Wayne BroichEnterprise IT Strategy and Planning - GPMO| General MotorsPinckney, Mi, United States
Compatriots - My Company has taken the leap into creating a PMO office. I have been assigned the task to develop the required templates, forms and checklist to assist Program / Project mangers in communications to the various levels of stakeholders. Immediate need is a requirement definition template, Project Charter and a approval form for moving into the next phase. I have contacted my local PMI chapter for assistance. Any help or insight would greatly be appreciated. Saving Changes...
Wayne BroichEnterprise IT Strategy and Planning - GPMO| General MotorsPinckney, Mi, United States
Ok compatriots, 3 mths have gone by and Im up and running. Have completed all templates to meet deliverables of each phase along with supporting forms to assist in completing deliverable templates. All this information was then place on the internal Internet for easy maintenance and accessibility.
Now the fun part begins! Reviewing all active projects and assigning them to the specific phase for which.what? Tthe phase they are working in or the phase for which they have supporting documentation?
I want to thank each and every one of you for assisting me in getting this up and running in such a small timeframe. If you are ever in Ann Arbor, Michigan look me up and Ill be happy to buy you a margarita top shelf.
Wayne -- this is a good question. We developed a Virtual Project Office website inhouse, and part of the project record reflects the current Project Status. But the status codes were designed by committee, and codes got added over time. Two issues need to be addressed:
"The Shingle Effect:" All your statii need to point in the same direction, like shingles. This helps avoid ambiguity. This means you either define status according to the phase you are in, or the milestones you have reached -- but not BOTH.
"The Reality Effect:" Do you status on what has been approved, or what is really happening?! In many cases, the approval process cannot keep up with the need to progress, so unless you get a directive to cease and desist, you don't wait for Subcomandante Zero to sign off on the charter. Again, I'm not sure if it matters which reality you choose, as long as you stay there.
For our VPO application, we eventually settled on the milestones for status code with "actual reality" for status reporting (narrative). This keeps the coding very objective (we've reached the milestone or we haven't), and give the reporting at least a chance for being honest (c'mon, people, we're falling behind, here!).
Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Pass on the book by Tom Block, it's a cloud level book that misses too much. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Todd, check out the PMI Standards teams. I'm on the WBS standards team, and there is one for PM maturity, also, and many others. Saving Changes...
Todd WethyProgram Manager| Volkswagen of AmericaAuburn Hills, Mi, United States
Thanks Ed. I attended PMI Connections 2000 in Houston and sat in on the presentation of the status of the PMI's research activities. I understand beginning next year we will start to see some outputs in the area of PMO organizational maturity. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Hi Todd,
Yes, there are many topics underway between the PMI research folks and the standards development teams. Just keep in mind that the documents coming out from these PMI areas are not at thesis levels, and often are issued after a year or two of work knowing that more is needed on the document. THe reason is the number of reviews and edits (multiple times) that are required to take place before they are published, that people like you and I who have full time jobs do this in our spare time (what's that?), and that combined with team reviews & edits and PMI reviews and edits causes smaller pieces of a subject to be issued at a time. So, what's the net-net from this? First, we need more volunteers on our teams at PMI, and two, more good stuff is coming from PMI! :) Please volunteer by going to a PMI website and e-mailing the appropriate person, (if interested). It's a lot of fun and helps the discipline grow for all. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
A query for PMO-oriented people who are tasked with addressing and avoiding cross-project interference.
What approach do you use?
. . . or for those building a PMO . . .
How do you plan on dealing with cross-project interference?
After months of encouraging a virtual team across 4 divisions of the corporation, my Boss says we've assessed a great big stack of tools, templates, processes and procedures, but lack the little plastic thingy that holds all the cans together. I guess I'm not a Big Picture person. What do you use to hold it all together? Saving Changes...
Pat -- I love that line from your boss. I'm going to steal it and alternate it's use with my description of the PMBOK as a smorgasbord from which PMOs have to try to select processes that work together. The alternative is to define the methodology you want to use, and then select the pieces that support the overriding methodology. The PMBOK Guide tells you all the possible ways of doing stuff, and what you need across processes, but the choice of process method is left to the reader. This is why I like the Critical Chain approach. Like a dinner that has been developed by a trained chef who knows how the ingredients go together, it is a consistent and comprehensive collection of processes aimed at delivering projects with both speed and reliability. The pieces work together. (Another example of a thought through methodology might be PRINCE.)
The logical design that connects the various processes is the "plastic thingie" that your boss finds missing. I suspect that too many PMOs are put together by collection of tools rather than by any holistic design process or philosophy, like that at the basis of the CCPM-based multi-project management method.
"It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons."
