The PMO – Context is King Part 1
During a PMO seminar I had been running, great progress was being made on coming up with flash points relating to the value that the PMO can bring to their organisations.
One of the delegates Luca had given some real insights into how their organisation attributed value to the useful work of the PMO, and revealed that the organisation’s main focus was on ‘efficiencies’. Luca also explained that he thought it was critical to understand the relationship that existed between the PMO and the organisation, and how they influenced each other.
I paraphrased Luca “So what you are saying is that context is king?” Wanting to harness the energy and interest of the group, I set them this task. I asked the group to develop a Mind Map of the ‘PMO Context’ and identify the major branches. This can be seen here in Figure 1.
Figure 1: High Level PMO Context
The group was keen to expand the organisation branch as they thought it would be the most difficult area to address. They also felt that doing this would drive out the detail in the other branches of the PMO Mind map, see Figure 2.
Figure 2: PMO Organisation Branch
Once they had developed the detail, I got the group to summarise the actions/ questions and considerations that would have to be explored with the senior members of their organisation
- What to consider when exploring and developing PMO organisational context (part 1)
- Sector
- Public – focus on “Value for Money” and how the PMO can contribute
- Private – focus on Profit and how the PMO can contribute
- Not for Profit (Charity) – focus on Vision / Ethos and how the PMO can contribute
- Size
- Is the PMO based upon number of people involved in projects?
- Is the PMO based on value of projects/programme?
- Is the PMO supporting Enterprise/Geography/Business Unit/Function?
- Resources
- What is number of resources under the control of the PMO – Project Managers, Business Analysts, etc?
- Matrix Management – is the organisational functional aligned (weak matrix) or projectised (strong matrix) and are the majority of resources are located in PMO?
- Project Management Maturity
- Has the organisation achieved level 3 “Defined”? (Using P3M3/OPM3)
- Culture
- Is the organisation supportive of implementing / running a PMO?
- Is the PMO seen as an enabler to the business?
- Customers
- External / Internal – is the PMO to service both?
- Multiple / Single – is the PMO servicing more than 1 customer?
- Number of Projects
- How many projects are being run simultaneously?
- Does the number of projects being undertaken warrant a PMO or can the PM’s deliver on their own?
- Where are the projects being delivered, should the PMO be located there?
Hi Graham – Some points that resonated with me:
1. Is the PMO based on value of projects/programme? – If it isn’t, are the players aware of the inherent dangers/threats to the company, its clients, and its staff?
2. Matrix Management – is the organisational functional aligned (weak matrix) or projectised (strong matrix) and are the majority of resources are located in PMO? – A good reminder of how a weak matrixed PMO organization will be very difficult to deal with.
3.Is the organisation supportive of implementing / running a PMO? – Because if it isn’t, you’re not going to get the PMO off the ground.
4. How many projects are being run simultaneously? – And is the company prepared to handle (financially, resource and expertise-wise) multiple projects?
Thank you Laura for the comments.
1. Value – the PMO can be based on value of the organisation change agenda as well as the trading position and P3RM maturity. In working with clients to scope the mandate for a PMO one of the first things that I explore is the question of “who needs who the most”. If the organisation recognises that they need a PMO more than the staff employed needs the organisation then the value of the PMO has been established.
2. Matrix Management – I have seen both situations exist, working with functional aligned (weak matrix) organizations where a decentralised PMO was established, but with PMO standards and tools etc. being provided from a corporate function. This situation took some while to prove itself as there was initial local resistance. In working with projectized (strong matrix) I have seen situations where the desire to extend and improve the PMO capability was beyond their mandate and funding which caused some degree of disappoint with its users. In this case the PMO was been constrained by its head who was not willing to seek an extension of its mandate with the stakeholders.
3. Organisation support – this goes back to the point above on Value and sometimes it will take a while to get the PMO off the ground – focus on “quick wins”
4. # projects – one of the challenges in large enterprises is finding the changes, be it BAU or managed change agenda. Your comment on “is the company prepared to handle multiple projects” is connected to where the focus of governance is held. If it’s decentralised the organisation need to vest decision making to local business units, geographies as segments of the organisations total investment. This can be a real challenge for the board, even though running the business in this way is well established. This is where portfolio management comes in to its own – but I would put people before process here. Proceed with caution as the organization will still have to agree a prioritisation process and will be constrained by limited resources and bottlenecks.
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