Project management office - ITM Platform | Projects Programs Portfolio

This article is part of a series on the PMBOK areas of knowledge. You can read the previous articles here:

The last area of knowledge of the PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge) covers the best practices to manage the relationship with stakeholders.

Specifically, this area of knowledge focuses on identifying people, groups or organizations that may affect or may be affected by the project and analyze their expectations and its impact on the plan.

Manage project stakeholders in a collaborative environment

It is essential to keep in mind that clients too are stakeholders, as their satisfaction is crucial to the success of a project. This means that projects could re-start from 0 if the client’ expectations are not taken into account early enough.
This problem was so frequent in software development that led to the development of agile methodologies, which seek a fluid communication with customers.

Advice for Stakeholders Management

1. Identify the parties or public interested in the project

In this phase of project management, it is important to focus on identifying the stakeholder from the very beginning, since this will allow us to obtain an overview of the stakeholders map and the problems that some actors may pose at a later moment.

2. Make sure that all interested parties agree and know their roles or responsibilities

Before starting the development of a project, it is essential that all the actors involved know the rules and assume the commitment and responsibility expected of their functions. From the beginning, we will identify team leaders, work teams, and their roles.
Good pre-planning facilitates a smooth development and helps to avoid conflicts in the future. If everyone agrees with the requirements and objectives, he or she will work to keep pace with the events and avoid delays; delays that only will be translated into extra costs and unwanted results.
On the other hand, rules must also ensure fluid communication with customers, so that they have sufficient information to evaluate the project development and express their point of view. If necessary, the circumstances under which a client’s opinions may involve changes in the project can be agreed upon.

3. Get consensus on the application of changes to the project

Changes in a project are inevitable since contingencies always arise that require the modification of some criteria or change in scope. The more complex a plan is, the more susceptible it is of being changed during its development. Therefore, it is important that all participants agree on how to handle the changes.

4. Favor communication

Establishing communication guidelines at the beginning of the project will improve the flow of the same. The team will be able to determine, since the beginning, the frequency of the communication and its content, that should preferably be concise and focused on the progress or issues that affect the project.

5. Give permanent visibility to the project teams

Transparency is a fundamental virtue in all project communication. It does not make sense for a project manager to have secrets.

It is important to define and communicate the vision of the project early on, as teams become more involved and the risk of losing focus on the project is mitigated. This way you make sure that any decision is coherent with the vision and objectives of the project. This point is very important because it helps reduce risks, errors or loss of focus.

6. Involve interested parties in the entire process

Although we assigned functions and teams from the very beginning, interested parties (stakeholders) should be always involved, so that they can participate in the problem solving or the revision of the requirements.

7. Reach an agreement with what has been done

In order to avoid entering a circle of changes and stagnation that could jeopardize the development of the project, it is important to reach agreements on the work done.
In an organization that manages strategic projects and internal transformation, Stakeholders Management goes beyond the project closure, since its delivery enables capacities that could benefit other levels of the organization. Otherwise, the value delivered is not internalized and won’t become a competitive advantage sustainable over time. This approach has been called Benefits Realization Management (BRM) or Benefit Management.

8. Empathize with the other interested parties

All project participants are stakeholders, but the stakeholder map also includes parties that do not actively participate in the development of the project. You should take them into account and empathize with them as the capacity for empathy is a crucial skill for the success or failure of a project.
The analysis of a project should not be limited to the interests and influence of stakeholders but should include how to identify their objectives, circumstances and the way they perceive the project.
Empathic analysis helps us to discover hidden variables that show us the way to solve problems or overcome obstacles that we may encounter.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

Corporate PMO = EPMO

Corporate PMOs are also generally known as Enterprise PMOs or EPMOs. The term has been strengthened over time because it is understood that there are features common to all corporations, regardless of the nature of their products and services, which directly affect the challenges and attributions that the project office should assume.

An EPMO reports directly to one of the highest executives in the organization. Very often, there are other PMOs of lower rank, for example for the coordination of programs or a business unit; but none has the global reach of EPMO.

It has often been said that EPMOs are the most important instrument to ensure that the corporate strategy is truly executed in all areas of the organization. The EPMO would be, then, a catalyst, an engine oriented to promote the constant transformation in an environment whose natural inertia would lead, otherwise, to immobility.

Deploy your corporate PMO with ITM Platform. Request a personalized demonstration.

Responsibilities: start by deciding just initiatives

Every action has associated an opportunity cost. Even when it is clear what is being done, it is clear that many other possible actions are being discarded.

When, in addition, you work in a huge organization, the lack of alignment of the departments to the corporate strategy results in a very voluminous waste of energy.

For that reason, the EPMO approach is twofold:

make sure that the right initiatives are started (doing the right things)
make sure that they are managed properly (doing things right)

It is, therefore, a constant monitoring of the strategic alignment for all the work planned and underway.

Other responsibilities include, of course, traditional areas of the PMOs, such as training and counseling (of the other PMOs); value management, which is easy to lose sight of in highly complex environments; resource planning; Demand management or coordination among PMOs.

You can discover more in the White Paper: Project-Based Management (PBM)

Benefits of an EPMO

The benefits of an EPMO are similar to that of a smaller PMO, but with strategic orientation. The big difference is that the EPMO has the necessary governance structures to navigate and master the bureaucratic complexity and processes that can often become the biggest enemy of change in a corporate organization (from 5,000 employees).

In any case, it is worth reviewing those benefits:

Increase in the number of projects delivered on time and in time
Better strategic alignment between projects and business objectives
Greater support for departmental projects, and with this, greater chances of success for the project, which can gather the required support at critical moments
Less overlap of work between department
Greater interdepartmental collaboration
Greater visibility of corporate initiatives
Higher ROI for the projects implemented, especially in non-financial terms
More efficient delivery of projects –and faster to put new products and services on the market
A better structured approach to the treatment of risks, including risk mitigation

Success factors of an EPMO

Organic location, immediately below the General Management
Change management according to good practices, so that the new EPMO is not perceived as a rival of the existing PMOs and projects managers
Complementation of the managerial function: support in the decision-making, without robbing autonomy or generating political problems
Autonomy with respect to functional areas, so that it does not depend on IT, Financial, Human Resources, etc.
All subordinated PMOs must report, either directly or indirectly, to the EPMO. Otherwise, pockets of information are created that do not flow
The competence profile should combine project management with the business vision: those who are part of the EPMO will advise managers in making critical decisions and train project managers to continue advancing as professionals
No EPMO can work reasonably well if a high degree of standardization is not achieved.

References:

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

An IT PMO has control over all the IT projects of an organization. Its focus, therefore, is oriented to everything related to technological architecture, development, and systems.

In addition, it also necessarily focuses on ongoing activities and internal services, not just on projects. The clearest example is the maintenance and operations related to technical services that support the work of the organization. The projects that result from this maintenance are the constant improvements that must be made so that the systems are up to the demands of the users.

In that way, although the responsibilities are similar, the focus of an IT PMO changes, being protected from the CIO initiatives.

Technology selection
Calendar marked by IT (development, operations, and architecture)
Definition of architecture
Technology design
Building technological solutions: hardware selection, development, system integration, testing

To support the work of an IT PMO, it is essential to have a simple, robust and easy-to-use PPM tool, such as ITM Platform.

Boost your IT PMO with ITM Platform. Start free for 14 days

Why does a CIO want an IT PMO?

The IT PMO is an independent department that deals with technical and non-political criteria, able to coordinate work and manage the relationship with customers.

In highly technological environments, one of the advantages of a PMO is that it is responsible for facilitating the human aspect, serving as internal diplomats that facilitate understanding among engineers, whose arguments are not up to everyone, the management layers, and the external customers. In this “diplomacy” are integrated responsibilities as strong as the management of calendars and expectations, the prioritization of efforts or the creation of a rational framework for the delivery of projects.

On the other hand, for the CIO, the IT PMO becomes a fundamental instrument for the management of complexity. Through its mission of control, the IT PMO centralizes information, digests it and offers it in formats that make it as easy as possible to make business decisions aimed at making the services of the corporation as efficient as possible.

Some differences with a business PMO

While a business PMO tends to control only projects of strategic importance, usually grouped into programs, the IT PMO has as one of its fundamental missions to control the demand, filter it and prioritize it. For this reason, all work that can be managed as a project belongs to it –it does not matter if it is only a small adjustment or a minor impact: if it belongs to IT, it will be controlled by the IT PMO.

The reason is that there may be hundreds or even thousands of projects of these dimensions, which means that this must also be prioritized.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

Project based management is a widely spread practice in the business world because of its effectiveness in generating competitive advantages. However, it cannot be effective without the support of a strategic project management office (PMO) that actively helps define corporate strategy.

Unfortunately, project management is not applicable in the same way in every organization because companies do not all share the same processes, functions or need for oversight (what we call "maturity" in project management).

Take your PMO to the next level of maturity with ITM Platform, try for free now.

For this reason, we distinguish between different levels of maturity according to the workings of the project office, from the most basic to the true strategic PMO:

Low maturity of a strategic PMO: Inventory and control

In corporate environments it is essential to make an inventory of all the initiatives that are under way. That is the mission of a PMO of low maturity: to gather and consolidate information about all the projects and other relevant activities to report where resources are being invested.

Medium maturity of a strategic PMO: coordination

The next step for a PMO is to have the ability to forecast problems and, consequently, to tackle them. This function is common when the PMO coordinates the resource allocation. For example, during periods when there is a high volume of work, it is the PMO that should be aware that projects are accumulating and identify bottlenecks.

A PMO of medium maturity aims to improve the efficiency of the organization, recognizing possible conflicts in the planning process and proposing solutions.

High maturity of a strategic PMO: strategy and business

The highest maturity of a PMO is achieved through a fit with the corporate structure that makes it the right hand of the Board of Directors. This fit implies a governance model where strict methodologies are followed while the most important practical decisions are taken, precisely, based on the information that the PMO offers.

In these cases, the project office becomes a key element for the corporate strategy to become a reality.

Strategic questions for a high maturity PMO

A strategic PMO should be considered as an internal service that offers practical information, answering questions like:

What is the status of the project portfolio?
Are resources scarce? Does this shortage affect cashflow?
Are we executing projects that are no longer worthwhile?
Which proposals or ideas will improve the current portfolio?
What kind of new processes can be implemented as a result of the experience acquired from past projects?

However, this approach does not allow a PMO to fully develop its potential. Strategic PMOs have a proactive spirit: they collaborate with the management in strategy development and manage all project-based work.

While PMOs should be empowered, at the same time they should leave the most important decisions to management. For example, if a protocol is put in place requiring the cancelation of projects with a budget greater than a certain amount (for example, € 500,000), it makes sense to warn directors beforehand allowing them to authorize or indeed veto the final decision.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

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.

Reference: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/agile-project-management-office-expectations-7069

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.

Save time and money by connecting your agile projects to a comprehensive overview of all your costs and resources.

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.