• The discourse was shifting from determining PMO maturity to the value the mature PMO brings.
• More transparency was needed. Three out of four non-PMO staff said their organisation either did not measure or they did not know whether it measures PMO effectiveness. In fact, more than half did not measure PMO effectiveness at all.
• The PMO was a hub of project management training for some, but its positive influence on career progression was questionable. The PMO was strongest in conveying method­ologies and other PM ‘hard’ skills and weakest in teaching ‘soft’ skills such as leadership and critical thinking.
• The measurement of training impact was sorely neglected in North America and EMEA, but more common in the APAC region.
• Many PMOs were not operating at a strategic level: only 20% reported they engaged in Portfolio Management, and 15% reported that they tracked return on investment and benefits realisation.

What will be the global state of the PMO in 2012?

ESI International invites you to participate in this second benchmarking survey seeking to assess the role of the Project Management Office (PMO), its value and trends in both your organisation and throughout the business world.

This brief survey should take less than 15 minutes to complete and all responses will be kept anonymous. The results will be compiled in a Global Benchmark Report which will offer a unique overview of different PMOs and their trends across the world.

The survey closes on the 3rd of February 2012.

Fill in the survey and enter to win a Samsung galaxy tablet.

We will announce the results of the survey at the next Centre of Excellence event on the 14 March 2012.

Thank you in advance for your time!

I raised the following question in a LinkedIn group: 

 A common (unsolved?) problem  

How would you recommend addressing the following issue that is common in internal projects in enterprises that are not project-based? 

 The objective is: “to use internal technical personnel as resources on internal improvement projects, without jeopardizing day-to-day operations”.  

 The situation is as follows: projects need predictable availability of human resources; operations needs to be able to address unforeseeable situations immediately they occur; there is not enough project work to justify dedicating technical project resources.  

 The conflict is as follows: projects need to be able to rely on advance resource planning with the required resources available for a given period at a predefined time; operations needs to have priority without notice for the same resources. 

How would you analyse this in more detail so as to propose realistic solutions to allow projects to deliver reliably? 

I received a number of responses. They are provided below and confirm that the problem does not currently seem to have a satisfactory solution. These contributions do, however, explain the challenge in more detail. 

2. One approach 

One person responded with: 

 This is a great question and one that resists easy solutions. Let me restate the problem statement in order to position an approach: is it possible to manage projects successfully when human resources availability is unpredictable? 

 Experience says yes, but with difficulty and two major rules of engagement: 

 1 – the end date cannot be predicted with high accuracy, so the project sponsor needs to understand it will move and likely more than desired. This will also drive less predictability in budget achievement as well since a drawn-out project is more expensive than one that finishes quickly. 

  2 – there will be a higher project management load and therefore expense, as continuous replanning will be required in tandem with more effort on resource management and negotiation. It’s also likely the QA team will need more effort since discontinuity of resources drives more handoffs and more opportunities for unforeseen misunderstandings. 

 So overall it’s a more expensive way to run a project, but as long as the sponsor is willing to make the appropriate trade-off, it can be made to work. It’s no one’s favourite kind of project to manage, though. 

2.1 Remaining issue 

The analysis of the impact of unreliable availability of project resources is quite correct. It suggests one solution: to set realistic expectations. 

 However, if that solution is unacceptable to the organisation – i.e. the business requires timely, predictable delivery, how do you suggest that this organisational problem could be addressed? 

3. Proposed approach  

I suggested another approach: change to way the organisation works – adapt the interrupt-driven operational mindset to work less disruptively with the planned project view. 

So I asked the question:
Can anyone suggest how to move this revolution forwards? 

3.1 The challenge 

This is the answer I received: 

From my experience this is not really going to work. My advice: find a way to separate the project and operational work. Ring fence the project (or be prepared for a nightmare). 

In fact you probably can estimate a delivery but with all that contingency……
 
Normally your operational staffing level is optimal for the operational tasks. i.e. little spare-time already.In fact the guiding criterion for success is “occupancy” – keeping people busy – rather than “throughput”-getting more projects to complete, faster.
 
By nature the operational “Keep the Business Running” activities will always be erratic. It is not so much a mindset but more a service level issue. In any case using support staff on projects will always jeopardise the project planning and possibly also the quality. Interrupted tasks will also take longer in actual hours with start-up activities and re-activation and so on. Also there is an increase in project management and probably other management time. Project delay or contingency pushing out delivery dates will obviously delay any benefit etc. In short there is an important impact on cost (and credibility).
 
This can only work if the projects in question have little urgency or value to the business and nobody cares if it is delivered or not. The other side of the coin is to accept lower service levels i.e. operational tasks are left undone longer – a risk to the business. 

The solutions could be:

 Since none of these approaches provides a satisfactory solution, the challenge remains open. A different view will be provided next but … 

4. Can it be solved? 

I will propose a solution next month to this problem, but would like you to think about it and get in touch through the blog with other readers and with me on how you see the issue – and how you would address it!

Collaboration Gains Importance as Project Complexity Grows

As the project environment grows in complexity, project management will require team, stakeholder and executive collaboration in 2012 like never before. On-the-job application of training, custom-made project approaches, innovative project tools and smarter resource management will be essential for driving the greatest business impact. Not only project management, but also the definition of “project success” has changed to encompass more than the triple constraint. Collaboration is a common theme throughout many of the 2012 Top 10 Trends for project management, which were determined by a global panel of ESI International senior executives and subject matter experts.

1.      Programme management will gain momentum, but resources remain in short supply

Increasingly, large initiatives undertaken by corporations and government agencies are being recognised for what they are and aren’t: namely programmes, not projects, which require a highly advanced set of skills supported by appropriate tools and methods to successfully execute. Yet many organisations struggle to find the right people and lack the management practices necessary to ensure success. In 2012 we will see more investments made in competency models, training, methodology development, tool use, and career pathing to ensure that professionals who carry the title Programme Manager are fit for the role.

2.     Collaboration software solutions will become  an essential business tool for project teams

The proliferation of collaborative software in the project environment such as SharePoint® is going to intensify in 2012. Fueled by increasingly complex and virtual projects as well as tightened budgets, today’s environment demands a more efficient way to manage communication and workflow. Collaboration is central to project management and having a site which allows project artifacts to be created, shared, and distributed within a repository that provides Web-based access and critical functions such as automatic distribution and notification, version control, and user authentication, greatly enhances productivity.

3.     Learning transfer will become the new mantra, but with little structured application

Learning transfer – the ability to apply training back on the job – will continue to be on the minds of PMO heads and learning and development (L&D) professionals who want their project managers to return from training ready to apply what they learned immediately and accurately to their projects. While L&D and business heads agree that sustained learning is a sound idea, very few organisations will invest in a formal process to make it happen. In 2012 we will see many organisations discussing the importance of learning transfer without really putting in place a structured approach to ensure it happens.

4.     Agile blends with waterfall for a new “hybrid” approach

Having moved from “manifesto to mainstream,” Agile has confronted project teams with the difficulty of implementing the experimental and hyper-collaborative approach. To transition an organisation into fully adopting certain aspects of Agile, project teams are combining traditional and Agile elements to create their own hybrid approach. In areas such as planning, requirements, and team communication, organisations are designing custom-made methodologies to do what works for them.

5.     Smarter project investments will require a stronger marriage between project management and business process management (BPM)     

In the financial services industry, and specifically in the insurance sector, there will be a continued laser-like focus on performing business processes as efficiently as possible to drive down operating costs. The philosophy of BPM is fast becoming a key factor in project selection. When new projects are proposed, their value will be judged to a large extent on the impact they will have on the organisation’s business processes. The more impact the project has on reducing internal costs, the higher it will be ranked. The “smart” money will be spent on driving costs out of the business. Given the high premium being placed on efficient processes delivered through projects, BPM is a key concept with which project managers will need to be intimately familiar.

6.     Internal certifications in corporations and federal agencies will eclipse the PMP®

With roughly 470,000 Project Management Professional (PMP®) credentials having  been awarded worldwide thus far, the PMP® remains the most popular and ubiquitous credential on the planet. However, it is not the prominent credential everywhere. In the U.S. government as well as Fortune 500 corporations, a hierarchy of “internal” credentials has overshadowed the PMP® in terms of prominence. To be sure, the PMP® remains important, but it is now just one rung on the career ladder to get to the top.

7.     More PMO heads will measure effectiveness on business results

While introducing tools, using methodologies, mapping project management practices, sending project managers to training, and increasing the number of PMP®s in the organisation are important metrics for a PMO head to collect and report on, they do not speak to the effectiveness of the PMO from a business perspective. To judge business effectiveness, PMO heads need to determine if their work has had a positive, quantifiable effect on the business in terms of troubled project reduction, lower project manager attrition, and faster time to market. In 2012 the practice of measuring the outputs, not the inputs, of project management will gain traction.

8.     Good project managers will buck unemployment trends

Even though unemployment is at record levels in many countries, good project managers are hard to find. Recruiting continues even in tough economies and organisations need individuals who can perform the basics flawlessly. The hunger for project management basics, in particular risk management, will continue to surge in 2012, especially in such countries as India and China where project manager attrition rates are disturbingly high and continuous training of new staff is critical.

9.     Client-centric project management will outpace the “triple constraint”

For years, time, cost and scope were the metrics upon which the success of all projects and their managers were judged. While the triple constraints remain important, they are no longer the be-all-and-end-all for project success. While risk and quality have also been cited as additional “constraints,” the clear trend in 2012 is the value the project delivers to the organisation. The new definition of project success is that a project can exceed its time and cost estimates so long as the client determines that it is successful by whatever criteria they use. In today’s environment, project value is determined by the “recipient”—or client—not the “provider.”

10.     HR professionals will seek assessments to identify high-potential project managers

Because project management is such an important function, human resources professionals will be tasked more intensely with identifying high-potential project managers in 2012. The challenge HR professionals will face is that there is no ‘silver bullet’ assessment for identifying great project managers. Existing knowledge and skills assessments are of little use since they are not designed for entry-level project manager positions. Nonetheless, candidates must be measured not only on their technical abilities, but also on the all-important business and interpersonal skills. To the best of our knowledge, no one has yet developed such an assessment, but HR professionals will continue, and intensify, their assessment search this year.

“From the ascendancy of social media to the structured implementation of collaboration tools by the PMO and the steady rise of communities of practice, we are fast approaching a tipping point,” said J. LeRoy Ward, PMP, PgMP, Executive Vice President, Product Strategy & Management, ESI International “Those project organisations that don’t exploit such collaborative channels and technology will risk missing the most promising combination of force multipliers of the decade.”

What do you think about these predictions and do you have any of your own? Please leave your comments below.

Interested in writing an article for the blog? If so please email: esicoe@esi-intl.co.uk

 The present

 Today project management can be found in every industry sector around the world. From manufacturing to IT, and telecommunications to the fashion industry. It is a well-developed discipline with a universal language and well-defined terms.

Since its beginnings, modern project management’s approaches and tools have increased in number. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI®), more than twenty million people are considered to hold the job title or role globally.

Despite all the modern communication systems we have such as Web conferencing, Skype and instant messaging, communication has actually gotten a lot harder because of fragmentation. Teams are spread across the globe. However, we need to remember that projects are people. Without face-to-face communication, a lot gets lost, and in my experience, people hunger for the connection.

The pressure to complete projects as fast as humanly possible is unprecedented. Yet, to implement project management practices properly, there are no shortcuts. To do project management well, certain best practices cannot be avoided. One thing that hasn’t changed in thirty years is the human struggle to apply what you have learned and take the time to implement it. While always a challenge, it’s a greater challenge today than ever before.

Project management stemmed from hard skills-focused industries such as construction and defence. Soft skills were not viewed as being the key competencies required of project managers. It wasn’t until it started to infiltrate other industries that had a mix of projects and operational work such as pharmaceutical companies, that project managers were more hard-pressed to explain the value and importance of project management to the executive team.

Years ago it was considered rare to hold the PMP; it was more of a conversation piece than something with value. Today, in many organizations, you can’t even carry the title “Project Manager” unless you have one.

 The future?

Many used to view project management as just another fad that would eventually, and hopefully, disappear. However, the discipline has withstood the test of time and has become an integral part of everyday business. Many organisations have designated project management as a core competency while investing billions of dollars in its approach.

With the number of training opportunities available today, project management is here to stay because let’s face it: projects, and the need to care for them, aren’t going away anytime soon.

ESI has turned 30 years old and I’d like to reflect on what has changed in Project Management over this period. Thirty years ago project management was still a very process-driven approach that was confined to two basic industries: construction and defence. 

The past

Fresh out of graduate school with a master’s degree in geography under my belt, I stumbled into project management quite accidentally, or should I say, it stumbled into me. At that time there was no such a thing as a project manager, projects were assigned to people as an “extracurricular activity,” which they completed before returning to their “real” jobs.

I started work at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Eastern Mapping Centre, one of the geographically oriented business units in the Topographic Division. We made topographic maps, which are in widespread use today for hikers, backpackers, engineers, or anyone who just needs to know the land around them.

We had 2,500 ongoing mapping projects with limited tools to actually track their progress. The Centre needed a project management system to do a better job. I was designated to lead the effort to automate the project management system. My first job was to create a PERT (Programme Evaluation and Review Technique) chart illustrating how each map was produced from start to finish. Despite all the tools available, nothing could replace the value of face-to-face communication. It took eight months to complete just one project with a total of twenty map products. I won’t bore you with the rest of the project, but it took three years to actually get it all complete.

In Part 2, I will look at the project management industry today. So stay tuned!

The next blog post will be on 3rd January 2012.

In this particular case, the company provides offshore software development services by offering its development resources to clients whereby project management is taken care of by the client’s designated project manager.  There are multiple ‘dedicated development teams’ working with the different clients. At month end, an invoice is sent to clients whether or not the client assigned work to their designated teams. Sounds simple, so why the need for a PMO? To answer this question we look at the following:

A. Clients have started reporting following issues more often i.e.

• Quality of Service (deliverables) has started to decline. 
• Gaps between what was asked and what is delivered.

 B. Executive management has started to show concerns because:

• Each new client engagement does not always result in a predictable and consistent outcome, because each team uses its own process or none at all.
• No summarised status visibility in the ongoing projects. 
• Missing resource inter-team shuffling opportunities. 
• Meeting demand with supply in terms of new prospects (through business development’s forecast) and resource availability internally or externally.

Above are clear opportunities for the PMO to address and solutions of these are deduced from my correspondence with industry experts like Mark Perry, Senior Vice President BOT International, and Gerard Hill, Principal Hill Consulting Inc. This also entails thorough discussions with the company’s management team. The crux of the solution keeping in view the ‘Basic’ or ‘level-1’ nature of the PMO is: 

A. PMO to prepare standardised light-weight project and client engagement processes for the delivery teams. These processes would help new and existing project managers to acquaint themselves with their expectations and how to conduct a typical client engagement resulting in predictable outcomes in typical engagements. Secondly, this must focus on the product’s quality by integrating quality in the process to ensure deliverables are fully completed/tested before handing over to the client. 

B. The process should be flexible enough and not bureaucratic which would hinder its adoption. This is perhaps the greatest challenge of all. No one likes heavy project methodologies so the solution is to build an end-to-end processes, which covers ‘who, what, how and when’. The idea is that every project manager will prepare a single page process flow at the start of his new project with the inclusion of PMO to satisfy process and documentation needs of their project. This would serve as a process baseline in future for continuous improvements. Note, it is not focused towards any industry certifications like ISO, CMMI etc. So keep it very simple but at the same time “No process is not an option”. 

C. PMO to conduct regular 1-1 progress meetings with each Project Manager of current teams. This solves two problems a) providing mentoring opportunity to struggling project managers and b) executive management gains quick visibility into the work progress. Word of caution here; executive management support to PMO is critical in this scenario otherwise it would likely to get under fire by the project managers community. Project managers are to be taken in confidence by the management of confidentiality and support rather than giving a feeler of setting up a unit to catch their mistakes.

D. PMO to periodically gather project performance data from the teams Project Management Information Systems (e.g. MS Project, Primavera, TFS etc)  and share the current trends with teams development in-charge with recommendations to bring the project back on course if there is a significant variance from planned vs. actual spent time. Moreover, following KPIs (at the very least) can be regularly checked from the PMO dashboard for each project and even compared across projects of similar domain and dynamics e.g.

• Burn Down Progress / day
• Burn Rate / day
• Burn Down Progress / Iteration 
• Burn Rate / Iteration
• Planned Vs. Actual hours variance       
• Defect Removal Efficiency %
• Bug Trends by resource, module and criticality.

E. PMO to maintain central resource profiling and allocation mechanism for capacity planning and inter-team shuffling opportunities. This can be augmented with the help of internal Human Resource Information System (HRIS) jointly used by HR and PMO. Now, if resources are not available internally, PMO can coordinate with HR department to look for the resources outside the company. 

Above points are viable and tested functions for a Level-1 PMO/PSO in a Tier-3 or less company having various small software development teams using different processes like Scrum or traditional SDLC, given that all them are using a common project management information system. 

NB: Mr. Mohsin, a guest contributor to the blog, has nearly a decade of industry experience focusing project management and consulting primarily in software development, product implementations, and BPI projects. He started his career as a programmer dating back to 2001 when he developed web & client server based applications for energy and facilities management vertical for companies like ABB Inc. and CyberMetrics Corp.

This event entitled “How to create a ‘high performing’ environment through sustainable learning” provided a forum for COE members to meet, network and share their real life experiences and challenges.

The first presentation covered the topic ‘Behaviour Changes That Stick’ that gave a point of view from ESI’s sister company Forum.

Sustainment of learning is something that is often overlooked. Failing to sustain and reinforce desired behaviour changes is like neglecting to provide appropriate nourishment and support to a food crop. The presentation covered assessment of the learning environment, identification of ownership levels, and choosing sustainment activities that fit the learning environment and the ownership level. As well as ownership levels within an organisation, sustainment activities and developing a targeted sustainment plan.

The second presentation was by Ian Templeton, Head of Project & Programme Management Centre of Excellence at Orange Business Services. The presentation covered a case study of how they’ve raised performance standards across their Global PM practice.

How can ESI help with knowledge and skills adoption in your organisation?

ESI’s Impact Model for knowledge and skills adoption is based on reinforcing and applying the skills learned. We understand that your learning programme has to achieve real-world results. We focus on how an individual’s knowledge and skills can transfer their ‘classroom’ knowledge to their workplace and improve their performance and behavious.

Links to: http://www.esi-intl.co.uk/impact-model/adopt/index.asp

If you have any topics that you would like covered in a future COE event please email:

esicoe@esi-intl.co.uk

This event entitled “How to create a ‘high performing’ environment through sustainable learning” provided a forum for COE members to meet, network and share their real life experiences and challenges.

How do you sustain learning and behavior change? What works? What falls flat?

There are three emerging trends:

Key Point #1.  Don’t just focus on the “after.” Focus on the “before.”

40/20/40 – Follow Brinkerhoff’s rule: Focus 40 percent of energy and planning on aligning, communicating with, and engaging people who are about to have a learning experience. Focus 20 percent on the learning experience itself. Focus the remaining 40 percent on reinforcement and application of the learning.

• § Plant seeds of commitment and expectation. Let learners know up front that you will be calling them to follow up. Link training to specific business priorities of senior managers, and then tie their direct reports’ financial and developmental goals to the senior managers’ scorecards. Lastly, tap into salespeople’s ego drive. Provide a template with which salespeople can capture and quantify the application of their learning.  Then, watch them outdo one another in the subsequent best practice session.

Key Point #2:  This is not the Field of Dreams.

• § If you build it, they probably won’t come.
• § Instead of building a learning community, identify learning communities and study what they do. What technology do they use? What do they share? Who are the champions? Build upon and scale what you learn.

Key Point #3: Generational differences are so last generation.

• § Worry less about differences between generations, and more about differences in digital fluency.
• § When looking to implement social media learning, identify early adopters as champions. (These might, in fact, be Baby Boomers.)
• § Don’t take a “one size fits all” approach to social media, however. Organizations vary widely in adoption rates – primarily depending on risk tolerance and perceptions of its value-add.
• § The New Social Learning, by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner, is a helpful guide.

Step 4—Secure Buy-In From Key Players and Stakeholders

With an understanding of risk continuum position, strategic fit and with the right players in place, you’ll be well positioned to articulate your strategy and secure stakeholder buy-in. Regardless of your company’s position on the continuum, the following approach is recommended:

1. Always utilise relevant fact-based risk events. This will be particularly important in reaching the risk-heroes and reactionary managers mentioned earlier, as it’s difficult to argue against facts.

2. Reference historically similar risks, approaches and cost savings. Stress the importance of early action and determine the opposing “cost of waiting” for the risk event to materialise. These costs could be financial, resource related, etc. Consider previous strategies employed (accept, mitigate, avoid, transfer, etc.).

3. Explain how your risk approach is designed to work and exactly what it is designed to do (be agile, relevant, easy, fact based).

 Step 5—Consider Supply and Demand Issues

How many times have supply-chain issues derailed your “well-thought-out” project? The point here is to consider each of the “pain points” in your supply chain when crafting your risk management plan. Supply-chain disruptions and issues can significantly derail your projects, not to mention impact revenue and market share and damage the credibility of your company.

Step 6—Establish Clear Risk Ownership

It’s simply not enough to conduct a one-time session to identify risks, determine their probability, impact and response strategy. Someone needs to continually monitor each risk to determine changes to its probability and overall impact. This is particularly relevant in cases where a follow-on project requires completion of specific deliverables to enable the successor project to initiate.
Ownership and accountability need to be distributed across the project team and not be solely the responsibility of the project manager. Creating an atmosphere of risk ownership and accountability is a necessary step in organisational risk awareness and evolution. Individual risk events identified must have individual owners. Risk-evolved companies do not rely on siloed heroics, but on more integrated, strategic and proactive measures. Communicate to the team where the project fits, where it’s headed and ask them about opportunities that may be capitalised on as well.

Step 7—Utilise Risk Lessons Learned and Historical Documentation

Project risk lessons learned are invaluable sources of information and should be utilised whenever possible. Make use of all applicable risk-registers, plans and historical data as well. Change records for similar projects can be wonderful sources of information too.

Conclusion

Following each of the aforementioned steps will demonstrate to your team and stakeholders that you’ve done your homework and refuse to resort to reactionary heroics. These strategic due-diligence steps will enable an informed, educated and timely approach to risk and position you as a company Risk Superhero.
 
Sean P. Lowe, PMP, CRISC is an information technology project manager and freelance writer with 15 years’ experience in managing systems integration, process development and enhancement and Information Security Compliance Assessment Projects. Contact: Lowesean@Mac.com.