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204.0 Process Overview
PMOStep contains information to help establish a Project Management Office (PMO) and determine the products and services the PMO will offer. Once the PMO is established, there is a description of a holistic approach to deploy project management processes within an organization. The important services are then covered in greater detail. Templates are also provided within PMOStep to save a PMO time and effort. The general PMOStep Process is as follows:
Definition
The definition process is done first. There are many kinds of PMOs, so you must first go through a process to determine what type of PMO makes most sense for your organization. This section explains the process of determining the PMO mission, vision, clients, products, services, etc. This information provides the foundation for everything that the PMO subsequently does. This process gives you the information you need to know what you should be doing, who your clients are, what your products and services will be, etc. If you have an existing PMO, but are struggling, this would also be the place to revisit. Many times, a PMO will charge off with an aggressive idea of what they need to do, even though their clients and sponsors never validated the underlying assumptions.
Roles
A successful PMO relies on people who are performing in one or more roles. Roles are useful to ensure that members of the PMO understand what is expected of them. Roles also can ensure that all of the obligations and responsibilities of the PMO are covered. This keeps the PMO from the uncomfortable position of not knowing who is covering what areas. Roles help ensure that no PMO obligations are dropped and that multiple people are not unknowingly doing the same jobs. This section describes a number of roles within the PMO. A very large PMO could end up filling most or all of these roles, although certainly one person could serve more than one role. Smaller PMOs may not need to fill all of the roles.
Deployment
This section describes how you would go about deploying project management in an organization. The larger your organization, the more structured and rigorous your deployment approach needs to be. PMOStep assumes that you are implementing project management in a large organization with multiple departments or sites. If your deployment is less complex, you may be able to use less of this process or combine some activities to do multiple things as once. Getting your organization or company to become better project managers requires more than just training. You need to take into account many other areas to successfully upgrade project management skills. Whenever you change how people do their jobs, you will find some level of resistance. Therefore, you need to use techniques that facilitate organizational change management. This section contains a holistic approach to implementing project management methodology within an organization.
Reporting
One service that is typically associated with a PMO is common, roll-up reporting on the state of all the projects being executed within the organization at that time. This service might also extend to keeping metrics on historical projects so that you can track how successfully projects are being executed over time. In the same way, the PMO may be asked to track the backlog of projects that have not begun to provide your management stakeholders with a complete, portfolio-wide view of all active, pending and historical projects. It is possible, in fact, that the main purpose of your PMO might be to provide this type of consolidated reporting, although most PMOs have other responsibilities in addition to this.
Methodology Management
Methodology refers to the processes, procedures, templates, best practices, standards, guidelines, policies, etc. that you use to perform certain aspects of work. All of these "methods" that you use to manage projects become part of your project management methodology. The methodology provides the framework that your project managers use to manage the work. It must also be adaptable to meet the changing needs of the business, and it must add value to the projects that utilize it. In addition, as new technologies and methods emerge to better the project management process, the methodology should evolve to reflect those improvements.
Project management methodology should be viewed as a product. The processes, templates, training, etc. that make up the methodology are some of the specific deliverables that are produced as a part of this “product”. These deliverables and the product in general, need to be supported and improved over time.
Training
Training is one of the premiere services offered by PMOs. In fact, in many organizations, the primary role of the PMO is to offer project management training to the staff. However, there is a lot to consider when rolling out a training program. Like many of the services offered, training must be considered holistically, along with any other services that the PMO is offering. If you have the resources, and if your pool of project managers has the need, you will want to put classes together to create an overall curriculum. The curriculum can include internal classes, vendor classes, computer based training, etc.
Coaching
Coaching refers to working with individual project managers or project teams to transfer knowledge and teach new skills. This is usually done in-person, but can also occur over the phone or through emails. Coaching is different than training in that training implies a formal teacher-pupil relationship and the formal instruction of material. Coaching is less structured and usually involves talking through situations that affect the trainee and describing or demonstrating how project management processes and techniques can assist. In general, the coach should be a subject matter expert on project management and must be able to transfer his or her knowledge effectively to others.
Project Audits
The PMO is asked to perform the difficult job of changing the organizational culture regarding how to manage projects. This involves a holistic approach addressing people, process and technology considerations. Many of the services provided by the PMO, such as coaching and training, are designed to build capability and increase skill levels. Project audits are one way for the PMO to validate that the project teams are utilizing the appropriate project management processes. If a project manager chooses to take advantage of the audit results, the audit can be great opportunities for learning.
Repository
One of the value propositions for deploying common project management processes is the ability to reuse processes, procedures, templates, etc. This reuse also extends to the level of actually being able to reuse specific documentation from prior projects. However, the ability to reuse documentation does not come about by magic. If project managers want to see whether there might be pre-existing material that would help them, they are not going to be expected to contact every other project manager. To facilitate process and document reuse, the PMO needs to establish and manage a document repository.
Metrics Collection
The PMO must collect metrics that show how effective the PMO is at delivering services, and how well the organization is adopting the new processes. The PMO must also attempt to collect metrics that show how the organization is benefiting from the services of the PMO. If the PMO does not attempt to track and quantify some of these benefits, the organization will have no idea what value has been provided. In general, the metrics associated with project management value are also indirectly indicative of the value of the PMO. If the value of project management is unknown, then the value of the PMO will also likely be unknown. On the other hand, if the value of project management can be proven over time, then the value of the PMO (which is building project management capability) will also have been validated.
Organization Assessments
Despite the best-laid plans, it is not a given that new project management processes will become embedded in the organization. The people in the PMO have a lot of touchpoints with project managers and team members throughout the organization. They can use these touchpoints to gather feedback on how well the processes are being integrated. However, this is not going to provide a full picture of what is going on. The PMO should look at the organization on a periodic basis and perform an assessment as to how well the project management processes are becoming integrated into the work routine. These assessments are compared to the prior assessments to gain a sense for the progress made. This information is especially interesting to the sponsor and other management stakeholders who want to understand how the deployment is going.
Other Responsibilities
There are many other optional areas where the PMO can provide value. This section looks at a number of additional PMO services. These services can be initiated at any time during the deployment process, or they can be started once the initial deployment is complete and the PMO is in a more mature support role.
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