building, marketing and measuring a value add project

1 Copyright ©. 2008-2013 TenStep, IncBuilding, Marketing and Measuring a Value-Add PMO

Building, Marketing and Measuring a Value Add Project Management Office


Introductions

Who Am I?

Who

Are you?

Why Are You Here?


Agenda

• Understanding PMOs

• Organizational Context of the PMO

• How Can the PMO Close the Gap?

• The PMO Roadmap

• The PMO Communication Plan

• Measuring the PMO


Section 1.Understanding PMOs


PMO Value Proposition

• Companies define goals/strategies to achieve a desired future state

• Projects move a company toward goals / strategies

• Project management enables projects to be more successful

• PMOs implement good project management practices and support projects


The Value of the PMO

• Helps project teams be more successful

– Develops and deploys common methodology

– Determines skill gaps and areas of training focus

– Accelerates adoption of project management

– Helps ensure compliance with PM standards

• Drives the culture change for project management

• Provides consolidated view of projects and status

• Measures project and project management value

• …..


Common Question

• How long does it take to build a PMO?

• What is the cost of a PMO?

• Two answers

– It depends

– At least twice as long as you think


Understand Your PMO

• There are a thousand PMO types

• Determine which one is best for your organization

• Actually there are more than a thousand. There are as many models as there are PMOs. If a company has multiple PMOs, they are all different.


PMO Maturity

• Type 4+

• Project managers for all projects

5Full Center of

Excellence

• Type3+

• Project managers for strategic projects

4Partial Center of

Excellence

• Type 2+

• Training, coaching

• Audits, deployment

3Services

• Type 1+

• Methodology, processes

• Common roles, repository

2Infrastructure

• Visibility to all projects

• Consolidated status

• Portfolio dashboard

1 Reporting


Exercise #1

• Show of hands

• What PMO model makes most sense for you?

• Define an alternative if the prior 1-5 scale is not right for you.


Section 2.Organization Context of the PMO


Secret of the Value-Add PMO

• We don’t ask “what should the PMO do?”

• We ask how can the PMO help the organization move to its desired future state

• This provides the grounding to ensure all of the work of the PMO is tied to organization value


Current State Assessment

• Look at the aspects of your organization where your PMO will have influence

• There will be different versions of the current state

• Need to draw consensus from different viewpoints

• You can assess using OPM3, aPRO, etc. For most organizations, a ½ day current state workshop is fine.

• Most organizations balk at a formal assessment to find out what they already know – they stink at project management.


Potential Categories (skim)

• Mission

• Vision

• Goals

• Strategy

• Objectives

• Culture

• Principles

• Governance


Potential Categories (skim)

• History

• Clients / customers

• Suppliers

• Stakeholders

• Project definition

• Portfolios

• Products and services

• Business processes

• Methodology

• Communication

• Repository

• Other initiatives

• Staff

• Locations

• Organization

• Tools


Future State Vision

• Set a vision for what your organization should look like in one to two years

– How will you look to outside entities?

– What will your processes look like?

– How will you work differently?

• Reinforce and amplify the things you are doing right

• Strengthen areas where you are weak

• Correct the things you are doing wrong


Gap Analysis

• The gap is most important (not the future state)

• The gap is where the work is

• Evaluate each aspect

– Rate in terms of small, medium or large gap

– Rate in terms of high, medium or low priority


Exercise #2

• List the obvious project-related gaps in your organization

• Prioritize the top three gaps that appear to be the most important to close


Section 3. How Can the PMO Close the Gap?


Checkpoint

• We have discussed the current state of the organization in areas relevant to the PMO

• We have discussed what the future looks like

• We have determined the relative size of the gap between current state and future state

• We have an organization, the PMO, to help close the gap and move us toward our future state

• Now … let’s determine how the PMO can be most effective


Products and Services

• Products

– Tangible items produced by projects

– Deliverables

• Services

– Providing value through personal interaction


Potential Products and Services

• Project inventory

• Consolidated reporting

• Methodology management

• Training / coaching

• Project audits / assessments

• End of project reviews

• Repository management

• Organization assessments

• Governance models

• Portfolio management


Potential Products and Services

• Roles and responsibilities

• Project management certification

• Project management tools

• Project lifecycle processes

• Hands-on project management

• PMO management

• … more

• Reviewing a list of potential services helps ensure all value-add services are covered. The service may point out a gap that was not caught the first time.


Exercise #3

• Review top three organization gaps

• Discuss the PMO products/services to close the gaps

• Use an 18 month horizon


Section 4.The PMO Roadmap


Four Passes Through the Work

• Estimate relative size

• Estimate relative priority

• Estimate effort hours

• Map work onto a timeline


Estimate Relative Size

• Estimate the work as small, medium or large

• Need a few estimates to agree on relative scale

• Everyone contributes ideas

– Could use facilitation voting techniques

• Don’t need about hours yet, but could set overall scale if necessary


Estimate Relative Priority

• Estimate the priority as low, medium, high

• Need a few estimates to agree on relative scale

• Everyone contributes to the consensus

– Could use facilitation voting techniques

• Don’t worry about timeframes yet

• Generally higher priority work is done first

– Pending dependencies


Estimate Effort Hours

• High level chunks of work

– 40, 80, 120, 160…

• Use relative size for guidance on effort

• Estimate small work first, then medium, then large

• Change relative size if hours don’t agree

• Could estimate effort to build, and ongoing effort to support


Map Work to a Timeline

• Use relative priority as a starting point

• Estimate work on a quarter-to-quarter basis

– Looking for Roadmap – not detailed schedule

• Start with high, then medium, then low

• Use effort hours to determine duration

– 80 hours effort, start in Q1, end in Q1

– 400 hours effort, start in Q1 end in Q2


PMO Roadmap Example

# Product / ServiceEffort Hrs * Start End

Ongoing FTEs Comments / Work Involved

Q2 2013

1 Time Reporting 100 Q2, 2013 Q2, 2013

Discovery Project only. Determine options and implications. Time reporting is needed to enable a number of other needs, including project manager accountability for budget.

2Portfolio Management – Business Planning 100 Q2, 2013 Q2, 2013 .10

Need to try to get something in place for this years capital budget process

3 Project Inventory 50 Q2, 2013 Q2, 2013 .05 Determine all active projects now and ongoing

4 Methodology Management 500 Q2, 2013 Q3, 2013 .10Develop (buy) methodology, customize, enhance and support

5 Repository 300 Q2, 2013 Q3, 2013 .20 Design and build repository, folder/file model

Q3 2013

6 Partner (Vendor) Management 100 Q3, 2013 Q3, 2013The ongoing work will be a part of methodology and training/coaching

7Portfolio Management –Management of the Portfolio 750 Q3, 2013 Q1, 2014 .25

Permanent solution to provide robust portfolio management

8Roles and Responsibilities, Skills, Career Path 100 Q3, 2013 Q3, 2013 .05 Project management and team roles

9 Training / Coaching 350 Q3, 2013 Q4, 2013 .50Train and coach project managers, project teams, clients, sponsors, managers, etc.


PMO Staffing Model

• It is hard to actually free up the resources to do the work

Work Q2 2013

Q32013

Q42013

Q12014

Project Inventory .1 (B) .05 .05 .05

Methodology .5 (B) .5 (B) .1 .1

Repository .3 (B) .3 (B) .1 .1

Portfolio Management- Planning- Ongoing management of portfolio

.2 (B) .1.5 (B)

.1

.5 (B).1.5 (B)

Time Reporting (Discovery Project only)

.2

Partner Management .2 (B)

Training / Coaching .35 (B) .35 (B) .5

Roles

.2 (B) .05 .05

….more … 1.05 (B)

.80

PMO management .10 .10 .10 .10

Hands-on project management – implications and timing unknown

Total headcount 1.4 2.3 2.4 2.35


Make Sure Roadmap Makes Sense

• Does work complete in your deployment window?

• Can you afford the resource commitment?

• Can the organization absorb change at this pace?

• Accelerate, delay or cancel work to get resource commitments to a level company can staff


Present PMO Plan to Sponsor

• Gain approval or modify

• Provides chance for buy-in from executive team

• Gain approval for budget and resources required

• Set expectations for PMO value and timeframes

• It helps if the sponsor is in the workshop. You have immediate buy-in for the results.


Execute the Roadmap

• Execute the plan as one or more projects

• Model good project management practices

– If the PMO does not follow processes no one else will

• Communicate proactively

• Maintain focus on providing value

• The enthusiasm of the workshop fades quickly under the grind of day-to-day work. It can be hard to get started. Many times the work has not started even months later.


Section 5.The PMO Communication Plan


Communicate Early and Often

• Communicate, communicate, communicate

• Proactive communication can help change culture

• Get out front with a value proposition

• Deal with any skepticism early

• Get people used to seeing your name


Set up Communications Plan

• Review stakeholder groups

• Determine communication needs

– What information do they need?

– How will you provide it?

– What medium?

– How often?

– Who will do it?

• In a larger PMO, this could be a substantial part of a person’s job


Communication Types

• Compliance

– Mandatory, “push”

• Informational

– General information, how-to, “pull”

• Marketing

– Sell, “push”

– Branding


First Phase of Communication

• You don’t have accomplishments – focus on awareness building

– Explain purpose of PMO and how it will impact people

– Perhaps separate messages for staff and managers

– Lunch and learns, staff meetings, intro emails

• Get your brand out

– Logo, pins, pens

• Establish website

• Ask for input from the staff to get more buy-in


Second Phase of Communication

• “Quick hitter” projects

– Provide value as soon as possible

• Communicate and make a big deal out of early wins

• Solicit and distribute testimonials

• Communicate about harder work ahead

• Ask for more input

• Communicate accomplishments so far

– Problems solved

– People trained

– Charters written


Third Phase of Communication

• Continue marketing message, but not as frequent

• Find reasons for positive communication

– Celebrations

– Now content

– Good class feedback

• Start to mix in long-term statistics

– Total number of staff trained

– Number of project managers adopting good processes

– Disasters avoided

– Projects cancelled


The Holy Grail

• Provide and report evidence of PMO value


The Key to Successful Marketing

• YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO DELIVER VALUE!

• What is the PMO doing and what value does it bring?

– Consolidated reporting

– Methodology management

– Training / coaching

– Project Quickstarts

– End of project reviews

– Governance model

– Organization assessments

– ….


Focus on Providing Value

• Focus on external value to the organization

– Not internal PMO-focused value

• Validate that each product/service is providing value

– Communicate the value provided

• Write value-added status updates

• Seek performance feedback to ensure you are meeting expectations

• Be evangelists about the PMO and the value provided


Activity vs. Value

• We trained 25 project managers

• We built 31 templates

• We have successfully deployed common project management processes

• We talked with four executive managers about project management

• Project managers rank their confidence level 4.2 out of 5.0

• Project managers report they have the tools they need to do their jobs

• We are completing 75% of projects within expectations vs. 55% one year ago

• We cancelled three projects that no longer made business sense


Common Problems

• Staffing the PMO with poor communicators

• PMO does not know what they are doing

• PMO does not believe they are providing value

• People are talking … about what a poor job the PMO is going

• PMO is doing great things but no one knows

• PMO communicates accomplishments but not value

• The sponsor cannot articulate the value of the PMO to peers and executives


Exercise #4

• Define three ways the PMO provides value

• Describe how to express and communicate the value to stakeholders


Section 6. Measuring the PMO


Why Do We Measure?

• Process improvement

– Improved performance today

– Improved performance in the future

• Declaring success

– Validate we achieved success criteria


Measuring PMO Value

• PMO must provide value or be eliminated

• Many PMOs struggle trying to show this value

– Many simply don’t provide much value

– Many do provide value but can’t articulate it

• Use a PMO Scorecard to focus on the right things and measure success


The PMO Scorecard

• Define holistic (balanced) PMO success criteria

• Describe agreed upon criteria for success

• Complete early in year

• Receive PMO sponsor approval

• Provide incentive and focus for PMO success


Validate Goals and Strategies

• Look at organization where the PMO is located, or higher

• Validates direction and priorities

• If they don’t exist go to next step


Determine Criteria for Success

• Required, what it means to be successful

• No reason to measure if not tied to success criteria

• Focus on value – not activity

• Example

– All staff members will have an understanding of project management fundamentals


Find Indicators for Success Criteria

• Take success criteria one at a time

• Determine how to measure success

– May well be multiple measures

• Convert indicators to underlying metrics

• Look for many ideas and angles

– Be creative

– Hard metrics, soft metrics

• Example

– Standard quiz on project management fundamentals


Prioritize Indicators / Metrics

• Remove low value indicators

• Remove high effort indicators

• Pick the minimum number of indicators and metrics that provide the most insight into PMO success


Look for a Balance

• Look for balance to show holistic view of success

• Think of new metrics if the balance not there

• Examples

– Cost

– Duration

– Productivity

– Quality of deliverables

– Customer satisfaction

– Project team performance

– Business value delivered


Set Targets

• Some are easily determined (budget / deadline)

• Some are set as improvements from initial baseline

• Determine tolerances (+ / -)

• Define if success is all or nothing / partial success

• Example

– 90% of staff must take simple 10 question exam

– 90% of returned exams score 7 out of 10 or higher


Add Collection Details

• Plan for the collection process

– Determine the specific data needed for the metrics

– Determine who is responsible for collecting the metric

• Example

– The simple quiz will be delivered at the end of each project management overview class

– The PMO will collect and consolidate the results


Add Reporting/Analysis Details

• Determine how data will be reported

• Determine if any analysis and process improvement is needed

• Example

– PMO will analyze the quiz results to see if any changes are needed to the class content

– PMO will report overall results in Q3 and Q4 status reports and dashboard


Scorecard Example Part 1


Scorecard Example Part 2


Exercise #5

• Define three PMO success criteria

• How might you measure success?


Final Questions?

building, marketing and measuring a value add project

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