the 10th of Dec, I'll start "touring" the General Mangers and CxOs.
I have two requests: 1. How should I handle the absolute lack of authority, which looks from my side as a set-up ? 2. What checklist/template/questions should I use to meet Snr Mgrs ? Is the Charter draft with big white spaces enough ?
Cheers Alex Matthey Saving Changes...
Mark MullalyPresident| Interthink Consulting IncorporatedToronto, Ontario, Canada
Alex:
The challenges you describe are significant ones. One of the biggest, however, is the degree to which you actually have a 'mandate'.
One of the greatest challenges in any organizational change effort is to get consensus on what the desired outcome of the change is. In your case, it would appear that you have multiple stakeholders, each of whom have a very different perspective of what your expected outcome actually should be.
On top of that is a lack of resources and funding -- not unusual in the telecom sector right now, but not exactly a help either.
One path that you may try is to use the charter as a 'straw model' to gather their requirements, being clear about who requires what. What will likely emerge are a number of disconnects as individual expectations conflict with those of others. By first documenting the conflicts, it becomes more possible to then manage their resolution by simply making the disconnects visible to all.
In actually drafting the charter itself, you can take one of two approaches: a) write the best draft you can, based upon what you honestly believe is being looked for, with an expectation that the feedback will be refined through your discussions; or b) write a draft based upon an appropriate yet undesirable solution, as a means of provoking input that may otherwise not be forthcoming in scenario a).
Both approaches need care to be taken with them -- you don't want to present a fait accompli, in fact you are looking for their suggestions; and you want to take care with writing an intentionally provocative charter. There are environments where this may backfire and even call into question your commitment or understanding of the role. But as a 'if you can't articulate your requirements, this is what we'll go with' strategy, I have in certain circumstances seen it be very effective.
I hope this helps. Keep me/us posted on your progress, and please let me know if you have any questions.
With best regards, Mark Saving Changes...
Dr Mike O'CallaghanCoach & Project Manager| Relevant InternationalCape Town, South Africa
Hi Mark
I have to agree with you that setting up a PMO is pretty challenging. However, I'm not sure that all of these challenges can be defined up front.
I am contracted by a large corporate to set up a PMO. We've been going for about a year and I think we have been successful. This corporate tried to set up a PMO on four previous occasions, all of which failed. The primary reason why they failed is due to a lack of humility on the part of the PMs and sponsor/owner of the (PMO Set-up) project.
Think for a few minutes what exactly a PMO set-up project is trying to do. One can look at potentially PMO functional areas and develop deliverables for these areas (Bruce's list is adequate). One can even achieve those deliverables, but still fail. A PMO will change the way business is managed. It will change the personnel profile of the company. It will change the way company finances are managed. All of this affects people and the way they do things. If the company has been successful without a PMO, why should we have one now (many managers might think).
So, I think that to be successful with a PMO Set-up project, we have to change the people. Policies & Procedures, Roles & Responsibilities is part of this, but there is a very much softer part, And it is the softer part that will determine success.
The Project Managers: Without a central PMO, PMs will have differing levels of expertise, pet methods and the like. Together with standardised methodologies and processes, it is a good idea to have a regular forum to discuss any and all aspects of project management. This helps transfer knowledge, allay fears, etc. We have two such fora: a fortnightly informal session where we talk on any (predetermined) PM subject (we may include guest speakers); a formal weekly report session where every PM gives a 5 to 10 minute report on project progress (this generates many synergies). Ultimately, this leads to a team spirit amongst the PMs ? a good thing.
Middle Management: This is a difficult area to manage, particularly in a matrix-structured organisation. You are asking someone to change the way he does things. You are potentially showing up areas or people that are inefficient. One way to help is to develop tools that will serve to make the operations managers' life easier e.g. project progress registers and resource commitment charts and the like.
The bottom line is that slowly catch the monkey. Once the PMO is set up with all the policies, processes, tools, methodologies, bells and whistles, it will still have to mature. Some aspects such as operations vs project resource levelling might only be needed later when business is more trusting of the PMO and projects thus become more complex. The development of Strategy facilitation to Programme development to Project Management might only come later. This maturation is not very different to those described by Shawn Bohmer's PMO Capability Maturity Model. Project Manager skills will also mature as will the Business use and reliance on the PMO.
Much of this stuff is not really measurable. So I think that a PMO Set-up Project Charter should be restricted to the measurable parts such as Processes, methodologies, identification of roles & responsibilities, registration, predefined tools.
It is tricky to distinguish the end of the PMO Set-up Project and the start of the PMO Management process. I decided to move to PMO management when I realised that most time was being spent on sustainability and the other aspects were simply being tweaked as a result of sustainability developments. Saving Changes...
I currently president/ceo of a large multi national IT company and my one million dollar question is as follows: What are the steps (and I am sure there many) in creating a PMO office. I would just like to have the basic steps so that I can make sure we do not go down the wrong track in our new PMO launch Saving Changes...
Mark MullalyPresident| Interthink Consulting IncorporatedToronto, Ontario, Canada
Anonymous:
In response to your question, yes there are a number of steps to establishing a PMO. There are a number of key success factors, however, that you should address as you start to establish a PMO capability:
- define what the role of the PMO is supposed to be.
- define the role within the organization; is it a support organization, a focal point for all projects, or the champion for process improvement?
- confirm the mandate of the PMO.
- establish what services that the PMO will need to provide.
- define what success looks like. How will you measure it? How will you know the PMO is delivering value?
- establish a project organization to build the PMO - at the end of the day, it's a project like any other.
Many of these points have been developed in recent articles in the 'Features' section of the PMO department. Please feel free to post any specific questions that you might have.
Great discussions. This might also help...or at least give you something to think about.
(BTW, Mark has some great insights and knowledge. The only thing I would add is to define your PMO boundaries in a PMO Charter)
I belong to a PMO Roundtable made up of about 40 corporations in our area and we have been struggling with the purpose and justification of a PMO for quite some time. We have come up with some interesting findings, which might help when setting your PMO direction:
Most important reason for the PMO: * To prevent project or business initiative failure * To increase PM capability * To ensure project consistency * To provide program management capability and standards * To manage Resource Management (either company-wide, division or department) * The PMO started because of Y2K and is still there * To be able to keep commitments...Need enterprise view of resource management, project portfolio, global view of all things * Started because projects were never ending, more accountability * To provide standardization of tools and processes * Started because of the number of projects with problems * Provide better PM leadership * Needed better corporate initiative alignment and project portfolio view across the company * Culture not ready for sophisticated tools * To help in selecting the right projects * To increase corporate project capability * To increase capacity * To achieve some purpose (and it just stayed around) * To help restructure the organization * Used to impose change
Last thing the PMO does that management would give up: * Cross-project issues tracking DB * Status reports * Providing standards * Stage gate reviews * The right to vote on costs * knowledge management * Relationship between project cost and ROI * What is the cost of NOT doing the project (Opportunity Cost) * It depends on who holds the purse strings
Priorities for the future of PMOs: * Benefits Realization * Real Risk Management * Estimation Management and education * Proving the value...every day * more value at less cost * Linking to the corporate strategy Saving Changes...
Anonymous
We are setting up a PMO and have the majority of administrative tasks completed. We now want to set up a War Room to visually depict the applications, infrastructure and data. Has anyone had experience doing this and what did it look like? Saving Changes...
I work for a retail food company that is in the process of establishing a PMO. The reason for this effort is very much as described in similar posts ie. poor project performance due to poorly defined objectives, improperly assigned resources, unclear success measurements, etc. After reviewing this website and articles posted within, it occurs to me that many of the problems associated with projects are not exclusive to the IT industry, rather they are shared universally throughout the corporate environment. Generally, these have to due with people and power. In our endeavours to establish a PMO,we have run into a variety of opinions from stakeholders ranging from "Just get on with it" to "What do we need a PMO for?" Unfortunately, the PMO should be able to satisfy the needs of most stakeholders on most occasions in order to be viewed as contributing to the organization in a positive way. That's a tall order.
This is why we are spending a good deal of time trying to firmly establish the PMO Charter. We are viewing it more or less as a contract for services. We will make attempts to solicit feedback surrounding the content of this contract from stakeholders but will only move forward when the authorities, responsibilities and roles have been clearly established.
In this way we believe that we can measure the results of our efforts and provide focused value to the organization. We also hope to prevent ourselves from becoming viewed as 'methodology bigots' who stifle ideas and creative thought. The PMO must be percieved to be positively impacting the organization, otherwise the individuals who wield the power will lose interest. That's our theory at least. Our fingers are crossed. Saving Changes...
I am about to talk in ‘absolute terms’ and make ‘huge generalisations’. I recognise that nothing is absolute, but it helps to underline my points and spices up debate ;-)
Consensus derived PMO’s will not work in large organisations, as large organisations can never achieve meaningful consensus. The PMO will end up as a glorified (if it is lucky) and toothless administrative function.
A PMO must have the clear and very visible mandate of the CEO or CIO. It should be the CEO, but "IT" always seem to beat "the business" to setting up a PMO (that is another debate!).
The PMO’s headline role is as the executive arm of the Project Governance Committee (PGC), which is accountable for the management of all change within the organisation. The PMO informs the PGC’s decision making process and executes its decisions. To achieve this function, it must own (manage and control) the Project Management Environment (PME). The PME is the totality of standards, processes, tools, methods etc.
Any PSOs or POs should be satellites of the PMO.
With all the above said, it really is still possible to deliver a PMO without alienating the whole change organisation. This is lucky, as it can not survive or achieve its goals if it does. It does however need exceptional stakeholder management skills.
As to the approach: Go top down. The primary stakeholder is the CIO/CEO and will expect to see action. Baseline the change portfolio and the level of information that can reliably be gathered about all programmes/projects i.e., only report data that ALL projects/programmes can provide, inconsistent or incomplete data is no good for portfolio management. This will identify where changes need to be made and their relative priorities. It will also strengthen the mandate - It’s amazing how excited a CIO can get when realising that only 30% of a 500m budget can really be accounted for and only a fraction of that is strategically aligned and tracked.
Some final pieces of advice:
*Understand the big picture and underlying principles.
*Keep processes flexible (certainly early on).
*Understand and set sensible levels of ‘materiality’. These will change as the processes mature.
*Manage those stakeholders – ceaselessly!!!!!
*Develop very strong relationship with finance.
*Agree and build in the measures for your own performance.
Oh and if someone is asking you to implement a PMO way down the food chain or in a stovepipe somewhere – run for the hills, they either don’t have the clout or they don’t know what they are doing!!
Saving Changes...
