PMOs are either staffed by indecisive bureaucrats or divert key resources from running projects

In last months APM Project magazine the Critical Path column caused quite a stir within the PMO community. The article by David Shannon, republished below, highlighted Davids own view on how frightening PMOs can be.

In this months magazine there were a number of letters to the editor regarding the article and one from Chris Walters, the Chairman of the PMOSIG. Heres Chris response in full:

Last months article from David Shannon did a good job of highlighting many of the things that can sully the reputation of PMOs. The wrong people, with the wrong mandate being managed poorly and not aligned to either the organisational culture or emerging best practise for PMOs is a sure recipe for a PR disaster.

Here at PPSO SIG, were seeing a different picture emerge though. Instead of the old-style command PMOs, were seeing waves of conscientious professionals at all levels of PMO who are passionate about successfully helping the projects deliver with the right amount of control (is this really bureaucracy?) for the risk tolerance of the organisation, and with the right amount of guidance for all staff involved in the projects, from top to toe. Its a hard task to successfully balance all of the stakeholders needs, but the signs are there that more and more organisations are trusting their PMOs, and that the PMOs are repaying that trust by delivering solid value add.

T o respond to Davids point one-by-one, Id like to show the positive side that were increasingly seeing:

Dont be scared; firstly create your PMO to work with your business ecosystem and be clear about what it does and more importantly, the responsibilities of those around it. The PMO can be a great tool to repeatedly hold to account those parts of the organisation that are not pulling their weight and therefore contributing to project failure. PMOs strengthen and reinforce the responsibility chain between the business managers and project managers; however if a PMO contains self-important people who consider themselves the deliverer of projects then confusion reigns.

Monitoring and measurement is the cornerstone of successful PMOs and deserve a bad press if they create a measurement overload culture. Decision makers need to be really clear about what information they need to avoid this pitfall. Nobody within a PMO likes to process data that is not relevant to the business or to create work just for the sake of it.

The view that the PMO can create unnecessary stresses and distractions on projects through a self created view of timeliness says much more about the organisations overall state of project management capability. The PMO does not invent dates; rather, the PMO acting in a delivery assurance role is a major business benefit, especially in a portfolio of interconnected funding and resources. Knock-on effects can be predicted, and portfolio managers can be well informed about the impacts of the course of action that they decide to take. Just highlighting out-of-tolerance moments is a major step forward when delivering multiple projects in an organisation.

Project status reporting, another traditional mainstay of the PMO, is down to the project manager period. PMOs can add value by creating cross-portfolio summaries, and for making the report language more appropriate for the audience, but must never change or spin or manipulate the facts. The project manager is and must remain accountable for properly reporting project progress. As to whether the PMO is a good and independent critical eye on some status reports that deliberately misinform is a completely different matter

Project directors, executives and sponsors guide, not control control is the realm of a project manager. A good PMO is instrumental in reminding all participants in a project what their roles are this keeps the project organisation on an even keel and operating efficiently. When directors or sponsors either abdicate their responsibilities or micro-manage the project manager, it is often a sign of a project either in trouble, or in imminent trouble!

A well designed organisation with a PMO in the right place with the right scope and accountabilities will not be inefficient, will not have duplication, and will not have the convenient gaps which can be used to blame poor project performance. PMOs need to be staffed by PMO professionals, just like projects do. Poor recruitment and no development will lead to poor performance. This is no different to any other job on the planet. The owners of the processes and the assurance function should be key resources, not those who are put out to pasture.

Lastly, a good PMO redistributes costs and cuts risks. For every project risk you ignore (e.g. no assurance organisation) youre just back-loading the true cost. A favourite question of mine is How come youve got time to do the work twice, but not do it right in the first place. It might be expensive to implement a PMO and do the job right but it is still cheaper than doing the job 2, 3, or 4 times over.

As you can see then, theres much more hope in the story than despair. As a wise and experienced PPSO SIG colleague (whos an ex project and programme manager now motivated by the challenge of institutionalising those best practises through PMOs, and thoroughly energised by the recent P3O guidance) commented to me:

I think that I may have now been around project and programme management for too long. I can remember the time when all these arguments were made for not having project management and managing everything through a line organisation. For example, substitute a few words: Lastly, project management increases cost .. you get the picture!

So the question is how has project management survived and thrived over the last 20+ years? This gives an indication on how P3O will move forward. As with project management, if things are poorly defined, badly implemented and not controlled the major points made P3O will be something to fear.

Dont fear the unknown embrace, value and harness it!

Chris Walters is the Chairman of PPSOSIG, the PMO Specialist Interest Group

PMOs are either staffed by indecisive bureaucrats or divert key resources from running projects
by David Shannon

Call it what you will, anything between a simple Project Support Office and a fully functioning Portfolio, Programme and Project Management Office these creations scare me and should frighten you too. Here are some of their dangers

First, they are liable to confuse the responsibility chain between the directors, or their equivalents, and the project manager

Second, they are apt to monitor anything that can be measured, often creating more data than can be used by decision makers or is needed for accountability

Third, their self created view of timeliness can create unnecessary stresses and distractions on projects

Fourth, they frequently prepare and submit reports that should properly (sic) be submitted by project managers or sponsors

Fifth, they allow directors to think they are controlling projects in an optimum way but without the directors fulfilling their relevant responsibilities.

Sixth, by duplication and redundancy they perpetuate a separation of project management from the essential control systems of the organisation, ie budget control, organisational and personnel management, information systems management and document control.

Seventh, they are either staffed by indecisive bureaucrats or divert key resources from running projects.

Lastly, they increase costs.

No doubt such offices can deliver value for money without exposing their organisation to such risks, but how often have you known sponsors blind-sided by a project office report? Directors bemused by the volume of project office documents? Or project managers fussing about meeting project office input requirements when they should be communicating with their project teams?

We will know that project management has truly arrived when there is no longer a need for a project office, the whole organisation will run on systems supportive of projects and there might just be, in some organisations, a small Recurrent Business Office (RBO you read it here first!)