Jon Vordermark discusses the mistakes organizations can make when building Project Management Offices (PMOs). While a PMO can be a powerful tool for project execution and repeatable success, it can also undercut project leaders (intentionally or unintentionally) and overburden them with bureaucracy. For organizations that see project work as a key ingredient to organizational change and growth, Vordermark recommends a more Mavendog-oriented PMO philosophy.
PMOs are beneficial if built for the right reasons and in the right way. Their purpose is to make project managers more effective, and as a result, improve project delivery quality and customer service. That being said, I personally have a love-hate relationship with PMOs, not because PMOs are bad, but because many organizations do not build or use them properly.
Below is a list of common mistakes and Mavendog recommendations that can help you “flip the script” on your PMO.
Three Common Mistakes with PMO Setup
Mistake #1: A PMO is seen as something you can purchase out-of-the-box
In the rush to implement a PMO, organizations sometimes try to buy one as an off-the-shelf product with pre-packaged templates, or worse, a costly, managed-service staff. The approach rarely works. Over time, such PMOs develop optics problems and are seen as wasteful or foreign. They eventually face resistance from internal departments. Even large organizations spending millions on PMO implementations struggle with a poor track record. Too often I have seen them cut them because of high Cost of Ownership, poor customer adoption, and spotty Return on Investment.
PMO development should be evolutionary. It should be built organically over time by experienced project managers and business executives leading the way. It also should be continually measured and evaluated for maturity and efficacy. The final product is a PMO that works in concert with company’s operations, environment, and culture.
Mistake #2: A PMO evangelizes and enforces one delivery methodology
The most common, methodological dichotomy in project management is Waterfall versus Agile (SAFe, IT4IT, ITSM, TBM, etc.). For some organizations, this dichotomy is a silly, internecine debate that can hurt a project or destroy a PMO in the process. Organizations that favor one methodology over another force project managers to adhere to something is inappropriate for a particular project type.
A methodology is neither “good” or “bad”. It is situational. Ideally, a methodological choice is a tactical, project-by-project decision made together by experienced project managers and the PMO. After all, it is the project manager who has the best visibility and understanding of project delivery requirements, and it is the PMO that best understands the organization’s methodological capabilities.
Mistake #3: The PMO overly monitors, manages, and controls its project managers
The case for PMO governance is that it promotes delivery consistency and repeatable success. And that is true, but only to a point. Delivery consistency and repeatable success have more to do with a project manager’s experience, leadership style, and organizational familiarity. If a PMO bogs down a project manager with too much oversight and bureaucracy, then the project manager finds him or herself in an administrative policing role rather than a leadership one.
Governance must NOT compromise a project manager’s authority, accountability, and flexibility when leading projects.
We are not implying, however, that governance is a negative, or that it unilaterally hinders project managers. Rather, there should be a symbiotic relationship between them. Mature PMOs are effective at “right-sizing” or scaling governance based on project risk, complexity, budget and schedule constraints, regulations, market drivers, and so on. For example, organizations like Boeing require an incredible amount of project governance to mitigate the risks that come with manufacturing a complex aircraft. The trick for a PMO is to strike a balance between a project manager’s execution strengths and the amount of governance necessary for particular industry and domain. When done well, a PMO can empower project managers while still mitigating risks via right-sized governance.
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ALL THREE OF THESE MISTAKES is tied to one underlying misunderstanding that I so often see in PMOs – the perception that a project manager is subservient to the PMO. The PMO-Project Manager relationship should be a partnership, not a hierarchical one. The project manager is an organization’s most valuable resource for driving change. His or her very purpose is to be a change agent. They are the ‘tip of the spear’ for implementing each component of corporate strategy and innovation.
Five Recommendations to ‘Flip the Script’
Recommendation #1: Organic tools tailored to the company’s products, customers, and delivery teams
PMOs are a good repository of project management tools and techniques. But rather than developing them in a PMO vacuum and imposing them ‘from on high,’ the PMO should take advantage of projects in-flight to develop and tailor such tools. The project managers themselves can capture what works well on in-flight projects — i.e., practices, processes, and templates that could become a PMO standard. Over time, such findings help evolve the PMO into a service that is appropriate for all lines of business, stakeholders, delivery teams, and even the company culture.
Recommendation #2: Turn the PMO into a BMO (Business Management Office), at least in spirit
The PMO should be a part of an integrated group of customer support services – services such as Marketing, Communications, Corporate Planning, IT, Portfolio Management, and so on. Together, these groups comprise a Business Management Office, or BMO. Working with BMO leaders, a PMO can gain far more external/market and strategic context behind company projects. Also, PMOs are more in tune with the operations (and idiosyncrasies) of individual lines of business.
Recommendation #3: PMO-Project Manager “briefs”
PMOs are not just repositories of tools and templates. They are wonderful sources of departmental trends, tribal knowledge, leadership styles, and strategic priorities. A PMO should support its project managers by providing ‘intelligence briefs’, which can help project managers to navigate unfamiliar terrain, or even pitfalls that may have nothing to do with basic processes and procedures. PMO briefs can be invaluable in helping project managers improve their chances of building stakeholder buy-in and change adoption.
Recommendation #4: Dedicated Project & Product Teams
Organizations should strive for creating dedicated project and product teams. The more projects that can be staffed by the same core delivery teams, the greater the likelihood for consistency, quality, speed, and reduced cost. The challenge to this setup is traditional departmental silos (a matrixed environment), where the resources for projects typically reside. In this matrix setup, the above-referenced BMO can be a huge help. The BMO can become an internal staffing agency, negotiating with each department for resources to be assigned to project and product efforts.
A PMO’s objective should be to keep delivery teams together, especially teams that show good “unit integrity” and have a track record of success. This construct is a more projectized versus matrixed organizational model, which we highly recommend for innovative project and product-driven companies.
Recommendation #5: Plan and Manage Project Benefits (“Benefits Realization”)
A good PMO is an engine of benefits realization — seeing, understanding, and measuring a project’s immediate and long-term value.
We often read about project failure. But even if a project meets all the traditional metrics of “success” (e.g., on time, on budget, high quality, good stakeholder adoption), executives/sponsors can still deem it a “failure” because of unrealized benefits. Value and benefit analysis are a PMO’s top priority and function. In fact, from an executive point of view, the financial justification for PMOs comes from their ability to show project ROI and net-benefit to the company over time. It is where executives truly get the most ‘bang for their buck’ from a PMO.
Nevertheless, many PMOs get bogged down by the laborious, day-to-day governance side of their responsibilities (resource allocation, compliance and controls, etc.). A mature PMO is effective at both.