Process, Process, Process….. if you read blogs and articles or listen to podcasts – all you actually need for a successful PMO is a unrelenting focus on PROCESS! But Process is NOT the sole answer, many PMO managers have spent year or more putting in place tons of process, plenty of templates, several tools, and a hire a crew of methodology zealots to come execute it all. Without sustainable success and certainly without any stakeholder engagement or commitment.
Why do some organizations see the value of PMOs? This is directly related to the project management maturity of its leaders, not just the size of the organisation.
Why does this happen? No one cares about process but you. Of course, this isn’t completely true, it’s how much you care and prioritise Process in advance of other business priorities that will hurt the PMO. In reality, CEO’s need high impact results, not a slavish set of rules and processes that need following.
Put simply, all of the process in the world won’t make your PMO successful. In fact, too much process, especially too early, will almost guarantee failure.
It’s not about the process! It’s is about how you Get – It – Done. It’s about outcomes and impact, not tools and templates.
Ultimately, the PMO needs to be the driving force shaping the organisation’s project management culture. It means that the PMO will often be suggesting changes to the overall organisational culture to ensure that the efficiencies keep being delivered
Simplification Alert!
It takes time to roll out process, that is, correct process, that will be effective in an organisation. I’m not suggesting you don’t do it at all, just do it incrementally and thoughtfully while learning your business and helping your business solve problems. Give yourself time to conduct an assessment of the business needs, the culture, the organisation, the norms, the current processes and practices. Once you know what you are dealing with, you can recommend a solution that best meets the needs of that organisation. You can right-size your process…to achieve greatest impact. Crushing your people with process will alienate you, and you’ll find the PMO measures of success do not align with those of the project and program leads.
What’s the best way to assess an organisation? By helping them solve immediate business challenges they are having today. Forget about holding off taking action before all your ‘templates are in place’, your business isn’t going to say, “Come back when you have a full set of documents you are going to force me to complete before I can get work done.” In reality, senior stakeholders don’t care if you build your project schedule on a napkin, a flip chart or in a tool, it’s about getting that schedule built, understanding your stakeholders and their requirements, and mobilising people to drive strategy realisation.
By doing this, you earn their respect and trust while getting some wins under your belt. Success breeds more success. It’s the rich get richer philosophy. Once you have success, you are more likely to be the one they come to when they really need help. The trust grows. Your success grows. Everyone wins.
Too many Senior Operations / Project managers have spent too much time building out process and not enough time focused on my business, their needs, and solving their problems, inevitably it leaves a PMO on the brink of extinction. PMO’s can often be seen as barriers to advancement, always placing roadblocks in their way instead of solving their problems. However, I hadn’t built trust with them yet. Obviously being a barrier is never the intent of an Operations or Project Manager. We all know the value of a good template and process to help standardise and get to sustainable successful outcomes. Which is fine, but stakeholders need to see that the PMO knows what it is doing first. The PMO needs to demonstrate that it could help them have impact. It needs to prove that the PMO itself can be trusted, but this needs to be a practical demonstration and there is no point doing it to them instead of doing it with them.
Use the Jedi Mind Trick.
One of my favourite Program Managers used to do this to stakeholders all of the time and they loved him for it! He’d gently guide them through a simple process to get unstuck and get their business objectives accomplished to keep the project moving forward. Then, once they were all excited and patting themselves on the back, he’d let them know that he was using the Jedi Mind Trick on them and that it was really a pretty standard project management process he had just guided them through. Next time, they could just follow that same process to get to the same results. He didn’t shove terminology or templates or process at them. He just stood by them and walked them through a simple framework, using business terms and focusing on outcomes.
PMOs must reflect the organisational culture and strategy—or risk being dismissed as an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy –
■ PMO’s – Reduce failed projects
■ PMO’s -Deliver projects under budget
■ PMO’s -Improve productivity
■ PMO’s -Deliver projects ahead of schedule
■ PMO’s -Increase cost savings
One of the top differentiators of success is how well a PMO is embedded within an organisation, There are four clear factors that determine the level of integration:
1. Collaboration: The PMO should encourage collaboration between project professionals and functional departments.
2. Recognition of expertise: Do the project professionals working with the PMO improve the level of respect project management receives within the organisation? This should also influence who works in the PMO.
3. The mission is well understood: Do those outside the PMO know its purpose?
4. Support from upper management: Is there an executive champion who will not only communicate
the mission, but will work to gain engagement from stakeholders?
As your PMO process framework widens, you should be trying to reduce the administrative burden at roughly the same rate. Same effort, less administration, more insight… The PMO should evolve, across the board, beyond administrative and tactical functions to critical strategic entities
