PERSONAL SKILLS INVENTORY

Transcription

1 1 PERSONAL SKILLS INVENTORY PPSO SIG Autumn Conference 2008 Lain Burgos-Lovece Serissa Ltd

2 TOWARDS A SKILLED PMO How can you maximise the talent of the people you have in your PMO? Alignment is the short answer Understand how your PMO adds value to your company Review the mission of your PMO, as offered when it was established Is that all there is to it? 2

3 START FROM WHERE YOU ARE 3 and how this session fits in

4 Now it s time to look at superpowers for your outfit. Which heroes would assist you best? Or even, which outfits, but that is another discussion. PMO SUPERHEROES If you are feeling slightly aggressive this morning, you could think of these items as the special weapons that suit your team. 4

5 HEROIC PMO STAFF PMO resource are drawn from the same pool as the rest of the business. To get the right skills deployed we must tap into their hidden talents. But not just any old hidden talent: those strengths they possess as people which are aligned with the mission of your business. 5

6 WHAT THIS SESSION WILL GIVE YOU: How to look at the problem the most important thing you ll take away. Some examples applicable to a generic PMO even though none of you are in a generic PMO. Some references: where to look for more, following your own specific needs and questions. 6

7 HOW TO LOOK AT THE PROBLEM 7 The problem being: getting the best fit of skills to mission.

8 If you look at your PMO as a painting, you need both broad brushes and fine brushes: whole people with a mix of skills and personalities a process of recruitment the flexibility of the people you have a process of coaching, and teamtuning. STRATEGIES FOR SKILLS ACQUISITION Make or Buy 8

9 People Process Tools Mission: types of services STEP 1: GROUP SERVICES BY KIND OF WORK A pragmatic method for a better personal skills inventory. Categorise the services that your PMO provides according to the dominant aspect of the work: People, Process or Tools 9

10 Talent for process Talent for tools Talent for people STEP 2: EXPRESS SKILLS AS WORK PREFERENCES A pragmatic method for a better personal skills inventory. Next, categorise the kinds of talents and strengths your people have, using the same headings: People, Process or Tools 10

11 Mission 3 * people services 5 * process services 2 * tools services Skills 40% * process skills 60% * tools skills STEP 3: OFFER AND DEMAND IN THE SAME TERMS A pragmatic method for a better personal skills inventory. Now begin an iterative process of finding a best match, and at the same time note the gaps and overlaps along the same categories: People, Process or Tools 11

12 Recruit new people to plug gaps, or maybe enhance the capability of existing team, or else optimise the distribution of jobs to match people Tailor services to capabilities, and if appropriate draw up a business plan of future growth based on expected benefits. STEP 4: TRADE OFFS AND FINE TUNINGS A pragmatic method for a better personal skills inventory. It is useful to remember that the range of options has more to do with the alignment of the mission of your business and less to do with the available PMO skill assets (resources). 12

13 Services required by the company s Mission Service A Service P People Process Service B Service Q Service C Service R Tools SUMMARY: A PRAGMATIC PROCESS To help the organisation deliver winning projects, your PMO must align its three dimensions in the best possible way: The human and operating environment - people; The business applications - process; The technology infrastructure - tools. Skills available as talents within PMO members, now or expected. People Process Tools 13

14 GENERIC SKILLS FOR GENERIC PMOS 14 Assuming you are aligned, with gaps identified in what direction do you set off?

15 Skills Inventory Description A passion for PM Independence An open and flexible mind - curiosity A sense of humour, a sense of perspective Attention to detail Strategic bent Essential for PMs within PMO, less so for others A Change environment is full of strong competing loyalties A permanent learner, nosey Sometimes they will face irrational peers Able to dig really deep and stay with it long The ability to put things in a larger context SOME PMO SKILLS WITH ASSUMPTIONS BUILT IN Let s use as a starting point personal qualities or talents that are as much as possible independent of domain knowledge. We are looking for the underlying character skills that enable the delivery of technical skills. 15

16 PROS They look at the PMO as a team and recognise the criticality of interaction between team members CONS There is a temptation to typecast team members, so that they may not be able to escape their labels GENERIC SKILLS EXPRESSED AS ROLES This way of looking at skills is another way of investigating whether your skills inventory is fit for purpose. Ref: Belbin Team Roles Ref: Margerison & McCann Team Management Profile Large body of benchmarking data May be costly to run diagnostics 16

17 After more than eighteen years of studying how the deeply embedded life interests of business professionals develop into career roles, we know that individuals do their best work when it most closely matches their underlying interests. Managers, therefore, can boost productivity by using their employees relational interests and skills to guide personnel choices, project assignments, and career development. FOCUSING ON INTERPERSONAL SKILLS Butler and Waldroop writing in the Harvard Business Review (2004) about the relational factor, refine those 20 year old concepts of Belbin et al 17

18 Influence Interpersonal Facilitation Relational Creativity Team Leadership Pleasure in persuasion Power through information Focus on others Keep colleagues engaged Images to arouse emotions Create group relationships Player-coach role Works through group FOCUSING ON INTERPERSONAL SKILLS Butler and Waldroop writing in the Harvard Business Review (2004) about the relational factor, refine those 20 year old concepts of Belbin et al 18

19 60% 40% 20% 0% -20% -40% -60% Performance Benefit Turnover Productivity Cust Satisfaction TEAMS IN THE FLOW The key question in the Gallup Poll and subsequent research that sits behind the Strengths approach. It drives almost all of the statistical variance, over other more obvious factors, when trying to ascertain why some teams are way better than others, even within the same company. At work, are you given the opportunity to do what you do best every day? 20% Those who strongly agreed belonged to teams that showed some amazing performance benefits 19

20 Chance of disengagement Strengths Weaknesses Ignore Gallup research has proven that the best way to develop people -- and net the greatest return on investment -- is to identify the ways in which they most naturally think, feel, and behave as unique individuals, then build upon those talents to create strength, the ability to provide consistent, nearperfect performance in a specific task. PLAYING TO YOUR STRENGTHS Tom Rath: findings published in the Gallup Management Journal, being interviewed about the StrengthsFinder tool. 20

21 According to Marsh, you need to take into account: Team size Logical vs., physical PMO Shared services model According to Vowler, the following are common P3O structures now: Centre of Excellence Portfolio Office Programme Office multiple programmes/projects Project Office / project support officers / coordinators All with variations Hub & Spoke / Central & Satellite Regional / Geographic focus Departmental or Strategic focus Virtual Offices WITHOUT FORGETTING ALIGNMENT! You must document what the mission of your PMO is, by referencing very closely what the mission of the organisation is. As far as the services you need to offer there is no one-size-fits-all. Yet, it is these services that constitute the success criteria for your PMO. 21

22 Group Individual Appreciative Inquiry: o Flows from solution identification towards Problem Solving o Focused on enlarging the Network People CM v2: o P4 Knowledge intense work can shift the focus from job elements to workforce competencies. o P5 Capability can be measured and improved at multiple levels. Including individuals, workgroups, workforce competencies, and the organisation. JOHARI Organisation NUDGING A PMO TO EXCELLENCE Once you have a suitable Personal Skills Inventory in the PMO, it is time to start nudging your outfit towards excellence. Not before. Again, this is a big topic that we won t cover in detail here. 22

23 ALIGNMENT, AGAIN 23 Diagnosing trouble

24 Alignment, one more time: Remember that you may already have the set of people with the perfect skills, but you will never know it without a clear mission and a path to the vision it outlines. Groupthink a landmark: You ve gone too far if your PMO suffers from it. Know how to spot the symptoms of the disease. George Orwell wise man: As I stand here giving you hard won fruits of experience, remember rule six LANDMARKS ON AN UNFAMILIAR ROAD One essential ingredient in giving good directions is to mention at least one landmark that means you ve gone too far. 24

25 SUMMARY Compare the business services that your organisation needs to the talents and inclinations of the people within the PMO. People / Process / Tools is a good common language. Make best use of the innate talents of your people. Fire them up! 25