Chuck’s Snippets 19.0; page 12 of 12

Chuck Millhollan,

www.millhollan.net

Strategic PMO Summit, Orlando, FL, April 13 – 15, 2011

Southwest Ohio PMI Mega Event, West Chester, Ohio, April 19 – 20, 2011

Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to “Chuck’s Snippets 19.0!” I have combined my Snippets for the Strategic PMO Summit and the Southwest Ohio PMI Chapter Mega Event 2011, both held in April 2011.

My presentations during these conferences were titled; 1) Generate a Business Case for PMO Success, 2) Out of the Gate Running – A Case Study on Requirements Management, and 3) Congratulations...You’re Certified! Now What?

If you are interested in discussing any of the specific topics and/or speakers in more detail, please feel free to contact me.

My standard disclaimer: While I believe all of the content of the attached summary is extremely valuable, I do not fully accept each premise or believe that all of the concepts fully apply in every organizational environment. However, these basic principles of effective leadership, business analysis and project management are definitely worthwhile contributions to our professional development.

Speaker: Gerald Hill, Principle of Hill Consulting Group & author of The Complete Project Management Office Handbook, 2nd Edition and The Complete Project Management Methodology and Toolkit

Event: The Strategic PMO Summit

Topic: Successfully Market your PMO Internally to Achieve Organizational Buy-in

  1. Gerald’s (Jerry’s) entering argument for marketing not only the project management office (PMO), but also the project management profession as a whole, was that “Project Management is Business Management.” More specifically, we manage projects to achieve business results.
  2. Chuck’s comment: I believe this was the underlying theme for the entire summit. In my experience, organizational leadership is only marginally (if at all) interested in the project management methodology and/or tool set. Don’t get me wrong, senior leadership support is absolutely critical to the PMO’s success; however, how we “market” our contribution to the organization significantly influences the level of support and buy-in received.
  3. We do not market project charters or work breakdown structures, right? Why, these are simply tools of our trade.
  4. Here’s a great analogy: We do not choose mechanics based on how well they can explain their tools to us. Instead, we choose a mechanic based on the fact that they that know their tools and trade well enough to deliver the results we need...a functional vehicle.
  5. This analogy fits perfectly with how we should market project management. We’re not just project management practitioners; we are partners that help deliver on the organization’s business objectives. If you accept this premise, then project management professionals (the profession, not the certification) must understand their organization’s business model, their project’s business objectives, and how their project contributes to organizational goals.
  6. A complete project portfolio represents an organization’s investment strategy.
  7. When projects are not linked back to strategic goals in either the project selection or portfolio management process, companies can commit resources in a way that is inconsistent with their stated goals.
  8. If the project portfolio only captures a subset of the actual project list (investment strategy), then it is possible for departments to duplicate effort.
  9. Jerry offered examples from his personal experience where different development teams were creating the same code to provide the same enhancements to current systems, only to find out during integrated testing that the two teams had consumed a significant amount of time and effort meeting the same business need.
  10. Jerry suggests that the PMO’s credibility, and ultimately success, is based on three basic principles:
  11. Competency: In short, this is the overall perception of the PMO’s ability based on the combined skill, knowledge and experience of the organization’s individual project management practitioners.
  12. Chuck’s comment: While I am a strong advocate of leveraging diverse backgrounds and experiences to make the whole greater than the sum of the individual parts, I would suggest that perceptions are more of a function of the “average” set of skills, knowledge and experiences of the individual team members. What does this mean for a PMO?
  13. Strengthening individual team members can strengthen the team.
  14. Allowing weaknesses (read as skill gaps) to continue can weaken perceptions about the team’s effectiveness.
  15. Capability: The components of capability are the specific organizational processes (read as project management methodology), practices (or how well the process is applied) and tools used to achieve desired project outcomes.
  16. Maturity: Jerry explained that this principle is not analogous with the PMI’s OPM3 (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model). Instead, the true measure of PM maturity is how well capabilities are deployed across the organization in a repeatable fashion with consideration for continuously improving the methodology’s effectiveness in that specific environment.
  17. Creating executive awareness of the PMO’s value requires that we communicate our contribution in the following terms:
  18. Revenue generation: Since executives have responsibility for revenue generation, demonstrating how project management contributes to revenue creation is vital. This means that project managers must understand the project’s business case.
  19. Operational efficiency: Executives also have responsibility for operational efficiency. When possible, we should link project success to realized efficiencies (read as reduced costs or increased productivity).
  20. Chuck’s comment: Have you created a culture that not only proactively identifies benefits, but also measures delivered benefits post-implementation? This is essential for demonstrating the project management value proposition. Do you define business benefit early in the planning processes and then manage to the benefits throughout the project? I refer you back to Jerry’s initial comment: “Project Management is Business Management. More specifically, we manage projects to achieve business results.”
  21. Customer satisfaction: Executives are responsible for customer satisfaction, so this is an opportunity for benefit measurement.
  22. If your project is not meeting one of these three goals (revenue generation, operational efficiency, or customer satisfaction), why are you committing resources to that initiative? Do you have processes in place to either demonstrate the link or allow challenges (such as a portfolio review and maintenance process)?
  23. Do you know why your organization established a PMO? If your answer to this question is “no,” you have homework to do! The answer is likely your department’s business objectives. Your job is to understand those goals and demonstrate how your effort is contributing to those goals and ultimately to the organization’s strategy. Don’t assume everyone understands these concepts.
  24. Jerry’s recommended “Steps for PMO Implementation”
  25. Step One: Understand the organization’s needs. Specifically, work with leadership to understand their expectations for the PMO. Do you know why your organization is establishing a PMO? That should be the initial input to the business case.
  26. This requires you to conduct a stakeholder analysis. The same concepts from a project stakeholder analysis apply here. Who will be impacted? Who are the decision makers? Who are the proponents? Who are the antagonists? What are their expectations, information needs, etc.?
  27. Step Two: Learn the organization’s culture and structure. In short, learn about how work is accomplished in your organizational environment before defining processes to control and/or standardize project management processes.
  28. Step Three: Learn the organization’s current practices. Formal or not, most organizations have some sort of project management methodology. Identify the current processes as a starting point.
  29. Chuck’s comment: I really enjoyed Jerry’s advice and pragmatic approach here. Understanding the “as is” before attempting to define the “to be” is at the core of any process improvement initiative. Hey…isn’t implementing a PMO an exercise in process improvement? Something to think about…
  30. Step Four: Charter the PMO. Isn’t this beautiful!? We’ll use our own processes for PMO implementation.
  31. Step Five: Design the PMO with a clear understanding of the business objectives, the stakeholder’s expectations, the organization’s culture structure, and current practices.
  32. Step Six: Develop a PMO implementation Plan and execute the plan.

Speaker: Jim Hannon, Principle of The Bentley Group Professor at Cambridge College

Event: The Strategic PMO Summit

Topic: Define the Role of the PMO in Project Portfolio Management

  1. Jim’s goal (Chuck’s observation…not stated) was to define the purpose for a structured approach to portfolio management and identify the needs that a project portfolio management process can meet.
  2. What should a structured project portfolio management process do for an organization?
  3. Help organizations identify new project opportunities
  4. Acquire information about these opportunities (business case development)
  5. Rank and prioritize project requests against a specific set of criteria
  6. Ensure all new projects are aligned with the organization’s mission, goals and objectives
  7. The evaluation and prioritization process should be as objective as possible. This will take a great deal of planning, documentation and debate to identify the criteria, properly weight the criteria and test those measurements against the organization’s business strategy. However, without a proactive approach to defining selection criteria, the project request and approval process is destined to remain an exercise in positional authority and politics.
  8. Demonstrate that project approval decisions (investment strategy) are consistent with the organization’s strategic goals
  9. Periodic reviews of the project portfolio to ensure…
  10. Continued alignment with strategic goals (remember, strategies can change)
  11. Relative priorities are consistent with the business strategy
  12. Desired goals (business objectives) are being met
  13. Removal of low value projects as compared to alternative projects
  14. The most effective allocation of resources (or ensuring resources are assigned to the highest value, highest priority, and/or most strategically aligned initiatives)
  15. Remember, every project is burning resources. Resources (human and capital) are an investment in the organization. Why wouldn’t an organization want to define and implement processes to ensure they’re making the wisest investment decisions?
  16. Easy to understand, logical argument…right? If that’s the case, why do so many organizations encounter resistance to a structured PPM process? Answer: We haven’t demonstrated the business value of the time and effort required to manage the project portfolio.
  17. How do you know there’s an opportunity for PPM in your organization? How many of the following questions have a positive response? These may offer opportunities for you to market a structured PPM process.
  18. Are resources being misspent and does leadership see the problem?
  19. Is there a lack of evidence that projects are adding strategic value to the organization?
  20. Are there too many small, seemingly insignificant projects?
  21. Is the organization experiencing excessive project delays due to a lack of resources?
  22. Is the project staff (PMs and team members) involved in too many projects?
  23. Is there intense competition between functional areas or departments for limited project staffing or financial resources?
  24. Are there frequent status and/or priority changes without justification or understanding?
  25. If your organization does not already have project portfolio management process, start with these steps…
  26. Step one: Build a project registry. Literally, conduct an inventory of the approved projects either in queue or in progress. Remember, the complete inventory represents the organization’s investment strategy.
  27. Step two: Conduct a gap analysis. Does the project inventory represent documented business objectives? If not, where are the gaps? What projects can be targeted for early termination due to a lack of alignment? What types of projects should be identified to meet stated goals?
  28. Chuck’s comment: As you can probably tell, there can be a great deal of politics in this type of analysis. You are getting into “leadership rice bowls” and redirecting financial and human resources. Of course, the end goal is to redirect those resources to optimize the investment strategy, but only the most naïve PMO thinks this will happen without substantive resistance. Predict behavior and plan accordingly.
  29. Step three: Answer these questions about each project. If not every project, at least identify a standard to ensure projects of the right investment value are evaluated.
  30. Are the estimated benefits and costs realistic given the information available?
  31. Is the project worth doing based on the estimated benefit and estimated costs?
  32. Are the project goals realistic (achievable)?
  33. Is there sufficient capability and capacity to complete the project?
  34. Is the estimated value in balance with the identified risk (probability of failure or not meeting stated objectives)?
  35. Jim provided a link to a portfolio management simulation: http://www.portfoliomanagementgame.com/
  36. The simulation provides an interesting approach to learning more about the benefits, challenges, collaboration requirements, etc…associated with project portfolio management. Give it a try!

Speaker: Marc Stettner, MBA, PMP, Project Management Specialist at Continental Automotive Systems (www.myprojectsource.com)

Event: The Strategic PMO Summit

Topic: Implementing Project Management Across the Organization (A Training Approach)

  1. Marc started with a real-world acquisition story about Nokia Siemens’ announcement to purchase Motorola’s telecom network equipment business in July 2010. The subsequent acquisition activity resulted in the combination of two different organizations with different cultures, methodologies, etc. One of the challenges they encountered was with simple terminology. During planning discussions, the Siemens resources would reference their program manager related roles and responsibilities, and the Motorola team would claim that they did not have program managers. Instead, the Motorola team claimed that they only used project managers. After further discussion, the teams realized that the referenced roles and responsibilities were exactly the same; the organizations simply used different titles for the roles. Marc used this example to explain the necessity for a common language across the organization.
  2. Chuck’s comment: Marc finished this example with the claim that “Project management is context sensitive.” When there is a conflict between how an organization applies the standard (such as their methodology, terminology, etc.) and the PMBOK, the PMBOK does NOT automatically win. The “Ouch” heard around the PM World! J It is our job to tailor the standard to provide maximum benefit to our organization.
  3. Do not assume that executives, resource managers, or even team members understand what project management is about or what project management can provide the organization. It is up to the PMO (or project management leadership) to meet those information needs. How? Here are Marc’s recommendations:
  4. Educate the organization on project management and the required skills to be an effective project manager
  5. Create, and support, a career progression model for project managers
  6. Identify candidates for project management roles from within the organization that have the necessary skills. This also helps build business acumen within the PMO.
  7. Provide coaching and advice to not only project managers, but also functional managers on the organization’s PM competency model
  8. Identify a curriculum for PM development and assist the Corporate Learning Officer (or equivalent) with implementation
  9. PM training and development (the remainder of Marc’s presentation was dedicated to this topic)
  10. Treat developing a training plan like a project
  11. Identify organizational stakeholders
  12. Identify and set expectations
  13. Identify the scope of the training plan (what skills will the training target and what is outside of the scope of the PM training plan?)
  14. Create a curriculum to meet the identified requirements
  15. Implement the plan, monitor progress and improve as necessary

Chuck’s comment: How frequently have we heard this advice from practitioners? “Treat < insert your own business objective here > like a project.” Why do we have to be reminded to use our own processes for initiatives that are so near and dear to our hearts? Something to think about…