Many people are discovering that working from home is a great advantage, and companies are inclined to agree. Hiring a contractor over an employee, and using that employee to build a virtual team for projects, is advantageous in a number of ways:
Improvements in employee work/life balance
Little to no travel time
Higher ability to hire the best talent worldwide
Overall increased employee efficiency
While it is apparent that pulling in virtual workers for a team project is a great idea, it’s also important to make sure the business avoids the following possible overall pitfalls. If these issues are successfully deterred, then working from home in a team project works well.
When you work from home, losing focus is more of an issue than in an office. No matter how dedicated a worker is to a project, staying on task might become challenging. Avoid this situation by remaining highly professional when it comes to work. Becoming exceptionally organized, and understand your role on the team. This will help you maintain focus and stay on task with the project, because you will avoid being frustrated with lack of understanding.
Cultural Differences and Communication Barriers
Today’s virtual world runs on a global scale. Anyone who has been on a virtual team understands this issue. While the project is in the planning stages, remain professional. Speak on a professional level, and use textbook English in all written communication. It is important to do this to avoid as many misunderstandings as possible. As the project moves forward, make sure communication barriers are broken down by asking for clarification when necessary. Most businesses will appreciate a question over having to redo a portion of a project due to a misunderstanding.
Technology and Data Access
All project team members must have access to the right technology to do the job, such as survey tools or company passwords. Remote projects depend on this access almost exclusively to get projects finished. Often, businesses will set up secure passwords for each team member. This way, if a team member becomes dishonest and acts in an unethical manner, the company will know where the breach happened. Be sure to keep your security information secret, only use it to work on projects, and never act in a way that would cause anyone to question your integrity. Make remote team projects work by acting as you would if you were sitting in an office with a boss breathing over your shoulder.
Lucy Wyndham
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Being a project manager can often feel like a circus performer juggling a dozen balls at one time. The only difference is you have to juggle those balls within a strict deadline and, hopefully, within your budget too.
One of the biggest issues PMOs face is a gap in communication within their department and the many other parties involved in the project. Without stellar communication, any one of those balls could go flying out of place, obliterating your chances of successfully executing your master plan.
When there is no room for error, the only viable option is to equip your team with the best possible tools for the job. Ensuring flawless communication is simple when you combine a quality project management tool with a leading customer relationship management software. This is especially critical for companies that run client projects. A great PM and CRM combo ensures that you can always track customer relations without losing a single detail on either end.
Actually integrating the two products is a snap. Industry-leading PM programs offer advanced API for developers that will allow you to connect to almost any existing system you already know and love. ITM Platform even provides a comprehensive array of APIs that are constantly updated to ensure they remain user-friendly, a key tool for advanced productivity.
With features like this, combining the power of your PM and CRM is a simple and streamlined solution to communication issues you’ll want to prevent during your next project.
But how exactly does a CRM assist you with communication? A stellar customer relationship management program gives you the benefit of automatic communication tracking. Missing important information like that two-line email with a question from your client can be damaging to your project and relationship.
Beyond communications, you’ll also have the ability to expand customer tracking with the ability to connect methods for purchases, invoices, client profiles, and suppliers.
Simple human errors, like a missed email or a faulty memory, no longer have a place in your carefully developed process.
Quality customer relationship management software will also offer automatic data sync. Once connected to your project management tool, the information collected from your ITM Platform mobile app, desktop application, and CRM platform will merge together. Information that gets added becomes almost instantly available for your entire team on every device. This makes information clear and accessible for everyone involved so your team can stay on the same page at every stage of the project lifecycle. Items like invoices, budget estimates, and revenue are readily accessible on programs like ITM Platform.
As a project manager, it is your job to ensure your comprehensive plan accounts for the flawless execution of tasks by all parties. By arming your team with a combination of outstanding PM and CRM softwares, you’re sure to excel in your previously determined targets by creating a strong collaborative foundation.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to get the most out of your project management tools, request a helpful ITM Platform demonstration now and get started upgrading your communication skills today.
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It's not news that Chief Information Officers tend to be considered the directors of all technological projects in an organization.
In fact, in the mid 90s it was understood that project managers could not simply undertake assignments, but should have a comprehensive commitment to the organization's systems strategy. It was then that something similar was proposed: that the PMO directors have a very similar role to the CIOs.
With the consolidation of project management offices in all types of organizations and the emergence of good start-up and operation practices, PMOs have become a clear model for the management of internal projects in large corporations. For this reason, it is also worth remembering the contrary statement: that the CIOs lead the PMO of internal technology projects.
Lack of definition of the CIO: strategy vs. day to day
It is very difficult to define in detail what is being done by a Chief Information Officer (CIO). There are those who say that they are, quite simply, a budget manager. Although this is a good joke, it is a very imprecise statement: any CIO is primarily responsible for the strategy, practices and policies of an organization's information systems.
That said, the day to day activities of each CIO is very different, varying depending on the industry, the country, the size of the company and the personality of the managers who are above.
In fact, top management's expectations about what a CIO should do is probably the most weighty aspect. It is very different that a General Manager wants to have a CIO to materialize the vision of the business thanks to a technology expert to rely on a system manager to respond as quickly as possible to all their requirements. That's the big difference between a CIO as a top manager and a CIO as a responsible one. Exaggerating a little from this distinction, it can be said that there are two types of CIO: those who do not have time to supervise daily operations, and those who do not have time to get out of them.
At bottom, every CIO is between two worlds: top management, which focuses on long-term vision and value creation for investors; And the day-to-day management of technology, which includes aspects such as:
Technology purchase
Damage limitation and planning for possible disasters
Staff planning, including training
Creation of new systems
Integration and maintenance of existing systems
When the organization is small enough, the CIO can take care of all these aspects; but from a certain size it must rely on a delegation system, laying down rules and procedures for others to assume those responsibilities within a unified framework.
The aspiration of every CIO is probably to establish this frame of reference to be able to dedicate themselves to directing the strategy and to be involved with the direction of the company that counts its counterparts in great multinationals, as for example, one of the great pharmaceutical companies. In the words of Paul Burfitt, CIO of Astra Zeneca until 2006, the work of the CIO is to create frames of reference (policies, standards and strategies) that allow each subsidiary to act on its own, in an empowered way. In the meantime, the CIO is dedicated to designing priorities, objectives and goals, combining in any case the business perspective and that of information systems.
Why the CIO carries a PMO of systems projects
In that difficult balance between day-to-day and strategy is where the CIO's comparison with the leader of a PMO fits perfectly.
It is easy to understand if we ask ourselves the following question: What are the CIO's responsibilities in project management?
Combine demand with capacity
Requests for improvements in internal computer systems, databases, management modules, CRM, etc., always grow faster than the ability to generate such improvements. The development of new software and the integration of different technologies are long and costly processes.
For this reason, one of the first responsibilities of the CIO is to ensure that there is capacity to cover the projects to be started and that the resources allocated have the necessary technical knowledge. Hence the importance of comprehensive resource planning.
Know when to say NO
As the demand for technical work will always exceed capacity, every CIO must know how to say no to ideas, requests, and requirements. For this, it is essential to have guidelines and policies that allow prioritizing and bringing the technology of the organization to its next state.
Likewise, strategic PMOs offer tools and tools for decision-making, which projects need to be started and which are not important enough to go from mere drafting. Sometimes the PMO even has sufficient authority to make such decisions.
Generate the right expectations
When internal policies and strategic plans communicate properly, different departments are more likely to know what to expect from their requests and what kinds of ideas are most likely to be included in the project portfolio.
Involve departments requesting change
Agile culture has demonstrated that the success of internal technology projects depends on the degree of commitment of the project sponsors. For technology strategy to match growth prospects, many CIOs make sure that each department is held responsible for the success of the ideas it proposes. In this way, unnecessary requests and ideas whose consequences have not been properly analyzed are avoided.
A PMO has very similar responsibilities, serving as a coordinating body so that all parties involved in the projects collaborate proactively, and offer more business context to project managers to understand the motivation behind each new requirement.
In short, both the CIO and the PMO have the functions of coordinating, monitoring, unifying, evaluating and selecting an organization's project portfolio. The fundamental difference between the two is that the PMO rests very closely on project management methodologies, while the CIO is more responsive to what the organization requires, its strategy and technological challenges. Both roles can be combined productively.
Moreover, responsibilities also come closer to the level of training, continuous learning and the transfer of knowledge. As both the CIO and the PMO have a cross-sectional dimension, routine, conformism and watertight compartments are their greatest enemies.
Benefits of addressing the work of the CIO from the PMO:
CIOs who choose to embrace the idea that they actually have a PMO, even if it is embryonic, can benefit from the following elements:
Adopt portfolio methodologies to monitor, evaluate and select projects
Have clear criteria to prioritize the work according to the value it brings to the business. An agile PMO can manage the backlog of requirements dynamically, adapting to the circumstances to maximize the value delivered to the client.
In addition, project governance represented by the PMO allows the CIO to leave the field of reactive work to defend the strategic importance of its profile, approaching the CTO. Although this gives another article, it is about imagining the future and moving towards a vision from the means that gives the domain of technology.
Of course, the relationship between the CIO and the PMO is variable. It may be a direct dependency, but there are also organizations where the CIO advises the PMO: By being the owner of the strategy and having a much more direct contact with customers and generating value, it can help PMO and Project managers are put in the place of the clients and make the project's own goal through empathy.
Objective: to enter the steering committee
According to a study by Russam GMS, only 2% of the steering committees have a CIO. And that despite the fact that it is a generalized aspiration of this profile with clear benefits when deciding the direction of a business adventure.
The isolation of the top representative of information systems from top management is another point of resemblance to PMOs: very few organizations admit the PMO director to the committee, considering everything that has to do with the direction of the PMOs. Projects at a lower level than the executive.
However, both the CIO and the PMO display their maximum organizational capacities when they have as their mission to design and maintain governance systems.
When project governance is incorporated into the steering committee, project performance is maximized and the contribution of projects to the organization's objectives.
When the CIO that joins the committee not only monitors technological governance, but is involved in project governance, the organization will be laying the foundations to achieve maximum strength as a digital actor. A real demon for the competition.
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ITM Platform has just launched a self-assessment tool aimed at any organization that may have doubts about their project governance.
Under the title "Do you have what it takes to run your PMO?", this self-assessment tool is aimed at companies that are considering starting a new Project Management Office, as well as companies that already have one, but they perceive difficulties in the definition of their functions.
The test analyzes the current situation of the organization in three axes: organization, talent and environmental conditions. By crossing maturity into these three factors, we identify the moment the organization is in and we can provide recommendations on how to move forward.
The origin of the project stems from the good reception of the e-book "PMO: Roadmap to define your own Project Management Office". Building on the comments received, the ITM Platform team identified the most critical areas that can block or accelerate project governance.
Sharing and improving knowledge of the sector
The test is launched with the intention of encouraging reflection within the organizations of the sector. For this reason, we encourage all participants to share the test with the rest of their organization so they can compare their results, discuss discrepancies, and delve into the motivations and challenges of project governance.
Participants' responses will be used in aggregate form to study the status of the project manager community and to continue our mission of democratizing project management.
[et_success_form_inline optin_id="optin_4"]
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A project management office (PMO) can fulfill multiple functions related to the supervision of an organization's project portfolio, often with managerial functions and with a strategic orientation that is added to the simple control and monitoring layer.
However, it is not clear what an agile PMO is or how it is structured. It is becoming increasingly urgent to clarify this aspect, since many teams and even entire organizations, especially in the field of software and application development, rely entirely on agile methodologies such as SCRUM.
Before entering into the matter, it is necessary to clarify three different senses of what can be understood by agile PMO.
Disambiguation: What do we mean by agile?
An agile PMO can refer to several situations, such as:
1. The agile implementation of a PMO
As the start-up process is long, complex and may have difficulties in demonstrating its benefits to stakeholders with a high capacity for influence, some experts advise that the start-up approach be agile and be protected from criticism towards a structure that it is not working 100% yet. In addition, it is possible that the difference stakeholders do not agree on what should be the role of the PMO in the organization, in which case their scrutiny on the development of the implementation will necessarily be uneven.
To combat this disadvantage, a PMO whose implementation is conceived as an agile project must deliver processes and functions useful for the operation of the PMO in a continuous and early manner.
The measure of the progress of the project, as is logical, is given by the functionality of the PMO itself.
An agile implementation is usually characterized by an initial diagnostic phase, followed by phases of planning, execution and closure that can be iterated several times until the PMO has the desired maturity.
However, in the first iteration of the execution, the PMO already assumes characteristics that allow it to operate in one or more of its functions.
2. The role of a PMO whose objectives is to manage the project portfolio following agile principles
It is not essential to have adopted SCRUM throughout the organization so that we are interested in benefiting from some of the advantages of agile principles at the corporate level.
For example, the agility applied to the entire portfolio of projects allows for early decisions and rectifies the initial planning of projects when the context that justifies them is modified.
3. The role of a PMO in an organization that has exclusively adopted agile project management methodologies
What happens when an organization that worked with classical methodologies or waterfall becomes guided by SCRUM or other agile methodologies?
What is the role of the PMO in this new situation? Is the mission aborted and the office deleted, or is it given a new meaning?
The cultural and change management role of the PMO can be fully maintained. In the new context, the PMO facilitates the deployment of the agile culture in the different areas of the organization.
The predominant areas are the following:
Training: includes training new people in agile methodologies, preparing meetings and workshops, deepening for key embers, as well as coaching services.
Work monitoring: although the agile philosophy is very horizontal and does not require so much external control, a PMO can support the performance of the teams helping them to manage the backlog, offering clarity in the performance of the teams through an impartial external vision, and helping to that the documentation that works in the organization is productive and does not produce unnecessary work.
Interlocution with the business: One of the fundamental aspects of the manifest agile is the constant efforts to understand the need of the client and guide the work to the delivery of utility. In internal projects, it is essential that there is a well-oiled transmission chain with those who administer the corporate strategy so that they know that the engineering teams are working on the most critical aspects and that they deliver the most value to the business.
Next, we detail better what the work of an agile PMO consists of in this last case.
The nuance is important, as our readers are well aware that managing agile projects involves ongoing guidance to customer requirements and very frequent evaluation cycles. The question is how the responsibilities of methodological guidance, centralization, control and direction of the PMO can be connected in these cyclical structures, maintaining customer orientation and business perspective.
The fundamental risk, let's face it, is to create a small bureaucratic monster that coagulates methodological demands without adding value.
Failures in the conception of a PMO
The main problem arises when, in order to achieve agile projects, an attempt has been made to establish rules of action that have merely pigeonholed and limited decision-making.
Despite falling under the range of agility, SCRUM requires the production of a lot of documentation with a very high frequency, including the requirements of user stories.
A recurring error when creating PMO in agile environments is utilizing them as centralized offices that impose internal policies and norms. Keep in mind that circumscription to certain standards at work can marry poorly with the completion of certain complex projects. There is the risk of restricting the freedom of action and the margin of manoeuvre that are fundamental to produce value in all sprints.
A PMO cannot be confused with merely a controlling body that seeks to fit agile projects into tactics, methodologies and master projects of the manager that have been preconceived without special attention to the changing nature of agile projects.
First correct interpretation of the agile PMO
In contrast to the centralized and bureaucratic PMO, the most attractive in an agile environment is the performance of a facilitation function.
This can be done by establishing recommendations to help manage the workload, distinguishing between priority and ancillary tasks, helping project managers determine how much they can rely on experts, and even set basic standards of performance and work ethics that are in line with the values and mission of the organization. So that all projects, besides providing value to the client, are oriented to the common benefit and growth and consolidation of the organization.
One difficulty of any multi-project organization is the barrier to sharing knowledge, both within the same project team and between different projects. In the first case, the difficulty is that the experience and specialization accumulated by the veterans is not limited to the tasks they perform - which would create bottlenecks; In the second, the difficult thing is that the experience in the development of a project is not forgotten with its completion, but rather to increase the experience accumulated by the organization.
An agile PMO, among other things, faces the specific knowledge challenges that hinder operational improvement in agile performance.
And one of the main goals of an agile PMO is to make all parts of the organization that take part in a project as a unit, as a team, and even as a team of teams. In this sense, it is important that whoever is going to coordinate the work of the PMO accredits the following virtues:
- Relationships. Good contact with leaders of other departments as well as people integrated into other projects.
- Trust. Openness in dealing with those who are going to influence the project is key to its success.
- Experience. Undoubtedly, having previously faced similar projects provides sufficient evidence to address future projects.
The goals of an PMO agile
Once we have analyzed some guidelines of an agile PMO , we are going to offer you the primordial purposes of these organs. Take note.
1. Manage new project entries
It makes no sense to approve projects above the delivery capacity of development teams. The PMO can function as the housekeeper to resist the temptation to start projects too soon. You have to wait to finish projects to start others of equal size.
2. Validation of the planning rules
The probability of unexpected and unnecessary changes must be reduced to the maximum, due to the overall understanding of the program.
3. Creation of training programs
Training is fundamental so that the knowledge of the equipment is truly complementary and there are no empty areas. The detection of gaps should be the basis for proposing training to members.
4. Limit waste
Only the PMO will have aggregated information on where time and effort is wasted. It is possible that different projects have similar patterns that point to the inefficiency of the processes. Drawing attention to them is the first step to rectifying them.
5. Delivery report
Reporting to consolidate an accredited view of the status of part of a project or its overall vision will facilitate the interpretation as to whether the affairs of the organization are being carried out in the most functional way. Without going further, conclusions that can be drawn from these reports may become important in the allocation of personnel for certain tasks or working schedules.
6. Business rules related to the benefits of the project
When making a commitment on a project, it is imperative to keep in mind that there are minimum results that have to be fulfilled. This duty also facilitates the adjustment to content that is compatible with existing quality projects. A uniformity that you do not have to understand as negative, but as an orientation towards excellence.
7. Validation of a resource plan
Every project requires a realistic allocation of resources. You have to keep in mind that the amount of resources of an organization will always be insufficient to delivering all the projects that can be generated, hence it is necessary to select, analyze conscientiously and not to precipitate. The allocation must be reasonable (it is fundamental to minimize the risks) and must be based on the fact that, in a final global calculation, the investment and achievement are compensated.
In short, we hope this text has helped you understand how an agile PMO has to works.
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ITM Platform is specifically designed to support multi-project organizations: our client base ranges from small consultants to large corporations, such as Grupo Lala, the first manufacturer of dairy products in Mexico, or Spire Healthcare, the second largest private healthcare provider in the United Kingdom.
Why do they choose us? They say that among all the tools that allow both planning and executing projects and managing portfolios, it is not easy to find solutions that are useful for both project managers and PMO directors at the same time in the same environment.
So when someone asks us if we can help them get their Project Management Office up and running, the answer comes as natural as the smile you give an old friend. In this article we discuss the main reasons why ITM Platform is a great ally to support the activities of a PMO.
1. Capture your organization
Any organization can reflect the structure of their teams in a very short time. Whether it's a functional organizational structure based on departments, a purely project-based structure, or a matrix-type intermediate structure, the first step for your organization to start managing your ITM Platform projects is to map which department, project or area of competence belongs to each member.
In fact, flexibility is achieved by combining two criteria:
Organizational units, comparable to traditional departments
Working groups, which allow cross-grouping. For example, you can create project teams that have a certain permanence character. These groups can also be used to bring experts together by competencies so that project and PMO managers can easily assign them to specialized tasks and groups.
Once you have reflected the departments and functional units, you can continue defining the details that will allow ITM Platform to control the costs and progress of your projects in real time:
Hourly rates: How much do your team members charge per hour? How much do external consultants charge? What is the overhead of a workgroup compared to a technician? By specifying the fees for each type of expert, ITM Platform allows you to reflect the actual costs of your projects with the desired level of detail.
2. Capture your processes
ITM Platform allows you to capture any methodology you are using in your organization for project management. Although the software is intended to capture the components, processes and groups recommended in standards such as PMBOK or Prince2, especially when it comes to project integration management, it is not necessary to strictly follow these manuals to properly manage the projects. The focus of the tool is to provide a flexible technological service that allows the capture of all relevant information and capture the process flows that exist in each organization.
3. Connect to your teams
ITM Platform empowers all project teams, from the highest level director to the young talented new arrivals.
Management: Those who are interested in seeing key metrics such as the degree of progress of the projects by each program, the level of risk exposure of the projects, or the composition of costs per manpower according to the provider can use the customizable scorecards and reports.
PMO portfolio managers, program managers and PMO directors
The people that connect the company's strategy to day-to-day project management are those that most directly benefit from the ITM Platform. Let us see some different aspects:
Shared resources
In situations with cross-cutting projects shared by experts and analysts from different functional areas or departments, it is common practice for one of the PMO director's main attributions to be to avoid conflicts when using shared resources: professionals in high demand due to them being very qualified and are irreplaceable in their specialty. Conflicts for shared resources are the cause of delay in 42% of large cross-sectional projects.To avoid such conflicts, ITM Platform allows you to immediately identify over-allocation of all resources in the organization.
Scenario projections
The ITM Platform methodological tools for defining business objectives and linking them to project execution scenarios are one of the aspects most valued by those who manage project programs.
Portfolio Evaluation
Aggregated project data allows you to carry out a continuous evaluation of your portfolio with the required periodicity. From the moment that your entire project team is using the same tool to plan and execute projects to carry out portfolio tracking, you can say goodbye to tedious periodic portfolio evaluations that stretch over months. It will be sufficient to extract data from ITM Platform to discuss with your team.
Project Managers
The possibility of combining predictive projects with agile methodologies allows different relationships to coexist between customers the development of products and results within a single unified portfolio based on shared financial management and resources.To top it off, project managers benefit from a user experience optimized for the integration of projects from menus that are always visible and easy to navigate.
Analysts and team members
Team members with no planning and control responsibilities should only enter the progress data of their tasks on the ITM Platform. For this, they have different auxiliary interfaces that save time and increase their productivity:
Mobile App on Android and MacOS. Report the time worked on a task. It is a fundamental support tool for those who are out and about or working remotely.
The ITM Platform teambot. The integration of ITM Platform with Slack is designed to aid personal productivity, as it allows each team member to track the tasks in which they are involved and report progress with simple commands such as “/itmplatform list tasks”
In addition, software development teams working with JIRA for issue management can connect these with their ITM Platform projects to manage their portfolio from their preferred environment.
4. Align project management and portfolio planning
Project management software can be divided into three broad sections: task managers and teams; project planners; and portfolio managers. Few tools can find the balance between these three areas. This is where ITM Platform stands out precisely because our obsession is to optimize the return of the projects from the first minute, with little to no barriers of entry.
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Many people are discovering that working from home is a great advantage, and companies are inclined to agree. Hiring a contractor over an employee, and using that employee to build a virtual team for projects, is advantageous in a number of ways:
Being a project manager can often feel like a circus performer juggling a dozen balls at one time. The only difference is you have to juggle those balls within a strict deadline and, hopefully, within your budget too.
ITM Platform has just launched a self-assessment tool aimed at any organization that may have doubts about their project governance.
A project management office (PMO) can fulfill multiple functions related to the supervision of an organization's project portfolio, often with managerial functions and with a strategic orientation that is added to the simple control and monitoring layer.
ITM Platform is specifically designed to support multi-project organizations: our client base ranges from small consultants to large corporations, such as Grupo Lala, the first manufacturer of dairy products in Mexico, or Spire Healthcare, the second largest private healthcare provider in the United Kingdom.