Excellent project management will definitely help you deliver your projects but do you just want to deliver projects or achieve your strategic goals. For that you, would need to manage your portfolio of projects as a portfolio. This series hopes to share my experience in portfolio management, what I did well and what I messed up in hope you can short-cut your learning.
Most of the time, a project to set up a PMO doesn't crash and burn. More often, though, it got mired into some slow-motion progress that does nobody any good. It delivered something that on paper seems to be what was designed but everyone else can see has morphed into a project police that proponents have promised to avoid. It has become just another group in the company with its own interest and stake in the organisation's projects to justify its existence, and not the enabler of projects.
There is no standard blueprint for building a PMO like there is for building a rocket. Building a PMO may be no rocket science and yet why do so many PMOs fail?
This is the fourth of a series sharing the reasons why the PMO didn't work. The first articlemay be necessary to provide the background while a guide to the types of PMOs is in the second article.
Do you have the right person to head your PMO
It is often assumed that because the PMO manages a portfolio of projects, the best person to head a PMO must be one who embody project management. Nothing can be further than the truth. Of course a good project manager can well end up as a good PMO Head but not because of the project management credentials.
For one thing, the general principle is that the skill-sets of the manager and the managed need not necessarily be the same. All too often, people gets promoted to a management because they were doing their current job well, whether they are sales people, IT engineers, or accountants. Often, little consideration, and worse, little training, is given to ensure that the promotee is equiped with the right skill-sets to perform at that higher level.
Skill-sets for a PMO
I will set out below the key skills required for PjMO, PgMO and PfMO, with the different types of PMOs discussed here. These skills are not intended to be exhaustive and is intended to highlight the differences in skill-sets required of each type of PMO. I will also include the following skill-sets common to all three types of PMOs:
planning and big picture view of the schedule & issues
risk and issue management
PjMO
You would probably be well aware of the skill-sets for a delivery project manager, but for completeness sake, I will summarise them here:
technical knowledge of the scope area
stakeholder management to obtain buy-in for the deliverables and actions highly focussed on the delivery of the scope area
PgMO
People skills count for more in programme management than in project management:
people management skills to obtain information from any party and buy-in to execute projects in-line with business requirements
analytical skills to understand the technical, business & other impact of all information from within & outside the programme and identify actions & persons required to capitalise or mitigate those developments
business awareness to understand the strategic reasons for the programme and the skills to communicate it to all stakeholders in ways relevant to each
PfMO
Portfolio managment skills build on the people skills of a programme manager with a more strategic overlay:
understanding of, participation in and maybe even lead the development of the strategy and the understanding of the underlying reasons behind each strategic decision, linking back to organisational values, stated & unstated, where relevant
people skills to obtain information on developments inside and outside the organisation that will have an impact on the strategy & portfolio and the organisation capacity to deliver them
analytical skills to evaluate impact of any development and identify changes to the portfolio to capitalise or mitigate those developments
Skill-sets of a Head of PMO
As is common with any departmental head, there will be the normal skills required to run a department such as staff organisational and motivational skills.
More than anyone else, I find that as a PMO Head, I was not an expert in any area other than in PMO-related ones. I am not the best around in these other areas but is only the second best: but that is good enough.
"I may not know more about accountancy than an accountant, but I know acountancy more than an IT engineer; I may not know more about IT than an IT engineer, but I know IT more than a marketeer; I may not know more about marketing than a marketeer, but I know marketing more than an HR practitioner; I may not know more about HR than an HR practioner, but I know HR more than the supply chain people; and so on."
But because I know a bit about all disciplines, I am able to understand the organisation and come up with solutions that uni-discipline people would not.
As such, it is important that a PMO head (and all PMO staff by extension) cannot be imprisoned by any one discipline. Of course, a PMO head has to come from somewhere, but the inability to develop beyond that disciple or to unlearn skills & knowledge no longer relevant, will lead to limitations that could cripple the PMO. Here are some potholes if the PMO head is unable to drop identification with any of the following disciplines:
Project manager - PMO could be too caught up with the process of delivery rather than the business outcome of the projects
Technical (IT, engineering, etc) - Programmes could have too much details of the technical scope rather than the business benefits
Sales - There could be too much efforts to keep stakeholders' happy but with an unwillingness to use that goodwill built up to advance an objective
Finance - Too much focus on governance could hinder progress of projects in the interests on controls and broad-based decision-making
Strategy - A highly nuanced awareness of the strategy could lead to constant changes to strategic plans, with their accompanying instablity
HR - Staff could end up getting too much training (over-training is required if the PMO is to be the thought leader in the organisation) and not enough time to use them
I am not saying that the skills for these disciplines are not relevant: in fact, you can see how these skills are necessary for the progress of the PMO. But too much emphasis on any one of them could have drawbacks. Ultimately, a PMO Head advises or even guides a CEO decision-making, and a CEO is a balance of all fields and skill-sets needed to run the organisation.
Aptitude of one who sits at the top of a PMO
In addition, the head has the fullness of the PMO maturity roadmap, that can only reside in one single brain. They has the vision to develop the roadmap and is the principal champion of it. Effectively, PMO head is the programme manager of the roadmap.
Due to the championing nature of the project to set up a PMO, the PMO head has to act as the face of the PMO. The PMO head and/or the PMO Sponsor have to charm/cajole/facilitate/threaten PMO concepts into the structure, process and culture of all stakeholder departments.
The PMO head also has to act in accordance with all the principles of project/programme/portfolio management that the PMO champions. In line with its governance role, the PMO also has to follow all protocols in the organisation - nobody trust a PMO who is a law upon themselves.
So, do you have the right person running your PMO?
If you wish to continue the series, the next article is about Where.
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