Let’s now assume that you wish to monetise your PMO for all of the right reasons and that you are in the best possible position to do this.

How?
The best advice I can give here is the old advice of ‘KIS(S)’ – Keep it Simple (you know what the extra ‘S’ is for I am sure).

What is your PMO good at? What have you developed, delivered, proven, packaged and can now offer without any additional investment or risk?

And what can be offered in a discrete way? The risk to any PMO of heading in the direction of money is that the ‘customer is king’ and this means that in any situation of conflict the money-generating customer of the PMO will win out over the budget supporting sponsor of the PMO. So you need to avoid situations where the PMO can get dragged in to long engagements with ‘customers’ that distract from the core PMO activities.

What?

What about Health Checks or Retrospectives/Lessons Learned services? These are discrete, potentially high value but (I hope in your PMO) well proven packages of services that can be offered to external customers. Consider what else fits the bill:

• Already proven practice
• Discrete in length of engagement
• Low risk
• High value
• Offering some skill or experience that the ‘customer’ lacks

Just take a look at your ‘menu’ of PMO service offerings and consider each one for potential revenue generation (if you don’t have a ‘menu’ then ask yourself are you really ready for this move?). Once you have done this only focus on one or two, don’t stretch
yourself, but start easy. The organisation has to accept that the journey of the PMO from budget overhead to profit contribution is not an overnight one.

Where?
And finally where are these customers coming from?

If we are talking external customers to your organisation then anything that the PMO offers is going to have to align to and integrate with the existing sales and marketing and support channels.

If we are talking about costed services back in to the organisation internally then that has to be carefully planned and communicated. Other departments need to understand this plan and they need to build this in to future budgets. The worst situation a PMO can
find itself in is to lose ‘work’ because they now charge for PM training, or project reviews etc. As soon as the PMO becomes disconnected to the project business it loses any value it might have.

A PMO costs! And the first task of a new PMO is to prove the value of that investment through delivering (and tracking) improved project success. A second task it can take on is to offer revenue flow back in to the business, and that is quite possible but takes
planning.

A PMO costs! It is obvious; there is the money to staff and to run the PMO together with any incurred operational expenses and systems investments and, when the PMO interfaces with other parts of the organisation – as it should, there is associated cost to that time and effort. Of course the belief from those that sponsor a PMO is that the money and time invested will be more than saved by delivering more successful projects. And that is the primary purpose of any PMO, to deliver healthier and more successful projects appropriate to the business strategy of the organisation. Job done!

PMOs are not traditionally a profit centre and as such they don’t generate revenue themselves, although it can be strongly argued that they do facilitate making money through the delivery of those more successful projects.

But there may come a time when there is pressure for the PMO to contribute more than that through:

• Partial cost recovery of the PMO
• Cost neutralization of the PMO
• Profit contribution from PMO

Why?
If this moment arrives then you need to be very clear as to ‘why’ you are doing this (or being asked to do this)? If the answer is ‘The PMO has been so successful we want to explore extending its remit to that of potential revenue generation’ then that is a good reason. It offers the opportunity to calmly and objectively consider new ways that the PMO can work in order to achieve these new targets. It could be a very positive extension of the remit of the PMO and new stimulating challenges for the PMO team.

But if the reason is more along the lines of ‘The PMO is too expensive and we need to save costs somehow so we either cut the budget or the PMO makes us some money’ then I would suggest that you are on shaky ground immediately. The PMO will be placed under survival pressures and is unlikely to conduct itself well as it strives to make money, save money, and just keep going. This is an extremely negative and threatening situation for the PMO team.

When?
The right time to ask the question of the PMO, ‘can you now make money?’ and it
comes with the caveat ‘without impacting negatively on your current core work’ is when
the PMO is:

• Accepted by the organisation
• Is stable in its structure
• Is mature in the services it offers
• Is connected to the business strategy

Tick those off and it is OK to consider the next move. Your PMO can plan its extension of activities in to the money generating world safe in the knowledge that it is on a strong solid platform and it is embedded in to the organisation. If you can’t tick all of these off then the chances are you will end up ‘fighting on two fronts’, that is trying to build the PMO internally whilst stretching to win profitable business, and the chances are in this situation is that you will fail at both.

ESI International is launching its 3rd annual Global Survey of the State of the PMO. The purpose of the survey is to assess the state, value and trends in the PMO and we would love to hear your thoughts! We will send you a copy of the report and you can also get the chance to win an iPad3 – Complete ESI PMO Survey now

In 2012, our global PMO benchmarking survey conducted with over 3,000 respondents took a comparative view, determining what is trending, and what is not, in the PMO landscape. ESI International set out to explore topics such as the perceived value of the PMO, its role in sustainment of learning and how learning transfer impacts overall PMO maturity. The key survey findings were:

• Active learning sustainment and business view: PMOs that actively engage in learning transfer are more business-minded, considered more mature, have a stronger customer focus and are more valued than those that don’t.
• Standard effectiveness measurements: PMOs still rely heavily on standard definitions of success such as on time, to-budget project delivery to measure their worth.
• The case of the missing ROI: ROI is being used less this year to measure training impact.
• More maturity: Slightly more PMOs are operating at the strategic level this year.
• Collaboration software: Three out of five PMOs are actively engaged in selecting collaboration software. Most regions have a high adoption rate, with the exception of parts of Asia.
• Senior management’s watchful eye: Executive scrutiny continues to plague many PMOs.
• Lagging training impact measurement: Even fewer PMOs are measuring the actual impact of their training compared to 2011.

I was reading with interest an article published by Cranfield School of Management¹ on the subject of PMOs.

Our research shows that around 70% of large organisations have some form of PMO. But our research also shows that, whilst some can be shown to contribute to increased project and programme success rates, others are less effective. Overall, it appears organisations have a PMO for one or more of the following reasons:

1. To reduce the risk of projects failing to deliver to time, cost and quality targets
2. To increase the success of projects and programmes in delivering the business value expected
3. To make more efficient use of project resources by using a “shared service”
4. To make more effective use of scarce skills and resources across projects and programmes

Points 2 ‘increase success’ and 3 ‘efficient use’ are pretty positive reasons for having a PMO I would say but points 1 ‘reduce the risk’ and 4 ‘effective use of scarce resources’ are less than positive approaches and could well lead to perceived PMO ‘failures. The demand by an organisation to make the most of insufficient resources is pretty much a recipe for failure at some point.

The report notes intriguingly:

Our study of nearly 150 organisations, of which 70% had PMOs, showed that, overall, those organisations with PMOs did not have higher project success rates, but somewhat counter-intuitively, they had lower levels of management satisfaction with the level of project performance and value delivered.

Now this may well be due to the fact that the PMO is in its early stages and is dealing with the ‘negative’ aspects of the work that it is expected to do, it takes time to move on to the ‘positive’ aspects that really matter. I always say that if your PMO is a) the project police and b) the company project firefighter then you will fail – sooner rather than later!

And the Cranfield report touches on another one of my key themes – uniqueness:

¹ Author is not noted – full article source can be found here

Introduction

The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) has been built around the same set of Knowledge Areas for most of its existence, but this reticence to change has been overcome and the current edition has added a Stakeholder Management area. Given this breakthrough and the current advances in project management concepts and techniques, it is time to review whether the set of Knowledge Areas is still well-suited to modern practice in general and the needs of PMOs in particular.

The Needs of a PMO

1.1 The triple constraint

Although it is recognized that the PMBOK® Guide is a framework on which to build services and methodologies, it does need to be well-aligned to the requirements of the organizational entities that will apply it. In particular, all types of PMO have the need to ensure the validity of project plans and the effectiveness of their execution.

One area in which there appears to be a mismatch is for the Scope Management, Time Management and Cost Management Knowledge Areas, since a number of concepts and techniques need to address the three areas simultaneously. In addition, the latest version of the PMBOK® Guide does not explicitly mention the “triple constraint” of time, cost and scope. I propose that this concept should be reincarnated into a knowledge area in its own right.

The trigger is to realize that the PMBOK® Guide entirely overlooks the fact that the starting-point for most valid project estimates is the estimate of effort. This has probably been overlooked or omitted because the authors could not decide in which knowledge area to put it! The creation of a Performance Management Knowledge Area will provide the basis for correcting this omission. So what is “performance management”?

1.2 Performance management

The definition of “performance management” in this context is developed as follows:

• Project Performance: a measure of the efficiency of the creation and provision of the project and product deliverables from a point of view integrating time, cost and scope.
• Project Performance Management: the planning and delivery, along with the monitoring and related control of project performance across the full project life cycle.

These concepts of performance and performance management as defined above provide a clear basis for the areas in which a PMO can provide considerable value to any organization. Even when it was more obviously described in the PMBOK® Guide, the triple constraint had the disadvantage of separating rather than fully integrating its three components, time, cost and scope, and omitted to link them directly to the project objectives. The role of a PMO is to ensure that they are combined in such a way as to deliver the optimal performance in the interests of the organization in a predictable and traceable manner from the beginning to the end of the project.

The way in which these ideas should be applied in planning as well as for monitoring, is explained below.

Planning

The Scope Management Knowledge Area delivers a key artefact for project management: the Work Breakdown Structure. This has to be developed based on the requirements, objectives and solution approach for the project. Once this is available, it is applied by most of the other Knowledge Areas – in particular Resource Management, Time Management and Cost Management. However, the fundamental step of estimating the effort involved in each of the WBS components is required by all three of: Resource Management, Time Management and Cost Management. Once the effort is known, the resources for the activities need to be assigned (by category of resource, or by named resources). This then provides the basis for: evaluating the corresponding durations, followed by the related cost. This information will then be used in the development of the schedule which, after optimization (progressive elaboration is the order of the day!), will lead to fixing the performance management baseline showing the evolution of scope and cost over time, which will be used for tracking performance (time, cost and scope).

This set of performance management planning steps are shown in Figure 1, and then explained in more detail below.

Figure 1: Performance Planning Steps

1.3 Estimating Effort

The units to be used for measuring effort depend on the type of component – e.g. man-days, CPU cycles, etc. In addition, for some components, the estimate of effort is irrelevant to duration calculations – e.g. hardware purchases.

Where effort can be estimated, this should be carried out prior to determining the resource, time and cost implications, since quantifying these amounts – and even selecting the characteristics of the resource – normally depends directly on the total effort required. Unless the calculations are carried out in this way, there is a risk that the link between resource loading, time and cost for each component will be lost, leading to faulty plans and making change management untrustworthy. More details on estimating are given in another entry that is dedicated to the subject.

1.4 Allocating Resources

Once the effort has been estimated, the resources to be allocated to the work should be decided; this requires deciding on:

• The category of resource
• The number of each category
• The performance characteristics (e.g. capability relative to the effort estimating assumptions)
• The availability of the resources
• The unit cost of each category

The planning processes within this knowledge area therefore need to provide the following:
1. The effort estimates for each work package
2. The resource details (number, performance characteristics, etc.) to be applied for each work package

There will of course be iterations between these processes and the resource, time and cost planning processes in order to develop or adjust the plans to satisfy time, cost and resource objectives and constraints.

The following paragraphs explain how the output of the effort planning process is used for planning in the Time Management and Cost Management Knowledge Areas.

1.5 Determining Durations

Once the output of the estimations of effort and resource are available, the corresponding duration for each category of resource for each work package can be determined as follows:

Where (note: the units are given in square brackets after each parameter):
Di: duration for resource from category i [measured for example in days]
Ei: effort for the resource [resource-days]
Ni: number of those resources [resources]
Pi: average productivity of the resource (as a percentage) relative to estimating assumptions
Ai: average availability (as a percentage) relative to estimating assumptions

The estimated duration for a work package is therefore the maximum of the duration values (relative to the different resources) for that work package. Under-used resources will either need to be shared with other activities or paid for even if not fully occupied. The cost estimates will depend on these decisions.

1.6 Determining costs

The cost per work package is simply the sum, for each resource category, of

Which, using the duration equation above, can also be written as

Where:
Ci: total cost of all resources in category i [cost units]
Ui: unit cost per unit time of resources in category i [cost units/unit time/resource]

1.7 Uncertainty evaluation

Knowledge about the uncertainty in the performance planning is required as a basis for risk assessment. The proposed approach shows how uncertainty in the areas of effort, productivity, resource availability and unit cost interact to generate the uncertainty at the level of performance – and it is this uncertainty that the PMO is responsible for reporting to management, and managing by use of the relevant risk management techniques.

1.8 Baselining

Once the iterations between resource loadings, time and cost planning are complete (and, of course, all of the risk assessment and corresponding planned actions integrated), the plan can be baselined. Tools are then required in order to track the project performance accordingly.

Monitoring

1.9 Tracking Performance

The PMBOK® Guide mentions the Earned Value tool in both the Time Management and the Cost Management chapters. This is confusing to the reader and technically unsound, since one major strength of Earned Value is that it provides an integrated view of progress with respect to time, cost and scope – i.e. with respect to the baselined performance target. There should therefore be a Monitoring process in the Project Performance Management Knowledge Area that implements at least the Earned Value technique for tracking and forecasting progress. This is what the PMO needs to apply in order to support objective progress reports and project forecasts – and as a basis for any additional control actions required to bring the performance back on track with respect to the baseline.

This process will take inputs from time and cost monitoring processes – and possibly others – and provide performance information (status, forecasts, etc.) back at least to processes in the Time, Cost, Scope, Risk, Human Resources and Communication Knowledge Areas.

Conclusion

There is a clear need by PMOs for a Performance Management Knowledge Area within the PMBOK® Guide, in order to ensure coordinated planning, monitoring and change management of scope, resources, time and cost. There may be a case for extending this idea to Program and to Portfolio Management if integrated time and cost tracking tools are available in these domains.

Part Two

So here you are, leading a successful PMO and all is well with the world. Last year was a good one and there has been general acceptance of the work that the PMO is undertaking and perhaps even the occasional ‘well done’ from the executive.

Now what next? Did you plan a phase two? Was there a next step that the business expected? Is there a next step that the business is now requesting?

If the answer to any of these is ‘yes’ then now is the time to move onwards and upwards (according to your plans); perhaps extending to an enterprise level PMO for example.

If not then now might be the time to consider such an expansion (and by expansion I don’t mean ‘empire building’).

As a starting point why not just re-validate the current support for the PMO and also re-validate the business need. You can do this by reviewing the history of the PMO activity and considering successes and improvements. As ever, the better the foundation that you have for building the PMO then the better it will be for you and your PMO.

Taking the PMO pulse might well be a great idea as would a short exercise to consider all of your stakeholders, are they all ‘on board’ or is there one person or group that you really should focus some efforts on winning over?

Perhaps it is not so much a matter of moving to the next phase but more of wanting to improve what you already have in place; modest improvements can be just as valid as major new developments.

On the other hand maybe things aren’t going quite as well as you had hoped?

Typically you will need to return to the business case. Here are some questions that you might ask of yourself and of the PMO:

• Has anything significantly changed in the business that requires an adjustment by the PMO?
• What is the view, within the business, of the value of the PMO?
• Are there any key opponents to the PMO operation?
• Are the methods you have established well adopted and adhered to, and have recommended improvements been acted upon?
• Has the level of project maturity risen?
• Are project managers reporting the same issues as before?
• Has there been a change in the PMO sponsorship role(s); personnel or approach?
• Has project ‘health’ improved or stagnated?
• Is the PMO approach the right one?
• Is the PMO model the right one?

You may need to survey the PMO stakeholders to understand in more detail what it is that needs extra effort and focus. Alternatively, it may be that you just need to get together with your PMO team and revisit the PMO purpose.

At the start of a brand new year we are supposed to look back at the closing year and to look forward to what lies ahead of us in the coming 12 months, and the same is true of the PMOs that we are all part of. So this can mean one of two things; either you will be pitching a PMO for your own organisation for the first time or you will be reviewing all of the (hopefully good) work that your PMO has done in the last year and considering the plans for the next 12 months.

This article addresses both of these viewpoints starting with the ‘new’ PMO proposal.

Part One

You need to start, of course, with a business case. Any business case should focus on and define the key problems that the solution should address. In this case it is the investment in a PMO. For any change to take place and be supported there has to be either a ‘pain’ that needs resolving or a benefit that wants to be achieved – or perhaps a combination of both. For the PMO the ‘pain’ will be a list of project issues, low quality of deliverables, late delivery, budget overruns and so on. The benefit might include avoiding lost opportunities or for accelerating strategic deployment.

You get the picture I’m sure.

Indeed there may be no need for such an argument at all if the business itself understands the value of a PMO and opts to invest in one to support project activity.

It sounds simple and it can be, but organizations vary in their approach to such matters and you will know your own organization the best. What is essential is that you have the sponsorship at executive level in order that this business case is well received.

Therefore you might consider developing your PMO business case in the following way:

Assessment: During this assessment stage record all of the problems that the organization is experiencing. Make sure that you reach out to all of the stakeholders – executive, project owners, sponsors, project managers, partners, customers and business unit leaders. You can do this through interviews and surveys; anyway that you feel is appropriate and generates the information you need from the people that matter. A useful tip is to use quotes from those that you have interviewed, this brings a touch of reality to the business case and added buy-in from those you spoke out.

Also try and quantify the impact of the issues that you are reporting. It helps gain support when people are presented with simple to understand ‘consequences’ (whether in monetary terms or other) for the issues that you uncover in the assessment.

Don’t be unjustifiably negative here; if something is already working well then say so – it is quite possible that an initiative for, say, project management training that is already underway can be taken under the wing of a new PMO and developed become more effective.

Benefits: Using the assessment list, develop a benefits statement which will define the value that you believe will be delivered to your organization by the successful implementation of the PMO that you are proposing. Tip: Make sure that you include some sort of growth plan as a PMO cannot be expected to address all of the problems and provide all solutions from day one. Start with the most significant needs first and then identify where the PMOs attention will move to in phase two and three and so on. Double check these with the key stakeholders to validate your priorities.

You should also consider the type and model of PMO that you are proposing to lead and articulate the options that are possible and preferable. Stakeholders should understand the opportunities that a PMO can offer as well as the various means of a PMO working within and for a business.

Take a moment at this point, to consider the likely evolution plan for the PMO – perhaps you intend to start at departmental level and scale up for the enterprise in the future, once the PMO has gained experience and a track record of success (and the business is ready to invest at that level).

Remember you need to win over hearts and minds through your business case and you need to build the ‘need’ to a level that is critical. One way to achieve this is to:

• Link the business case to the ‘problems’ that the PMO can address
• Add in the ‘benefits’ of investing in the PMO
• And don’t forget to remind the audience of the ‘implications’ of not moving ahead with a PMO

All of this must, in the minds of the decision-makers, be greater than the combined ‘cost’ and ‘risk’ of accepting this change proposition together with the perceived ‘pain’ of such change being carried out plus any ‘hidden’ concerns that your stakeholders may have.

Build that case and you have good chance of winning your argument and you will be given the green light for your PMO.

Once again, ESI International has released its top 10 trends in project management for 2013. The 2013 trends reveal that expert leadership is lacking in all areas of project management, portfolio management and programme management. Project, programme, and portfolio leadership is in short supply as organisations struggle to implement Agile methods, complete large projects, manage vendors, and create more value through their project management offices (PMOs). Leadership is one of the key themes throughout many of the 2013 top 10 trends for project management, which were identified by a global panel of ESI International senior executives and subject matter experts.

1. Organisations will continue to call for strong project leaders but will focus on investments in hard skills

The training focus will remain on hard skills, even though many organisations will continue to assert that their project managers lack leadership skills such as communications, negotiations, organisational change management, and customer relationship management. The reason is simple: most companies would prefer to send their project managers to targeted training in the specifics of “project” and “programme” leadership rather than generic leadership training that is so commonplace. Organisations will need to seek out alternatives to develop leadership skills because waiting for the ideal programme will only result in perpetuating the existing unsatisfactory situation

2. Agile implementation will be viewed in some organisations as a failure, but for the wrong reasons

When compared to traditional methods, studies show that Agile methods can reduce costs, speed time to market, and improve quality; however, in 2013, many organisations will continue to fall short in realising the promise of Agile. Why? Because the professionals assigned to Agile projects aren’t trained in Agile methods and their organisations are not culturally ready to embrace its principles.

It’s not sufficient to train just a handful of Scrum Masters. The Scrum team, including developers, testers, and Product Owners, needs to know how to apply Agile practices. In particular, the organisation’s executives need to understand how they can help break down the cultural barriers to adoption, which is crucial. Providing training to only those who lead these efforts will undermine overall Agile adoption, resulting in poor or failed implementations.

3. Project management is not just for project managers anymore

For decades “project manager” was a role, not a title. People claimed to have come to the position by accident. That’s all changed in the past 20 years. Organisations developed project manager career paths and hundreds of thousands became certified. While the professionalism of project management will continue, organisations will require individuals outside of those who carry the PM title to perform the role of project manager.

Business units such as HR, sales, marketing, and legal services need their employees trained in project management as well. It might not be a classic view of those roles, but each corporate discipline manages projects, even if they do not view their work through that lens. The point is there are not enough project managers to go around and these groups have projects that need to get done.

4. Large projects pose unique challenges that are increasingly tough to overcome

Size does matter, and when it comes to large projects—the ones that run into the hundreds of millions of dollars—the impact and interplay of downsizing, complexity, and outsourcing are the “one, two, three strikes you’re out” challenges that organisations face. Projects in engineering procurement and construction management (EPCM), oil and gas exploration, major weapons systems development, and large transportation initiatives often involve major outsourcing of work.

Many of these projects include thousands of people as well as impressive levels of technical complexity that few companies are successful in managing. Organisations that engage in such outsourcing struggle because they have lost the in-house expertise to monitor the level of quality being delivered. Contractors are calling the shots because they both design and develop/construct their own work. As a result, in 2013 we will see more organisations build up their in-house expertise to ensure their contractors are doing the job right.

5. PMOs will focus on proving their worth and driving innovation

Gone are the days when just implementing a methodology and creating a project dashboard convinced corporate executives that the PMO was pulling its weight. More organisations are conducting PMO “audits” to identify areas where the PMO can accelerate its evolution and provide higher levels of value to the organisation. PMO directors who understand that their roles involve not just delivering projects, but also contributing to the overall performance of the business, will, if they haven’t already done so, identify key business metrics and begin a process of measurement to baseline themselves against those metrics. Each PMO head will need to be able to answer the question, “What have you done for me lately?”

6. The U.S. government will upgrade its PM certification in the face of rising criticism

Having a certified project manager is mandatory for agencies in the civilian side of government in order to receive funding for major IT projects. However, existing policy that sets the minimum training hours to earn a PM (known as FAC P/PM) certification has been interpreted by a few agencies as guidance only. A reduced number of training hours has been accepted by the Federal Acquisition Institute (which oversees the certification) as meeting the goals of the policy. And, there has been a veritable “land rush” to implement shorter training programmes just to earn these mandatory certifications.

Many note a deteriorating quality in the training provided, causing criticism from some sectors claiming that a U.S. government employee who has earned such certification may not be the best person to run the project. After all, there is a big difference between certified and qualified. In 2013 we will see the federal government, through the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), take action to bolster the quality of the PM certification.

7. Improving vendor management practices will top the list of skills for project managers

Ask people in any organisation that outsources its projects or large components of them, and they’ll tell you they have “vendor management” problems characterised by contract scope creep, poor quality, missed deadlines, and blown contract budgets. And, with outsourcing on the rise, these problems will only multiply if their root causes are not addressed. First, many of the issues found with vendor management have to do with how requirements for outsourced projects were written in the first place. Unclear, incomplete, and inaccurate requirements create uncertainty and confusion.

Mandating that a contractor provide deliverables against a set of confusing requirements is asking for trouble. Second, organisations often select the wrong contract type based on these requirements. And third, they assign people with the wrong skill sets to work with contractors. Smart organisations will seek to understand the nature of their outsourcing needs and assign highly qualified professionals to write requirements and manage relationships. We will see more organisations addressing this critical need in 2013.

8. Continued poor project performance in many organisations will result in more PMOs being terminated

ESI research shows that the average life span of the PMO is about four years.
That number is likely to drop if project performance continues to underwhelm executives and stakeholders. PMOs are created to improve project performance; yet, few organisations give the PMO enough resources and authority to do the job. Poor project performance has its root causes in many areas — poor training, lack of adoption of practices, unrealistic expectations, too many projects, and the like. Blaming the PMO for poor project management is an easy way out, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Nonetheless, the PMO is in the crosshairs and project sponsors, irritated by poor performance, indicate that if project performance doesn’t improve, PMO directors may be looking elsewhere for gainful employment.

9. Portfolio management will take on a greater role as funding continues to tighten and the number of projects grows

Portfolio management is more than a prioritisation exercise. It is the culminating activity in competitive strategy where executives have identified the programmes and projects that will turn their intentions into reality. We are witnessing more companies investing in IT and process improvement to get a better handle on all of the project-based investments occurring across their business. And they are tweaking–and in some cases overhauling– their portfolio management approach to make sure it is the best it can be.

Many organisations will continue to develop a portfolio hierarchy at the division, business unit, regional, and corporate-wide levels. This will require substantive expertise in portfolio management principles and practices, and a healthy dose of diplomatic and political skills to get everyone headed in the same direction. Will PMI develop a certification in Portfolio Management? We shall see.

10. Organisations will adopt Agile to accelerate time to market but what they ultimately achieve may be a different story

Agile methods, when practiced by trained professionals on the “right” projects in the “right” organisations, have the potential to boost performance in a variety of ways. However, the top benefit derived from adopting Agile (i.e., ability to manage changing priorities) is not the same top reason organisations adopt Agile in the first place; they do so to accelerate time to market. Should this cause an organisation to rethink its use of Agile?

Not at all. A recent study by VersionOne showed that accelerating time to market came in fifth in a rank order of benefits. So, even though accelerating time to market is not number one in outcomes, there’s still plenty of evidence Agile can do what its proponents claim it does. With more and more organisations adopting Agile, their expectations will simply need to be in line with reality.

It is generally accepted that the PMO is on the ‘up’, that is to say it is becoming increasingly common for PMOs to exist inside organizations – the State of the PMO 2012 (PM Solutions) identifies an increase from 48% in 2000 to 87% of companies in 2012 having PMOs in place; and notes ‘Growth in the number of PMOs reflects their rising importance to companies’.

So it would seem that a bright shiny new PMO could be on the Christmas list for a lot of executives in 2013, but you know a PMO is for life and not just for Christmas and whilst the Turkey may not make it past the 25th December it is critical that you don’t make your PMO a Dodo PMO.

Walters’ definition of project Dodo ‘A project that will only fly for a very short distance at a time and only upon application of a speeding massive boot to the arse . We all know it will become extinct very soon’

You may think of your PMO as a project, in fact you should think like this – it keeps you focused and energised and ready for the next adaptation and evolution, but you surely don’t want it to be a project of the Dodo variety?

Apart from the special-purpose PMO there is not a specific expectation that any other form of PMO is a temporary business unit. That said there is absolutely no expectation that the PMO is a permanent business support unit either.

What is true is that the time of the PMO is now and that there is an accepted need for PMOs to aid and drive the increasing project based business that organizations are experiencing (more that experiencing really, they are encouraging such project activities in many cases) and in many cases to aid the realization of strategic business objectives.

But it is important for any good leader to regularly validate that what they are leading and what they are doing is still relevant.

We all speak of going the way of the Dodo and as such we, as PMO believers and champions, do not want our PMOs to become obsolete (at least not until their time has passed).

• So keep vigilant
• Constantly validate the business view of the PMO
• Market and promote the PMO value
• Challenge project activity outside of the PMOs remit
• Get as close to the business strategy as is appropriate for your PMO
• Demonstrate constant project based improvements (people, process, customer satisfaction etc)

So what happens if the PMO ‘goes the way of the Dodo’?

Well in many ways there will be a reversal of the creational process of the PMO, but perhaps with less control.

Projects and Project Managers

Project managers will be out of a practice and will be, most likely, moved back in to departments and smaller business units. This could result in an in-balance of resources in these business units. There may also be less stringency applied to methods and process and quality. Objectivity will be reduced as will escalation levels and recovery resource capability.
The induction process for new project managers may be lost as could any support or mentoring capability which could lead to less prepared project managers engaging with key projects. Linked to this will be a fragmentation of the ‘knowledge repository’ of a larger project community as well as less focus and effort on maintaining methodology.

Business and Customers

Certainly project management will become far less aligned with any strategic business priorities. There will been an almost complete disconnect between sanctioned projects and such strategy as department will pit themselves against department not for the greater good but for the local success and reward.