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What Does Your PMO Do?

Written by Mike Lecky on . Posted in Articles. 14 Comments on What Does Your PMO Do?

It’s a good idea for anyone wishing to improve their organization’s project capabilities to take stock of the PMO functions they already have. Several models for PMOs exist to help you better understand the needs of your organization and how building certain capabilities and competencies in your project office can help. There are as many PMO models as there are PMOs, so developing a specific understanding of what functions your PMO must have to best support the business is important to be successful.

One model I used to like compares various project management offices with familiar functions. For example, the project office can be viewed as a weather reporting office, reporting status information and giving insight into the health of projects. Or as a lighthouse, providing assistance to projects in the form of guidance, processes and best practices as they pass through their life cycle.

While the pictures conjured up by these comparisons are illustrative, I find they don’t hit the nail on the head when it comes to broaching the PMO as a key organizational and structural element intended to support the business. Increasingly companies, especially larger ones, are attempting to develop PMOs which integrate project and business processes.

We see this with the trend in recent years toward ‘Enterprise’ or ‘Corporate’ project management offices. These aim to address integration issues associated with the functional silos of the large organizations, or to align projects to business strategy, or to provide visibility on project spending and achieved value through various reports and dashboards. Many provide support publishing policies, procedures and guidelines. Others manage the project life cycle and integrate this to the system development life cycle, or to other key business processes linked to change and change management. Yet others fashion themselves as the center of excellence and central point of contact for the business. Still others focus only on staffing PMs or on financial reporting or vendor management.

Some try to do it all! But realistically can a single PMO do it all?

Well not unless it’s very mature. Not unless the business it supports needs it to.

Recently I’ve come across another model. It’s presented in a book titled The Complete Project Management Office Handbook, by Gerard Hill. The model in the book presents a comprehensive look at the project management office competency continuum. It presents the PMO and related functions and concepts with a pro-business slant. The book details over 20 functions and functional areas, which collectively comprise the competencies an organization may choose to support in their PMO.

What I like about Gerard Hill’s competency continuum is that it reminds us, first, that alignment of project activities to the business objectives is essential to ensuring that projects deliver value. Second, that to be successful a PMO must do a good job at whatever set of functions it performs to support the organization. And finally, these functions must help assure projects deliver that value which is required for the business to meet its objectives.

 

Mike Lecky is a consultant at The Manta Group, a management consulting company specializing in IT governance, Project and Portfolio Management, Service Management, Risk and Compliance. Mike has degrees from the University of Waterloo (BScEng), The University of Western Ontario (MBA) and the University of Liverpool (MScIT). He worked for 12 years in aerospace electronics and as a Project Engineer managed several general aviation and US Military contracts. He teaches project management online with the School of Applied Technology at Humber College. Now, with over 25 years experience, he is a PMP and an information security professional (CISSP) and has a broad range of program and technology implementation experiences in the high tech and service sectors. Mike can be reached at [email protected]

 

Take Charge: Manage Your PM Career

Written by Cynthia Low on . Posted in Articles. 8 Comments on Take Charge: Manage Your PM Career

Today, being a project manager with a Project Management Professional (PMP) designation just isn’t enough. So how do you, as a project manager committed to a career in this field, take control of your own self-development and create future opportunities?

Trends in the marketplace suggest companies are seeking to hire highly competent project managers rather than develop existing employees. Competency is expected from day one. Individuals are sought who embody the ability to transfer skills and knowledge to new situations and environments. This is made up of three key factors: fitness (to new situations and environments), capability (applied and demonstrated), and ability (skills and know-how e.g. PMP).

Research shows that we gain or develop our competency through: experience (70%), feedback (20% – on ‘how’ to do the job, not results), and structured training and seminars (10%). The attributes that many employers expect a competent project manager to possess when they enter the job are:

Manage and lead
Able to influence
Positive and confident
Demonstrates initiative
Proactive
Results oriented
Creative		 Conceptual and analytical
Flexible
Risk taker
Innovative
Focused
Energetic
Competitive

It is unreasonable to expect a first time manager, or a first time project manager to excel in work balance, decision-making, team building and business acumen right out of school. It appears the mature and competent project manager is also a seasoned individual who needs to plan their project management career. That’s why the competent PM will depend on much more than simply the knowledge and skills of PMBOK. There is a need for maturity only gained through ongoing experience and skill development outside of project management.

In developing your career plan you will need to consider:

  • Accepting more managerial and leadership responsibilities, letting technical responsibilities diminish to zero
  • Partnering with corporate management to know and understand executive concerns, demonstrate value, speak their business language
  • How to maximize trust tools – who can you trust, who can trust you, ethical (will you protect my interests), emotional (does this relationship feel right)
  • Becoming internal sales people selling the strategic value of project management and building relationships
  • Global context – global projects will require global project managers who can manage business to business alliances, understand that loyalty is a critical issue, and will protect assets

While looking internally at ourselves it is important in developing our career path and plans, you need to understand and know the environment in which we play

So what do CEOs want? Who and what are critically important in achieving results for their organizations in a global economy. According to sources, including Harvard Business Review’s Burning Question forum (www.burningquestions.com), CEOs are:

  • Looking for leaders
  • Focused on execution of strategy (and that’s project management after all)
  • Wondering how to innovate – how to build organizations where discipline and freedom aren’t mutually exclusive
  • Dealing with the cultural issues of building and changing to meet the demands of the market while still delivering results

All of these aspects are critical to the success of the maturing project manager who is developing from junior project manager to portfolio manager to leader.

The changing workforce will also play a role in career management. Here are just some of the factors that will impact your career planning:

  • It is not just looming; there is already a shortage of skilled resources, and immigration will not solve it all as demand continues to grow exponentially
  • Lean structures of the past will continue to be challenged in the future
  • There is an increasing need for managers and leaders
  • Succession planning for most organizations is only just underway
  • The profile of today’s worker will be different tomorrow – affected by differences in the younger generation and their attitudes to work/life balance
  • Training isn’t performance and availability isn’t a skill

And what about the world of project management itself? PMI has announced it is developing a career path framework. There is an ongoing search for new sources of project managers – driven by the looming shortage of resources and a better understanding of the importance of project management. The definition of a project manager is changing to include such factors as change management, governance, leadership and ethics.

So what path do you wish to follow? One of a traditional direction: project manager, program manager, director, PMO head or lead. Or an executive route: strategic planning, portfolio management , leadership and executive management. Remembering the 70/20/10 rule, you must not only pursue formal training and education, but seek those experiences that will give you the opportunities to pick your direction or test it out as you go. When a fork in the road presents itself you can decide if it is right for you now or later.

In the short term consider:

  1. What competencies you need to manage your own career path if your organization is not doing it for you
  2. If the organization is not going to get serious you must take control to get the training that will propel you forward
  3. Rotate through assignments that will give you increasing experience, expertise, and help you develop your own ‘brand’
  4. Foster internal communities that encourage sharing, generation of new ideas, and mentoring

Longer term concepts and strategies may not bear fruit today but will help you decide where you go in two to three years from now. These may include:

  1. Get an education that is beyond ‘training’. This could include MBA, Certified Management Consultant designation, something outside of ‘traditional’ project management education
  2. Focus on leadership and getting promoted. Corporations need to seek out superior project managers and promote them. Are you one of them?
  3. Times have changed – company loyalty is not the same. Lifestyle and quality of life choices are increasingly important.
  4. Trial runs: test out your direction and be willing to take risk at different levels.

Look at your career as a bridge – today you are on this side of the bridge and in the future you’ll want to get to the other side. You should be constantly asking yourself what you need to do today to get across to the bridge. Remember it is more than just education and designations – competency and where we fit are built on 70% experience, 20% feedback on how we are doing, and 10% on training and education.

And finally it is all about leadership and relationships: who we know, who knows us, and the trust factor.

Take Charge: Manage your PM career by Catherine Daw
©SPM Group Ltd.

Catherine Daw, MBA, PMP, is President and co-founder of SPM Group Ltd. She provides the vision and leadership needed to evolve the firm and the current corporate direction to enabling the effective enterprise through strategic initiative management. Her focus is on results that matter to SPM’s clients and help clients achieve superior business benefits.

Why Go for Certification?

Written by Mike Morton on . Posted in Articles. 11 Comments on Why Go for Certification?

I got a very typical call today from someone who wanted my opinion on certification – was it worth it or not? My first reaction was THANKS! I had to write my blog today and I was struggling for a topic. Now I had one.

My answer …it depends. Sorry.

First of all it really depends on the value your industry and some specific organizations place on certification. I can tell you right now that any technology-based project environment places a very high value on certification – specifically the PMP – the Project Management Institute’s designation. I also know there are some large institutions, specifically the systems divisions, that are now making PMP a requirement for all PM applicants.

I think the reason for this is that there are so many people applying for these jobs that this designation provides an initial filter on the applicants. So, on the job application front, the PMP give you a leg up. No doubt about it. But once you make the first round, you are on your own. To very clear…the PMP does tell the reader something to be sure – a level of understanding of a Body of Knowledge, a guaranteed quantity of experience. But honestly, that’s it. It certainly does not indicate the level of quality of a PM.

If you look at other industries, this may not be the case. The fewer the project management positions and applicants, the less important the designation is. Reasoning …these people have the time to go through resumes and the interview process to find the right qualifications. Now, if a PMP designation pops up in that process, it’s a good thing. But I would suggest not necessary. Construction, engineering, the more traditional project management industries are placing less and less value on the PMP designation. They are now looking at other designations and professional education.

Is the PMP designation transferable across different types of projects? No! You cannot be a project manager in an IT environment and work in the construction industry. You cannot move from marketing projects to software development projects as a project manager, regardless of your certification. You need the experience within each type of project, from the ground floor up, before you can manage those projects.

Having said all of this, I will often tell people that if it is easy – do it – you cannot loose. In other words, if you have the knowledge, educations and credentials to write the exam and pass – go for it. If all of this is a struggle for you be careful before you go to all the trouble. It may not be worth it.

My advice to anyone is to look at your industry and evaluate the importance of the PMP designation, and other certifications, before going forward.

Vroom and the Capability Principle

Written by Claude Emond on . Posted in Articles. 11 Comments on Vroom and the Capability Principle

From Sharing the Project Vision to Successfully Delivering Projects

I still meet many project managers who just state that sharing a project vision (if ever there is one) is a waste of time and that the project team should just concentrate on what they are asked (told ?) to do. This always reminds me of my first project management courses, more than 30 years ago (dinosaurs were still alive), when I was told that: “the more information people have about a project, the more veto power we are giving them…so it is important to keep information sharing to the strict minimum, using as a strict yardstick of information distribution “direct-task-oriented need-to-know information.”

I am appalled to see that this primitive belief still endures today, since it shows so little understanding of how human minds and hearts really work. I am also appalled that, each time I ask about Vroom’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation i (dating back from the early 1960s) and it’s significance to project management audiences (including many PMPs), I find out that it is still mostly unheard of or, when it is known, it rings no bell about the relationship between sharing a project vision and mobilizing project teams to ensure project success. This is very unfortunate since Vroom’s simple theory:

  • Holds the explanation to most “resistance to change” situations (the 9th waste of bad project management, identified by Bodek ii)
  • Shows, subsequently, the inescapable way to individual motivation and subsequent team mobilisation
  • Tells you, consequently, how you can deliver your projects faster
  • Gives you the ultimate behaviour-influence recipe for fast, mostly resistance-free, successful project delivery

What Vroom reveals to us is what I call the “Capability Principle,” which I describe as follows:
“A person will do something only if that person is convinced that he/she is capable of accomplishing what is asked from her/him.”

So when one is asked to do a task or to accept a new situation (a “change” in project management jargon), one must first answer a firm YES to the question “Can I do this/can I function in this new situation?” before even considering the usual existential pros and cons of the WIIFM iii type. Unless one understands fully where one’s project tasks and own ultimate fate fit in a project plan and in the subsequent vision this project serves, one cannot answer a firm YES to this question. The answer will be: “I do not know enough about this stuff, I am in no position of knowing if I am really CAPABLE of doing this or stand this….so I’ll wait and see and won’t accept personal responsibility or accountability for any of this”. So the project manager, who does not clarify nor share the whole picture of a project and its underlying vision, will end up either doing this other person’s work or telling this person exactly HOW to do everything; and, in so doing, this project manager won’t we able to share accountability with the project team.

You think that sharing a project vision is a waste of time? Well, the “Capability Principle” will prove you wrong. You will experience, first-hand, massive resistance to change and unshared accountability on your projects. And you will end up being the only one, all alone, caring for this project, the perfect scapegoat for a disaster in the making?

i http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_vroom_expectancy_theory.html
ii http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2007/10/09/841/
iii What’s in it for me ?

10 Ways to Inspire Your Team

Written by Cynthia Low on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on 10 Ways to Inspire Your Team

Inspire. Just the word itself causes us to pause and think. We may remember our own personal heroes like Martin Luther King or Mother Theresa or a teacher or mentor who brought out the best in us and showed us the power of one person.

It’s easy in business to get cynical when we’re surrounded by what I like to call “faux inspiration.” I’m talking about the corporate posters with motivational sayings that are easy to spoof when the actions of management don’t reflect the glossy images and quotations.

In my experience, inspiration comes from example. As Albert Einstein said: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” So, that means we all have the power to inspire others by our actions. As project managers, you’re in a prime position to inspire your team. Here are 10 ways to get you started.

  1. Have a clear goal with a reasonable approach to achieve it

    Shooting for stars may work for you when you’re developing your personal goals, but when you’re inspiring a team, people need to be able to clearly see how they are going to get from point A to point B – and believe that it’s possible.
  2. Be enthusiastic about each person’s contributions

    Remember how good it felt when a teacher recognized your contribution? You glowed all day and nearly flew home. It costs nothing to tell people how they’re doing. Recognizing what they’re doing well, and also giving ideas on how they can work even better, goes a long way.
  3. Wear your blue hat and leave the black hat at home

    You may have played the game where you wear different hats to assume different roles. The black hat starts with the negatives and tells you everything that’s going wrong. This is the person who can kill idea generation in any meeting. When you’re inspiring a team, wear the blue hat. See the possibility and opportunity in every challenge. Begin with what is working and then build on it.

  4. Focus on the strengths of each person

    One of the biggest myths in business is to focus on weaknesses instead of building strengths. It’s a backward way to approach problem solving – like fitting the proverbial square peg into the round hole. It’s faster and more effective to focus on the strengths of your team members and develop them. Not only will you see results faster, you’ll also have a happier team because people are doing what they’re good at and contributing at their highest level.
  5. Clear hurdles like a Super Hero

    How do you get your team to feel like rock stars? Think like Superman and clear any hurdles that are in their way. When you remove obstacles, you show your team that you’ve got their back.

  6. Get the slackers off the team

    Nothing brings down a team like slackers. When people aren’t pulling their weight, it lowers the standards of everyone and makes it seem like quality doesn’t matter. When you remove people who aren’t performing, it improves morale because it shows your team that you’re serious about the best results.
  7. Roll up your sleeves

    When you work with the team in the areas where you can contribute, you send a strong message because your actions show that you are part of the team.

  8. Acknowledge people’s contributions every week

    Many managers make the mistake of recognizing people once a year. Recognition isn’t a holiday. It should be a regular part of your team dynamic. Take the time every week to tell people how they’ve contributed to the team.
  9. Be the model of accountability you want to drive through your team

    If you’re telling people to be accountable while not meeting your own deadlines, it doesn’t take too long for the eyes to roll. Keep your team inspired by keeping your commitments to them and meeting every milestone.

  10. Show and communicate your progress

    Don’t make the mistake of doing project updates only at milestones. Communicate the progress of the project every week to make sure you’re on track.

And inside every one of these steps, add one key ingredient: Fun! Whether it’s a quick team-building exercise during a milestone meeting or an inside joke that has come to define your team, give people every reason to laugh out loud and let the sound of laughter inspire your team to be the best they can be.

Michelle LaBrosse is the founder of Cheetah Learning. An international expert on accelerated learning and project management, she has grown Cheetah Learning into the market leader for project management training and professional development. In 2006, The Project Management Institute, www.pmi.org, selected Michelle as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Project Management in the world, and only one of two women selected from the training and education industry. Michelle is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Owner & President Management program for entrepreneurs, and is the author of Cheetah Project Management and Cheetah Negotiations.