how to build and manage a pmo -...

1

How to Build and Manage a PMO

Scott Morrison, PMP

Peggy Czyl, PMP

Mile High PMI Saturday Workshop 2/24/2018

2

How to Build a PMOSession Logistics

• 3.5 hour class

• We will take several breaks throughout the session

• Please put cell phones on mute or turn off

• Feel free to send us an email to talk project

management topics:

[email protected]

[email protected]

• Ask questions, actively participate, and try to have

some fun!!!

3

How to Build a PMOAbout the Facilitators

Scott Morrison: Project Manager, Kaiser Permanente– Over 25 years experience as a project or program manager in an IT and/or Business role– Worked in the telecommunications, health care, and manufacturing industries– Regis University, B.S. in Computer Information Systems– Project Manager Certification, US West/DU Center for Program Management– Certified Project Management Professional (PMP); Certified Scrum Master (CSM– Developed and delivered the following Saturday Workshop classes for the Mile High PMI

Chapter: Project Risk Management (2010, 2013, 2016), Project Organizational Design (2011), Program Risk Management (2012), Leadership for Project Managers (2013), Communications for Project Managers (2014), Project Management Tools (2015), Project Kick Offs and Team Building Tools (2016), Fun with MS Project (2017)

Peggy Czyl: Project Manager, Kaiser Permanente– Over 15 years experience utilizing Agile and Waterfall methodologies– Experience in technology, online education, telecommunications and health care

industries– Certified Project Management Professional (PMP); Certified Scrum Master (CSM)– Managed co-located, as well as virtual teams nationally and internationally

4

How to Build a PMOClass Outline

- What is a PMO?- Types of PMO’s

- Supportive- Controlling- Directive- Hybrid

- The 3 Pillars- Governance- Methodology and Processes- Tools

- The Foundation- Communications

- Group Exercise- Design a PMO

5

How to Build a PMOWhat is a Project Management Office (PMO)?

A PMO, is a group or department within a business, agency or enterprise that defines and maintains standards for project management within the organization. The PMO strives to standardize and introduce economies of repetition in the execution of projects.

6


A PMO:

- Is a group or department within a business, agency or enterprise that defines and maintains standards for project management within the organization.

- The PMO strives to standardize and introduce economies of repetition in the execution of projects.

7


PURPOSE:

- To best address the most valuable, project-related issues and opportunities of the leadership team for whom the PMO was created and exists to serve.

WHY:

- To improve levels of project success within the organization.

- Note: Most PMOs are more concerned with practices being well established and in place

8

How to Build a PMO

Types of PMOs

9

How to Build a PMOTypes of PMO’s

- The best type of PMO is very specific to the organization, culture, and history of he company/entity.

- There are many classifications for Project Management Offices with varying degrees of control and influence on projects within the organization.

- The type of PMO must be clearly defined.

- It should take one role and stick to that role, not trying to do everything.

10


These are the 3 most recognized and agreed on types, with one newer type:

Supporting

Controlling

Directive

&

Hybrid

11


Build the PMO Based Upon:

- Business needs

- Looking at the entire portfolio

- Mix of different techniques in different areas

- Agile and/or waterfall, as needed

12


Supporting: Low Control

- Provides support and guidance as consultants available upon request.

- Provides forms, templates, best practices, information, technical support and training to the project team without imposing control on their project or activities.

- Primarily a support service that collects, compiles, and reports on information.

13


Controlling: Moderate Control- Provides a unified framework of policies, methodologies

and templates for managing projects within the institution. - Where there is a desire to "rein in" the activities, processes,

procedures, documentation.- Provides support and requires that the support be used.

- Requirements might include adoption of specific methodologies, templates, forms, conformance to governance, and application of other PMO controlled sets of rules.

- Project offices might need to pass regular reviews by the controlling PMO, and this may represent a risk factor on the project.

14


Directive: High Control- Accountable for the project management function

within the company.

- Goes beyond control and actually "takes over" the projects by providing the project management experience and support to manage the project.

- Injects a high level of professionalism into the projects, and, since each of the project managers originates and reports back to the directive PMO, it guarantees a high level of consistency of practice across all projects.

15


16


To move from a supportive PMO to a directive PMO the organization/department needs:- Buy-in from the head of that function.

- To be able to implement the right tools that allow capacity/resource management, budget tracking and informed metrics that allow for informed decision making to a portfolio of projects.

Supportive Directive

17


Other Classifications for PMOs Type’sThe Project Management Institute (PMI) classifies PMOs to five different types:

1- Departmental: Supports specific business units or divisions.

2- Project-specific: Oversees the success of a particular project.

3- Strategic: Oversees a major organizational change.4- Project-support: Handles administrative tasks to speed

project completion.5- Center of Excellence: Handles training and developing

project managers.

18


19


HYBRIDS

For our purpose, hybrids will refer to any mix of methodologies and frameworks with the desired

end state of having a customized, or tailored approach to managing work in an organization.

20


Hybrid PMO: Focus on Business Outcomes

- Golden Rule: it’s not your PMO – PMO belongs to the leadership team – address their needs.

- A business-driven mindset drives the way the PMO is built, how it operates, and where it prioritizes its efforts.

- Understand what the leadership team needs the PMO to do. Look at what the business is trying to achieve and what we can do to achieve it with the best result possible.

21


Hybrid PMO: Focus on Business Outcomes

- Manage for project outcome; look at how can the PMO can help drive increased performance for the organization as a whole.

22


- PMO of the future needs to be a trusted advisor to the leadership team. The PMO needs to be the SME on effective project delivery for the good of the organization and delivering business value through projects.

- When the focus is on PMO purpose and value, the PMO form and function inherently becomes hybrid – the practical application of what needs to be done.

- Instead of choosing a set model, focus on addressing an organization’s top opportunities and challenges.

23


- Not so much focused on best practices or methodology (given), rather, what is the context of the project, what is business condition of the project, what are stakeholder biases, and what is the most practical thing to do. From plan driven to agile techniques.

- More than just project methodology and execution –about project execution, end results and value.

- People, processes, and tools support the business mandates.

- Move and shift as needed.

24


Integration of all project execution approaches to deliver improved project outcomesregardless of whether projects are delivered using agile, waterfall or a hybrid.

25


How Agile Fits into Hybrid - The project world is not about absolute choices. Solutions

don’t have to be EITHER Agile or plan driven. We need to apply and adapt the right techniques wherever each can add value.

- Not strictly plan driven,not totally Agile. Use an intentional mix of techniques for theright reasons. Combine techniques toadd value

add value.

26


How Agile Fits into Hybrid

- Example: For product (book): Deliver a chapter and get feedback, then deliver another -- still going toward the goal of publishing the final ‘whole’ book.

27


SHIFTS in Thought

- Shifting to think in terms of strategy & execution – rather than just on time, in scope and within budget. Delivering on the business goals is really what defines success of the project.

28


SHIFTS in Thought

- A hybrid PMO helps the PMO switch from coordination to community – becoming about facilitating interaction between different departments to get the work done, as opposed to following a single methodology – create a community of people that gets work done.

- To deliver success in today’s world, a PMO must be able to facilitate effective and efficient project delivery. It must be an enabler of effective portfolio management, and it must support practical Agile approaches.

29


Agile + Waterfall- The Problem: As Agile crosses the mainstream, enterprise-wide

adoption of hybrid methodologies like Agile Development and traditional Waterfall create conflicting processes.

- The challenges of this become much more complex as you start to deal with the program level consisting of various projects and methodologies.

- The Scrum process focuses on the tactical execution of requirements generation and implementation, for environments where scope is fluid and schedule cannot be predicted reliably. It does not attempt to define how the enterprise or business unit operates, and it will not usually be the only type of development process present in a large organization.

30


Managing a Hybrid Project:- Recognize that it decomposes into (say) waterfall and Agile sub-

projects, each sub-project can be planned with the appropriate process.

- Identify the dependencies between these component projects.

- The predictive (waterfall) projects typically generates milestones that act as constraints for the adaptive (Agile) projects.

- The Constraint-Based Planning method for hybrid projects starts by identifying the critical milestones in one project on which the other (Agile) project depends.

31


Hybrid - Example: A production deployment cannot occur before the

production environment is ready, even if the software is ready for release well in advance. In this case, the development team would continue to develop new features (e.g., reports) until the production environment is ready, and then deploy the new capabilities to production.

- While the project as a whole is hybrid, the waterfall nature of some of the sub-projects will be reflected in the organization of the overall project. In contrast, the Agile sub-projects, which are designed to be more adaptive than predictive, will then adapt to the constraints and predicted schedules that define the rest of the project.

32


How to Manage Complex Hybrid Projects- Large, complex projects, which contain multiple

communicating subsystems that have strong dependencies on each other, present more challenges than the previous example, but the challenges are of the same kind.

- While a pure Agile project developed by one team has freedom to develop features when desired, development in complex multiple-subsystem environments is strongly constrained by dependencies. In these cases, planning often crosses subsystem boundaries, and requires defining a careful choreography of development steps to be performed by different teams at specific times.

33


Organizing Cross-Team and Cross-Project Implementation

- A Program in a large enterprise or business unit will contain many projects, and each project may contain many teams.

- Teams within a project usually work in close coordination with each other. Teams in separate projects may be closely coordinated or completely independent, but most often work together on an occasional basis, as needs dictate.

34


Collaboration within 1 Team- In Agile projects, requirements for

each team are defined by the team’s Product Owner, and work to implement the requirements is managed by the ScrumMaster.

- Daily Scrum meetings provide the opportunity to produce a common awareness of progress, and to identify any issues encountered by anyone on the team that require help from someone else to resolve. The resolution of issues occurs after the meeting, when the relevant people work together on them. The team sees how team progress as a whole is tracking against the plan.

35


Cross-Team Collaboration within a Project- Scrum does not specify how teams within a project

collaborate, but there are common practices. The practices focus on requirements definition, scheduling, and execution.

- Collaboration between teams is necessary when a product specification requires synchronized work across the teams.

36


Cross-Team Collaboration across Projects- Collaboration across projects is very similar to collaboration between

different teams in the same project. The difference is mostly one of scale. If the number of projects is large enough, one Lead Product Owner may not be able to manage cross-project requirements, in which case it is necessary to create a cross-project Product Owner hierarchy that contains a number of Lead Product Owners. Scrum does not have a title for the person who leads this group, but “Program Manager” is often used.

- The Program Manager is responsible for working with the Lead Product Owner group to identify cross-project requirements, and ensure that they are broken down into team-level Stories.

- The Program Manager may also be the person to conduct “Cross-Project Scrum” meetings, attended by one representative from team and whose purpose is the same as scrum meeting.

37


2 Types of Hybrid Approaches:

- Conscious Hybrid

- Unconscious Hybrid

38


Conscious Hybrid

- The mix of processes evolves over time. This is done by

running experiments with the goal of continuous

improvement in the way an organization is approaching

work.

- Key factor - specific experiments are defined and run in

order to test hypothesis about what might happen if a

certain practice is introduced into the workflow and given

time to stabilize. Once this has happened, the change is

evaluated and kept or abandoned depending on the results.

39


Conscious Hybrid

- Example: A traditional organization might decides to test out

mob programming to see how it impacts the organization

(software development approach where the whole team

works on the same thing, at the same time, in the same

space, and at the same computer.

40


Conscious Hybrid- Example continued: A team (or teams) prepare for the experiment by

learning about mob programming, an initial assessment is done to try

and understand how it will impact other parts of the organization

and then the test is run. Once the team has had time to get their legs

steady with mob programming, management has seen the results

and the rest of the organization has felt the impact and understands

the ramifications, then a decision will be made to adopt or abandon

mob methodology.

- It is important to keep in mind that this is not a decision that can be

made by the team alone. Every part of the organization that is

impacted by this test should weigh in as well.

41


Unconscious Hybrid- Unfortunately, this approach is

far more common. In an

unconscious hybrid, a new

approach is evaluated and a

decision is made to adopt part

of the approach. This is usually

done with the very best of

intentions.

- Each organization feels that it is

different and has truly unique

challenges not accounted for by

standardized frameworks.

42


Unconscious Hybrid

- Example: An organization may take a look at something like

Agile and decided that they like the idea of working

iteratively in short cycles and frequently delivering work to

solicit feedback, but they may be unwilling to envision how

their organization could possibly operate with individuals

dedicated to a single team and/or project. So, they decide to

adopt Scrum, but switch people around on teams and

projects at the start of each Sprint. This is a decision that is

normally made without testing the alternative.

43


The Difference

- Conscious Hybrid - through investigation, a decision is made

to incorporate a different approach into an existing approach.

- Unconscious Hybrid - a decision is made to adopt only a

portion of a system without understanding how leaving part

of it behind will impact the use of that approach.

- Being mindful about how and why we work is always going to

elicit better results for ourselves and our clients.

44


To best address the top, most valuable,

project-related issues and opportunities of the leadership

by improving levels of project success within the organization.

45

How to Build a PMO

The 3 Pillars

46

How to Build a PMOTHE PMO STRUCTURE

GOVERNANCE METHODOLOGIES AND

PROCESSES

TOOLS

COMMUNICATIONS

COMMON LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND MINDSET

INTAKE

PRIORITIZATION

RESOURCE

ALLOCATION

GLOBAL RISK

MANAGEMENT:

• FINANCIAL

• REGULATORY / LEGAL

DEVELOPMENT

PROCESSES:

AGILE / WATERFALLPORTFOLIO

MANAGEMENT /

PROJECT SUPPORT

RESOURCE

MANAGEMENT

PROJECT / PROGRAM

STATUS

PROJECT

MANAGEMENT

SOFTWARE

RISK MANAGEMENT

DOCUMENT

RETENTION

MEETING

MANAGAMENT

RESOURCE

ASSIGNMENTS:

ROLES

AUDITS

DOCUMENTATION

STANDARDS

TRAINING /

PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT

STRATEGIC

PLANNING

LESSONS LEARNED

47

How to Build a PMO

Governance

48

How to Build a PMOGovernance

Strategic Planning - Strategic planning begins with the businesses

strategic plans- Take the strategic plans and map them into

deliverables/projects/assets over time- If the Business does not have a strategic plan then

find a way to help them develop the plans- 1,2,3 year plans are the best- This year is important, but looking forward to the

future needs helps to understand what items we need to develop now to meet the needs of the business later

49


Strategic Planning: Be Objective Experts

- Being objective is easier for PMOs which have been around for a little while because these will have greater archives of project performance data to draw on.

- This data is a goldmine of information about the projects that performed the most reliably, and which targets were hit and which were not. You can also pull data on which departments performed well, delivering on time and on budget.

- Even if you only have a few months of data to draw on, positioning yourselves in the PMO as objective experts on project performance is a good idea. It’s a mindset, an outlook. It is part of how you talk about the PMO and the value it brings. It can also take a lot of emotion and politics out of the strategic planning process because you are helping to keep the discussion grounded in facts and outcomes, not hopes and wishes.

- You’ll know you have achieved this when managers start coming to you for data on project performance to help them make better decisions.

Source: https://tensix.com/2017/03/using-a-pmo-in-strategic-planning/

50


Strategic Planning: Get A Seat At The Table- It’s virtually impossible to influence the outcomes of

strategic planning if you don’t have a seat at the table. You need to be in the discussions, helping to shape the outcomes and providing that objective expert voice.

- A “seat at the table” looks different at different levels of the business. That’s to be expected, since organizations have their PMO functions at different levels. A PMO set up to support the work of the IT department, for example, is not going to have the same board-level influence as an enterprise PMO with a PMO Director who already has a seat on the Board or who works for the CEO.


51


Strategic Planning: Assign Project Managers Early

- As soon as a project is approved you can assign a project manager. This can make a huge difference in the planning of the project as you’ve got an expert on the team already.

- Having a project manager work with the relevant business experts to draw up plans and make all those early project decisions can be a significant factor in ensuring that achievable goals are set for the work. It can also help manage stakeholder expectations effectively from the beginning.


52


Strategic Planning: Measure Value

- This year’s strategic planning cycle should look back to last year’s data. Success metrics should directly link to strategic goals.

- For example, a strategic imperative might be to cut budgets while maintaining customer satisfaction levels at their current rate. Success metrics for projects should link directly to these, ensuring there is a clear line of sight between what a project or program can deliver and the strategic goal it supports.

- By looking at last year’s success metrics and project outcomes you should be able to better predict which projects will directly correlate with the strategic vision this year.

- Draw on the PMO’s experience of measuring value to inform the decisions being made in this year’s planning cycle.


53


Strategic Planning: Build The Talent To Make the Right Decisions

- At the end of the day the decisions about which projects to approve and which to pass on are made by humans.

- Giving those decision-makers the skills to make the right choices is an admirable longer term goal for your PMO. Granted, it isn’t going to happen overnight, but it is something to be working towards through mentoring, coaching, formal training, having the tools to provide fantastic decision-support information and generally educating your senior management population.

- A white paper from PMI states that high-performing PMOs are more than twice as likely as low performers to have the right skills in the team (58% versus 27%). They are also far more likely to have adequate numbers of people (42% versus 24%). The right talent in the business at all levels – and enough of it – is going to go a long way in ensuring that the right decisions are made.

- The point of a PMO is to improve performance across projects and programs and get a better return on investment from doing so. Being involved in the strategic planning cycle is definitely part of that and with these tips you can ensure your PMO is contributing effectively, regardless of your PMO maturity or longevity in the organization.


http://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/white-papers/pmo-strategy-implement.pdf

54


Intake

- The business needs to submit requests for project work- The projects should have a priority assigned from the

originating business unit- The best way to optimize the portfolio is to map the

project against the strategic plans and to rank each project against the other projects for their expected value to the company. - The only exceptions to gaining a higher ranking are

mandates/regulatory driven efforts. The PMO is about delivering value and reducing risk, period.

- To accomplish this task an intake process will need to be developed

55


Intake

- The business will submit requests for project work based on their needs

- This list should be captured in a tabular manner so we can perform analysis on the requests

- We want to know which business unit is requesting the work, the high level scope of the work, and the value of the work

- Normally the business units will have a pre-determined amount of capital for their annual portfolio. If not, then the business units will need to compete for resources to accomplish their goals.

56


Prioritization

- The work needs to be prioritized because not all efforts will be able to be worked

- Ranking is up to the business to determine, here are a few considerations:

- Legal and regulatory needs

- Strategic value

- Value of the effort: cost savings or generation of revenue

- The PMO owns the list, the Business leaders own the sequence of the projects within the list

57


Resource Allocation

- When efforts are prioritized to be worked the Governance team must provide the resources to do the work:

- Internal Staff

- Capital and expense

- Ability to hire external resources

- The PMO needs to make sure of the staffing needs for an effort and the capacity to do the work. These factors are critical for Governance to be able to make a decision to approve an effort to be worked.

58


Portfolio Management / Project Support

- The PMO is accountable for the overall portfolio health.

- PMO’s will usually staff Program/Portfolio Managers to support the Project Managers

- There could be multiple leads, each supporting a business area: Finance, Marketing, Sales, etc.

- The could be leads for functional areas: IT, Business, etc.

59


Portfolio Management / Project SupportCharacteristics of Different Organizational Structures

Characteristic Hierarchical structure Organic structure

Complexity High – with lots of horizontal separation

into functions, departments and

divisions

Usually lower – less differentiation or

functional separation

Formality High – lots of well defined lines of

control and responsibility

Lower – no real hierarchy and less

formal division of responsibilities

Participation Low – employees lower down the

organization have little involvement

with decision making

Higher participation – lower level

employees have more influence on

decision makers

Communication Downward – information starts at the

top and trickles down to employees

Lateral, upward, and downward

communication – information flows

through the organization with fewer

barriers

60


Portfolio Management / Project Support- It is critical that the correct level of oversight is provided.- The Project Managers should not have to report the same

status to multiple managers. - The Project Managers must have immediate access to

management support.- Please note the use of the word “support” from the

managers or portfolio leads. These resources may be higher than the Project Managers in title but the approach that they are “supporting” the Project Managers is critical.

- The 5 or 6 Portfolio Leads cannot perform the work of the 30 Project Managers. We must remember that the “factory” is the Project Managers and they are to be supported at all times.

61


Global Risk Management– Project risk management principles can be applied to

programs – Project risks will roll up to the program– Program risks will take on a more global nature in addition

to the project risks within the program▪ External events, company profits, legal/compliance

issues, political issues, company strategies▪ Cross project risk: The Project Managers may not have

a view into risk on other projects that may impact their effort. The Portfolio team needs to assist with this assessment.

– Communications with your sponsors is even more critical at the program level than on projects

– Managing overall communications is a key success factor with large programs

62


The keys to managing your program are to effectively manage risk, communications and scope

– Design your program based on who needs to do the work and who will receive the end product

– Program communications and governance could be multi-tiered

– The most important data is within the work groups that needs to flow across the program and up to senior management

– A key part of the program communications is risk management

– Managing scope/requirements with your sponsors is another key to a successful program

– You serve your team, they do not serve you. They are accountable for performing their day-day work and to provide status, but it is your goal in life to make sure that your project managers have the support they need to be successful.

63

How to Build a PMO

Methodology and Processes

64

How to Build a PMOMethodology and Processes

Project / Program Status

- The Program status can be organized by several methods:

- By Business area/Portfolio

- By Project priority

- Status should be issued weekly

- The format of the status must be the same for all projects enabling the PMO to produce Portfolio or whole Program reports

65


Project / Program Status- A Score Card type of approach is recommended, there are many

formats available online

- The health of a project can be produced in many ways. One simple set of metrics for a project are time, cost, and product/quality.

- PMO KPI

- A key performance indicator (KPI) is a type of performance measure (e.g. metrics), which an organization uses to evaluate the success of a particular activity.

- The PMO needs to define and agree on a certain set of metrics (with its stakeholders) to demonstrate the value provided to the Business.

- Only then, the PMO can be successful. Otherwise the PMO will struggle with its existence.

66


Project / Program Status

- Possible PMO Metrics

- Following are some possible metrics. You will need to tweak them to make them fit to your project portfolio and to your organization.

- The following list is a good starting point and it will give you some ideas on what to measure:

Source: http://www.pmoguru.com/pmo-kpi-examples-for-measuring-success/

67


Possible PMO Metrics

Topic Area Possible Metric

Strategic

Contribution

Strategic Project Delivery Increase the success rate of % of strategic projects

delivered / the total number of strategic projects

Strategic

Contribution

Improve Time to Market Improve Time to Market Delivery = Elapsed Time from

Idea Conception to Project Start

(How long do we need to start a project)

Strategic

Contribution

Improve Time to Market Improve Time to Market Delivery = Elapsed Time from

Idea Conception to Project Delivery

(How long do we need to deliver a project)

Strategic

Contribution

Improved Time to Market The improvement of estimated time versus actual time of

project delivery = Comparison between the estimated and

the actual time of projects delivered

(How good are we in estimating our project delivery)


68




Governance

Process

Improved Governance

Process

Methodology compliance (required deliverables vs. actual

deliverables)

Portfolio

Management

Overall Project Portfolio

successful delivered

% of projects in portfolio delivered / the total number of

projects in portfolio

Portfolio

Management

Dealing with Change % of projects remain at same status for x reporting periods

Project

Management

Improved Project

Management Process

Increase the success rates of the projects = (within a

certain time period, the number of success projects/the

total of projects)

Project

Management

Improved Project

Management Process

Improve training rate of project staff members

Project

Management

Improved Project

Forecasting & Costing

The improvement of estimated cost versus actual cost for

the projects = (comparison between the estimated and the

actual cost of the projects)


69




Resource

Management

Increased Resource

Utilization on Projects

Increased productive resource utilization on project time

(i.e. Business Analyst >31.5 hrs p/week = Exceeds)

Resource

Management

Increased Resource

Utilization on Projects

Increased resource utilization on projects = Billable

Hours/Total Hours

Stakeholder

Management

Improved Customer or

User Satisfaction

Customer or user satisfaction survey averages (aim for a %

above previous quarter or year average)

Stakeholder

Management

Improved Customer

Satisfaction

Over-delivered items within budget

ROI Business Benefits

achieved

Post-project ROI review to determine if project ROI is

being realised

ROI Business Benefits

achieved

Benefits realised against Benefit forecast for year

ROI ROI for the year Simple Return on Investment (ROI) for all of the projects

the PMO has oversight for


70


Possible PMO MetricsTopic Area Possible Metric

Staff Members Improve Staff Retention Improve project member satisfaction survey averages (aim

for a % above previous quarter or year average)

Staff Members Improve Staff Retention Improve career path for project members


71


Resource Assignments

- Assigning resources is a critical component for success

- First, the resource must have the availability to perform the work

- Next, the resource needs to have the appropriate skillset to perform the work. Caveat: an inexperienced resource can be pared with an experienced resource for knowledge transfer

- Last, fit is a consideration. Will the PM be a good match with the sponsor and the type of effort? Not all PM’s work well with aggressive Sponsors and certain types of projects.

- Set up your project managers for success, remember, their failure is your failure.

72


Resource Assignments: Organizing the Project TeamsOrganize your team around:- The work to be performed- Who is receiving the end product- Who is supporting the end product- Who is overseeing the work- Who is paying for the workYou can obtain project resources through several methods:- They are assigned as part of the project development process in

your organization- You have to seek out the out proper resources through interviews

and subsequent negotiation- You hire external resources through your procurement processes

73


Resource Assignments: Some Ground Rules for Project Teams

- Project manager is the primary contact for any project related communication.

- All team members maintain their contact info on the team contact list with contact preference.

- Any planned day off or vacation must be communicated in advance to project manager so that project plan can be updated and impact to work, if any, can be analyzed.

- All project team members have access to project plan and project logs (in a standard document format) and are aware of the assigned tasks and due dates.

- All team members are to be consulted about the reasonableness of the plan prior to management approval.

- All team members are required to validate their assignments and time allocated prior to the plan is baselined.

- All project team members have the responsibility to proactively notify the project manager about tasks, duration or dependencies they believe are missing (or any other needed changes to the plan) and confront issues directly and promptly.

74


Resource Assignments: Some Ground Rules for Project Teams (con’t)

- Project team members have the responsibility to notify any potential difficulties in meeting the schedule for any assigned tasks as soon as it is known by the team member.

- Each project team member is responsible for ensuring anticipated workload conflicts with other assignments are brought to the attention of the project manager. Team members should ask for help if feeling “stuck” or falling behind the schedule instead of waiting for miracle.

- All meeting minutes, key decisions, assumptions and business rules must be documented and all action items must be followed up and assigned to a resource with expected completion date.

- All project team members understand the scope of work. Any work performed must be in the project plan and is in the project scope. Anything that is absolutely needed but not part of the project plan, must be brought to the project manager’s attention.

- All project team members confront issues directly and promptly.

- Only the project manager submits all final deliverables to business customer for approval.

75


Resource Management- Part of the project and program accountabilities are to

effectively manage the resources assigned to the projects- Use of various tools are required:

- MS Project, or some other project plan tool- A portfolio management tool with the ability to load

resources from the various teams accountable for project delivery

- For smaller PMO’s a spreadsheet or MS Access database may suffice

- The point is, the inventory of available staff must be kept in some analytical manner, work must be tracked, and capacity always monitored.

76


Resource Management- Part of the project and program accountabilities are to

effectively manage the resources assigned to the projects- Use of various tools are required:

- MS Project, or some other project plan tool- A portfolio management tool with the ability to load

resources from the various teams accountable for project delivery

- For smaller PMO’s a spreadsheet or MS Access database may suffice

- The point is, the inventory of available staff must be kept in some analytical manner, work must be tracked, and capacity always monitored.

77


Development Processes

- There are many types of development processes for software and business process improvement efforts.

- Some examples are:

- Waterfall Model

- Iterative Model

- Spiral Model

- V-Model

- Big Bang Model

- Agile

78


Development Processes- The primary need that must be met is the PMO must

support whatever processes the project teams use. - There could be several IT teams engaged, some using

Waterfall, some using different Agile methods. The Project Managers must be able to integrate all types of methodologies in the project planning and execution.

- The Business may be using some form of Agile, or not. - The primary point is that each team reserves the

right to utilize whatever process they currently use. This principle must be supported.

79


Risk Management- Actively work your risk register/log

- Schedule risk reviews in your project plan. Could be after a phase or project event (For example: Architecture/Design completes or Pre Go Live decision).

- Update risks as needed (data changes, new resources, new/changing requirements)

- Review the log in status calls, set and use due dates for active contingency plans

- Hold assigned resources accountable for their action items

- Engage your sponsor when invoking contingency plans to ensure they know a risk has happened and the team is actively working the response plan

80


Project Lifecycle

Risk vs. Amount at Stake

$

V

A

L

U

E

CONCEPT

PHASE

DEVELOPMENT

PHASE

IMPLEMENT

PHASE

CLOSE

PHASE

OPPORTUNITY AND RISK

AMOUNT AT STAKE

PERIOD WHEN

HIGHEST RISKS

ARE INCURRED

PERIOD OF

HIGHEST

RISK IMPACT

NUMBER OF RISK EVENTS

81


Risk ManagementPROJECT

MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION

INFORMATION /

COMMUNICATIONS

HUMAN

RESOURCE

CONTRACT /

PROCUREMENT

SCOPE

QUALITY

TIMECOST

PROJECT RISK

Life Cycle and Environment VariablesExpectations

Feasibility

Requirements Standards

Time Objectives, Constraints

Cost Objectives, Restraints

Services, Plant, Materials: Performance

Availability Productivity

Ideas, Directives, Data Exchange Accuracy


Risk Management: Example Risk LogRisk ID Sequential number assigned

Functional Area Identify the functional business areas potentially impacted by the risk

Risk Category Cost; External; Schedule; Technical; Resources; Operational

Risk Description Description of the risk and the impact of it

Date Identified Date the risk was identified

Raised By Who identified the risk

Date Assigned Date the risk was assigned

Assigned To Who the risk was assigned to

Probability 1, 2, 3, 4

Potential Impact 1, 2, 3, 4

Risk Factor (P*I) Probability * Impact

Positive or Negative Impact Will the potential impact of the risk have a Positive, Negative, Both or Unknown impact if realized?

Response Category Acceptance; Mitigation; Transfer; Avoidance

Status/Comments Status of risk and update/comments about it

Trigger Preliminary event that will indicate the risk is about to take place

Proposed/Actual Resolution Risk Response plan

Contingency Plan Alternate Plan if Risk Response fails

83


Training / Professional Development- The PMO needs to set standards for their staff

- PMP or not?- If not a PMP, are we working to obtaining certification?- Are we supporting the Project Managers by giving them

time and financial support for their required training activities?

- The PMO processes need to be documented and staff trained- The PMO processes need to be kept up to date- Participation in PMO planning work can be used for PDU’s- Staff can train each other: Lunch and Learn sessions- Bring in experts or resources from other teams to provide

training

84

How to Build a PMO

Tools

85

How to Build a PMOTools

Documentation Standards

- The PMO needs to set standards for what documents are to be used and a standard format of each document. Consistency is critical.

- Templates need to be designed to support all types of projects: Small, medium, and large

- Terms must be defined in the templates. There should not be ambiguity regarding the meaning of a topic.

86


Documentation Standards

- Do not create documents that do not add value. The last thing we need our project teams doing is working on a document that will not add value.

- Do make templates that can be modified as needed by the Project Managers. If an element is not needed on a project, then allow the Project Manager to decide what artifacts or components of a plan are needed for the project.

87


Documentation Standards- Some common SDLC documents are:

- Charter (with Scope)

- Business requirements

- Technical requirements

- Design/architecture

- Project Plan

- Communications Plan

- Training Plan

- Test Plan

- Implementation Plan

- Operational Readiness Plan

- Maintenance/Support Plan

- Lessons Learned

- Agile projects will take on a different set of documents based on the flavor of the selected Agile process. Be flexible!

88


Documentation Retention

- Project artifacts need to be stored for reuse, audits, and tracking quality

- Work with your legal department to determine how long project artifacts need to be stored

- As a rule, project artifacts should be accessible by anyone employed by the company.

- There may be some exceptions, again work with your legal team.

89


Project Management Software- The project managers need a tool (or set of tools) to track the work/schedule for

projects, artifacts, and communicate with team members

- Simple efforts can be tracked in Excel, using email, and other simple tools.

- More complex efforts where staff are distributed will require a more advanced toolset. Some examples are:

- Wikipedia offers a detailed view and analysis of Project Management Software:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_project_management_software

Glip Asana

Smartsheet Wrike

Workfront Slack

Mavenlink LiquidPlanner

Freshdesk Function Fox

inMotion Airtable

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_project_management_software

90


Project Management Software

- For teams that are located entirely within a company domain other options may be more appealing:

- Use SharePoint as a repository

- Create folders for artifacts (Word, Excel, PPT, Visio)

- Use lists for risks, decisions, etc

- MS Project or MS Project Server

- This platform could be integrated with a 3rd party solution to offer portfolio/program management capabilities

91


Project Management Software

92


Meeting Management

- Meetings are critical for project teams- Meetings should be as efficient as possible, frequently there

are many attendees- Get the team into a flow, schedule meetings weekly, even if

they are brief. Get the team used to consistency. - If the team members are located in the same campus, schedule

a face-face meeting- If team members are not co-located, use a conference call with

a screen sharing (Skype) type of tool.- Send out materials prior to meetings so people are prepared- Send out a reminder to specific team members if they have a

special part (like presenting the Architectural Design document) in a particular meeting

93


Meeting Management: Run Effective Virtual Team Meetings

- Virtual team meetings are a given and can't be avoided for the virtual team. According to experts, in the USA alone, it is estimated that over 3 to 37 billion dollars a year is lost in productivity because of poor meetings. There are many tips and tools for running effective meetings which mostly all apply virtually.

– Develop and use a communications management plan and team operating agreements.

– Slow down to speed up. Take the time upfront to understand all the environments and cultures you are working in.

– Select appropriate technologies for team interactions.

– Create a virtual personality and presence by exploring your strengths, weaknesses, and natural tendencies.

– Be a great host/hostess. Create places where the team looks forward to and can meet for unplanned interactions.

– Run effective virtual team meetings; use good basic meeting management techniques and create, foster, and force engagement and interactions frequently.

94


Audits- There is nothing quite like an audit to shore up your

processes- An external audit can be painful, especially if a negative

rating results in financial penalties for the company.- However, the process of going through an audit is a

good process. You will find out where you have gaps, your strengths, and you will learn things.

- Conduct your own audits, assign one of the Portfolio Managers, or a Project Manager, to conduct an audit of a project. As long as we are inquisitive about this process and not penal, this experience will be positive and everyone will benefit.

95


Lessons Learned- A critical tool for organizations to become better is to conduct

lessons learned on projects. - Create a log at the beginning of the project, keep it up to date

throughout the effort.- Schedule sessions to update the log, perhaps at the end of a

Phase or a significant task.- Conduct a session at the end of the effort to understand what

went well, what did not go well, and what things surprised us.- Bring in another PM to facilitate the lessons learned session.- It’s Vegas rules at the session, what happens there stays there.

We need to hear the truth and get those learnings out there for people to avoid costly mistakes or to find better ways to make their projects be successful. Publicly denote comments as anonymous so people are not afraid to say the truth.

96

How to Build a PMO

Communications

97

How to Build a PMOCommunications

- Now that we’ve discussed the 3 pillars, our last topic is our foundation, Communications

- Throughout the discussion around the pillars you should have seen a key focus on communicating. By using these principles you will create a common language, culture, and mindset.

- Transparency and clear communications are paramount to the success of your PMO.

- If you don’t communicate in a timely manner, then you’ll be seen as not actively managing the work.

- If your communications are not clear or professional, then you’ll be seen as in need of training/coaching.

- If you don’t tell the message that needs to be told, even if it’s not popular, then you won’t have trust.

- And we must have trust, it is the most important thing to have if we are to be successful navigating through the management of a PMO.

98


- The PMO is accountable for:

- How project teams communicate while working on the projects

- Retention of project artifacts

- Sponsor and steering communications

- Internal PMO communications

99


Building an Effective Communication Strategy

Source: Keyedin

100

How to Build a PMO

Class Exercise

101

How to Build a PMOExercise

- Break into teams of 4-6- Using the imbedded form (below), document how you will build

your PMO- Amongst your team select a company. It can be one of your

companies, or make one up. Try to select on a complex company verses a company with a simple or flat organizational design.

- You will have approximately 40 minutes to complete your work. - We will ask for any learnings you have in the last 10 minutes of

the class.- Have fun with this work, then it won’t actually be work!

102

How to Build a PMO

Closing

103

How to Build a PMOClosing

Managing a PMO is not easy

- It requires training and knowledge

- Patience

- Executive support

- Great people

- Outstanding leadership

- And most importantly, honesty and trust

104

How to Build a PMO

Credits/References- Using a PMO in Strategic Planning: https://tensix.com/2017/03/using-a-pmo-in-

strategic-planning/- PMO KPI Examples for Measuring Success: http://www.pmoguru.com/pmo-kpi-

examples-for-measuring-success/- White Paper: Communication, a Key Driver for Project Success, KEYEDIN Projects - Mile High PMI Saturday Workshops, Scott Morrison: Project Organizational Design

(2011), Program Risk Management (2012), Effective Communications for Project Managers (2014), Project Manager Tools (2015)

https://tensix.com/2017/03/using-a-pmo-in-strategic-planning/

http://www.pmoguru.com/pmo-kpi-examples-for-measuring-success/

how to build and manage a pmo -...

Documents