The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down

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1 The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down By William D Dow, PMP, ITIL, CSM, SA, PMPO 1

2 Copyright The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down 2017 William Dow, PMP Dow Publishing LLC 1210 N 42nd Place Renton, WA All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission from the author. ISBN Printed in the United States of America All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. PMI: Always provide an attribution statement when using PMI marks. Registered Marks. Registered marks are marks that are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. If the PMI List of Marks indicates that the mark is registered, the attribution statement should include the word registered, as follows: PMI, PMP, PgMP, ACP, PfMP, PMI-PBA are registered of Project Management Institute, Inc. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), Project Management Institute, Inc., Copyright and all rights reserved. Material from this publication has been reproduced with the permission of PMI. PMBOK is a registered mark of Project Management Institute, Inc. The Standard for Program Management Third Edition Copyright and all rights reserved. Material from this publication has been reproduced with the permission of PMI. 2

3 Chapter 15 Getting Your PMO Up and Running Review Questions 1. What role does the PMO model play in running your PMO on a day-to-day basis? 2. What two reports should you set up immediately for executives? 3. Are the PMO reports needed for a PMO manager different from the reports needed for executives? 4. What two major components drive the work you do in running your PMO? 5. How important are PMO mentoring programs and buddy systems? Well, you did it. You implemented or updated your first PMO. Now it s time to get it up and running. Don t worry! Running your PMO is much easier than you might expect. This chapter covers some of the highlevel aspects of running your PMO; future chapters go into much more detail about running your PMO on a day-to-day basis. Note This chapter assumes you have already built the major components of your PMO, as discussed in Part II, Building a PMO. If you haven t, some of the areas I cover here will not make sense. I urge you to go back through that part to get yourself up to speed. Most PMOs run on some pretty standard foundational tasks. These tasks are as follows: Generating executive reports PMO reporting Conducting day-to-day operations Managing PMO resources That is it! Just these four main tasks. It may seem like there s not much to these tasks, but as we unpack them, you will soon see otherwise. Indeed, performing these tasks is a full-time job for most PMO managers. 3

4 In addition to these four main tasks, you can also consider any areas from the build phase that might need more attention. Often, when you are first building or enhancing your PMO, you are so focused on getting things done, you may not always do the best job doing them. Now that things have calmed down a bit, you can go back and bolster those areas. 4

5 Generating Executive Reports Generating executive reports is one of the most challenging aspects of running a PMO. You cannot approach this task lightly. It will be ongoing, and very demanding. The reports you generate for your executives will be different depending on what PMO model you selected. Assuming you have a directive or controlling PMO, these reports will likely include the following: PMO dashboards Milestone reports Resource allocation reports Budget reports Scorecards This is just a sampling of reports that an executive could require. Some executives will ask for more reports than others. That s their prerogative. I suggest you embrace it. Be proactive on these asks. Produce these reports, and put them in front of the executive for review and approval. Tip To keep reports current, store them on a shared drive or SharePoint site, and enlist your program and project managers to update them weekly. It is also a best practice to report out on this information weekly. That way, if there is a project that needs executive support, the most you wait is five days. PMO Dashboards Figure 15.1 shows a sample PMO dashboard. It offers a great overview of how projects are executing across the PMO. Your executives will be able to see at a glance how programs and projects are tracking, and can focus on where they can provide support. 5

6 Figure 15.1: PMO dashboard (including iron triangle) This report appears in black and because this book is in black and white. If it were in color, the cells would be shaded in red, yellow, and green with the words red, yellow, and green contained in the cells. Having the words in the cell, help people that are color blind and often missed when creating these dashboards. Tip You should use color in your reports whenever possible. Executives will value a colored dashboard much more than a black-and-white version. I love two things about this dashboard. First, it s easy to keep current and maintain. Second, it quickly conveys a tremendous amount of information. Whether the person looking at the report is an executive or a PMO member, they can focus in on problem projects with nothing more than a quick glance. Another significant aspect of this report is that it gives you a good view of the iron-triangle items (schedule, scope, and cost). A great way to modify this report would be to add the business-success metrics as well, as shown in Figure When you adopt the balanced-pmo concept, this becomes a valuable report for your PMO. (Again, this report is in grayscale for the purposes of this book. Your report should include colored cells and the text containing the name of each color.) 6

7 Figure 15.2: PMO dashboard (balanced PMO) Note Chapter 7, PMO Maturity Model (including The Balanced PMO), discussed the iron triangle and business-success metrics. The more you and your program and project managers focus on these metrics, the more valuable your PMO will be to your company. Bill s Thoughts Make sure you understand the concepts covered in Chapter 7. These are industry-leading ideas for PMO managers. Implementing them will connect your PMO to the broader organization like nothing else. PMO managers must continually look to provide value to their companies, and implementing these concepts is a great starting point. Look how valuable this report is for your PMO! Figure 15.2 for example, the PMO dashboard would be even more valuable report, you could mix this one with your project trade-off matrix and your PMO maturity model. The bottom line: PMO dashboards are extremely useful, and you can implement them in your PMO today. Grab the templates on and get to work! Milestone Reports A PMO that focuses on program and project delivery should generate milestone reports. Figure 15.3 shows an example of one such report. In this report, various bars represent the stage of the project. (Again, this report is in grayscale for the purposes of this book. You d want your report to incorporate color.) 7

8 Figure 15.3: PMO milestone report The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down As you can see, at a single glance, this report conveys exactly where each of your projects is in its lifecycle. This is useful if a project is in trouble. When that happens, executives often ask where the project is in its lifecycle, and a report like this gives them the answer they need immediately. Tip Providing good-looking high-level reports like this one shows your executives that you are on top of your PMO and understand what is going on. As PMO manager, that is the level of confidence you want to instill in your leaders! The report in Figure 15.3 reflects a typical software-development process (waterfall). However, this same report could be modified to represent sprints if your PMO uses an Agile development method. Many PMOs, especially in IT, have switched to this methodology. Figure 15.4 shows a version of the same report, adapted for the Agile environment. It shows, at a glance, how each of the projects are tracking across their respective sprints, and includes very little status information. Figure 15.4: PMO sprint progress report 8

9 Note Don t overrun the Notes column with a ton of information. It clutters up your report, and your executives aren t going to read it anyway. If a project is red, and of interest to an executive, he or she is going to study other reports and converse with the project manager to find out why. Executives won t use this report as their single source of information. Bill s Thoughts Don t underestimate how important an at-a-glance view like this is to your executives. This view is particularly useful for executives who have little time or energy to spend looking at these reports. I have created these kinds of reports for years, and strongly suggest you do so as well. Resource-Allocation Reports As we all know, company resources represent a significant cost. Not surprisingly, executives are going to want to get a handle on who is doing what in their organization. They like to know that these resources are fully utilized, that they re are effective, and that you are getting what you need out of them. A resource-allocation report, like the one shown in Figure 15.5, conveys this information. This report also enables the PMO manager to ensure resources are load-balanced. Figure 15.5: PMO resource report Tip PMO managers should create and maintain this kind of report for all resources across each project to keep track of resource allocations. Budget Reports Budget reporting will vary greatly from PMO to PMO depending on the financial process of your company. In some cases, PMO managers will have complete control over their budget so will be put in a position of reporting budget on a week, bi-weekly or monthly basis. In other cases, PMO managers will have no control over budget and therefore would not be responsible for creating budget reports. If you do have budget responsibility, look for the following types of budget report asks from your executive or leadership teams: PMO Program and Project Spending PMO Employee Spending PMO Vendor Spending PMO Software and Maintenance contract spending 9

10 Again, this list could vary greatly depending on the PMO Model, the responsibilities of the PMO manager around budget and other enterprise environment factors. Scorecards Scorecard reporting is another area that will vary widely from PMO to PMO based on some of the following factors: PMO Model PMO Tools PMO Processes and Maturity PMO Executive and Leadership expectations However, if the PMO is mature enough and has automated software that can generate scorecards automatically, and based on the functionality available in the tool, the following scorecards are typical for most PMOs: Program and Project Scorecards Budget Scorecards PMO KPI Scorecards The Effect of the PMO Model on Reports Earlier, I mentioned that different PMO models necessitate different types of executive reports. As noted, the reports we covered so far were for PMO models that focus on program and/or project delivery, such as directive and controlling PMOs. If, however, you have a supportive PMO, where program and/or project execution does not play a major role, you d likely create executive reports with this type of information: Number of trainings accomplished (month/month) Number of certifications achieved Number of best practices created and implemented Figure 15.6 shows a PMO dashboard for a supportive PMO, tracking this information. Notice that it contains no program or project status information. The focus of this dashboard is on how the PMO is driving value in the organization. (There are several variations of this report available.) 10

11 Figure 15.6: PMO dashboard (supportive PMO) Most executives will value these reports from a supportive PMO, as they will be looking to assess whether the PMO is improving the organization. As PMO manager, you should generate these kinds of reports as soon as possible within your PMO. 11

12 PMO Reporting The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down In addition to enabling you to keep executives apprised of the goings-on in your PMO, PMO executive reports also help you, the PMO manager, run your organization. However, these executive reports aren t the only reports you will need. One additional report that s outside the scope of most executive reports is the PMO dependency-tracker report. Figure 15.7 shows an example. It contains two different projects, their dependency type, details about the dependencies, etc. What I love about this report is the clarity it provides on specific dependencies. Although the work around these dependencies happens at the project level, by the project managers, I see this as an all-up PMO-level report. These types of all-up reports are extremely valuable for PMO managers, as they reveal which projects are struggling. Figure 15.7: PMO dependency-tracker report Note Of course, this is not the only non-executive report you ll need to run your PMO. Chapter 17, PMO Reporting and Performance Management, covers reports and dashboards needed to run a PMO in much more detail. 12

13 Conducting Day-to-Day Operations When it comes to running a PMO on a day-to-day basis, the tasks you do largely depend on the PMO model you selected and the components you established when you first built or enhanced your PMO. Another factor will be how large the PMO is from a resource perspective. The larger the organization is, the heavier your PMO becomes in human-resource activities. Following is a brief list of tasks you, as PMO manager, may need to perform day-to-day: Establish color definitions. Set up a CR process. Develop program/project playbooks. Set the PMO priority list. Set the PMO weekly checklist. Set up program and project transition plans. Develop PMO templates. Execute PMO reports. Review and select PMO tools. Support management and PMO value discussions. Note Chapter 16, PMO Day-to-Day Operations, goes into this topic in much more detail. 13

14 Managing PMO Resources Part of running a PMO is managing PMO resources, both human and otherwise. Sadly, however, many PMO managers fail to see the importance of this task. I believe this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in this role. In my mind, a huge part of managing PMO resources is implementing a mentoring program or buddy system. I talked about this at length in Chapter 9, PMO Training and Education, but I want to bring it up here, too, because it s so important. When you build a mentoring program or buddy system, you create an environment in which PMO resources flourish. You provide a way for staff to receive help, mentoring, and coaching, enabling them to perform their roles at the highest level without having to come to you! Plus, these types of programs are easy to set up. Indeed, your company may already support one, in which case you can simply align with it. If you operate a PMO of any size, offering this kind of program to your employees will pay significant dividends. There is much more that PMO Managers do when managing their resources than setting up mentoring programs or buddy systems. Be clear, much more, and you can expect that PMO managers will have the same functional manager responsibilities as other functional managers do in the company. If PMO Managers have employees reporting to them, here are just some of the activities they will be responsible for: Hire and Fire responsibilities Performance reviews Peer Reviews HR Performance training Interviewing Performance Plans Career Planning When the PMO Manager is utilizing contractor or vendor staff, then these responsibilities include: Vendor Management PO Management Vendor Vetting Statement of Works Vendor Contract Management This will not be a complete list for either resource type, but a good starting point to get you thinking outside of mentoring and buddy systems and an idea of the types of activities that will be required. Summary This chapter covered four of the main tasks of running a PMO: generating executive reporting, PMO reporting, day-to-day operations, and managing PMO resources. You can use the four main tasks covered in this chapter as a starting point and adjust and adapt where needed. The precise activities associated with each of these high-level tasks are heavily dependent on the PMO model and on which methodologies (portfolio, program, and/or project) you use. Subsequent chapters cover each of these tasks in more detail. Running a PMO requires tremendous flexibility. There are many variables. One variable is that different executives will require different things of you. Some executives will take a hands-on approach with you, 14

15 while others may not. Either way, it will affect what you do on a day-to-day basis. Another variable is that your company or the PMO industry may change, and your PMO may need to change with it. Embrace those changes! No PMO manager will benefit from a by the book approach. Answers to Review Questions 1. The PMO model plays a huge role in how you run your PMO on a daily basis. For example, consider the differences between a directive PMO and a supportive PMO. Clearly, what you do to operate these two types of PMOs will differ. 2. The two reports you should set up immediately for your executives are PMO dashboards and PMO milestone reports. 3. Yes, they are different. PMO managers will use the executive reports, but they will need additional reports to effectively run the PMO. 4. The two major components that drive what you do on a daily basis are the PMO model and your available resources. 5. Mentoring programs and buddy systems play a huge role in the success of a PMO. The more you can train your resources in their jobs, the better and more effective they will become. These two programs offer excellent ways to provide real-time training to your employees. 15