Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Please comment on my draft outline for a presentation on PMOs

On June 22, 2010 I'm scheduled to present at my company on my experience dealing with starting up a PMOs. I hope to also present this on a future PMlessonsLearned.com call.

I would appreciate your thoughts and comments on this outline. Also, what do you think of the title: PMO's that Go!

Draft Outline:

Title: PMO’s that Go!
Speaking Date: June 22, 2010
Target Date to send out draft outline for comments: May 19, 2010
Target date for comments back on Draft outline: May 21, 2010
Target date to send out Draft Slides: May 26, 2010
Target date for comments back on Draft Slides: June 2, 2010
Final Slides Due: June 7, 2010
Speaker: Henry Will

• Goals of Presentation
o Provide Lessons Learned to increase effectiveness of other PMOs
o Provide a roadmap for anyone starting a new PMO
• Introduction
o overview of material to be covered
o Poll audience to find out where they are and where they are going
PMO involvement
• PMO reports to them
• Lead a PMO
• On PMO team
• Report to PMO
• Just want to know more about PMOs
• Story: Historical
o Organization was purchased by IBM
o PM maturity was weak:
Few standard processes, No written processes. Very little of anything documented
Not much planning, most executing
Very little tracking
Some people would say this is agile (it’s not!)
o How the PMO was “born”
Corporate compliance became an issue
• First Steps:
o Forming the PMO: What type of PMO are we? (picture from PMO Community)
o Hot Focus: Fix Compliance Issues (picture: Fire and fire extinguisher)
o Analysis:
Stakeholder Assessment
PM Maturity Assessment
o Charter
Contents of charter
• Value Proposition
• Scope / Out of Scope
• Stakeholders
• Plans / Priorities
• Success factors
• Organization Chart
• Digging out (picture: we’re in a deep hole that we need to dig out of)
o Tricks used while fighting “Red Tape” and on Wild Goose Chases
Defining priorities each week
Daily focus – what will provide the most value?
Followup using Lotus notes
o Being Honest in reporting
• Digging in (picture: getting our hands dirty, getting to work)
o Communications
Newsletter
Monthly Focus
o Standardized Reporting
Track what you want to improve
Metrics: facts are our friends
Dashboards and Risk Action Issue Log
o Grow the team
Resources
• Added a PMO representative for new contracts/clients
• Off-shore resources
Techniques
• G.R.O.W. model
• Monthly Focus
• Weekly meetings
o Mentors
o Changing the Culture
Drop off in Lunch and Learn Attendance
Heart of Change
• Sense of Urgency
o Process Execution Validation (PEV)
• Future Plans
o Show Graph of compliance Vs Best Practices
Compliance will move toward steady state and then Best practice work will be able to move ahead:
o Best Practices
Selling / Emotional Quotient
Process Improvement
Standard reporting
• Financial
• Resource Management
Communications
• Lessons Learned
PM Proficiency
PM Maturity
Templates
PM Career Development
Tools
• Recap (And Q&A)
• Reference
o Tools:
Mindmap: Freemind
o Mentoring
o Book(s)
Heart of Change
Getting things Done
EQ
o My blog, contact info, etc.

Please provide your comments right here on the blog. Thanks!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Henry,
Title is good – well so so (so hard to get a good title); my only comment is when I think of “Go”, I instantly think of “go away” or “go home” – maybe since I have a 7 yr old son :). Let’s hear from others. How about “PMOs for Sustainability” or “PMOs – the Sustainability Factor” - both play off the Green movement which might be overdone(?).

Very nice outline - love the "Dashboards and Risk Action Issue Log" and “Metrics: facts are our friends “. One thing I did not see though is creating “Project Visibility”. I have created many of the items on your list, sat back and thought finally, AMEN! Only to have a crazed EVP run in and say a change had to be made immediately; since I did not have Project Visibility, I could not see or defend the impact of the change.... so off we went. BTW, it was the same EVP a week later that would complain loudly that we missed yet another promised milestone regarding some other work – “what possibly were we doing that got us off track?”. Again, since we did not have Project Visibility it was hard to look backward and see exactly why we missed the milestone (even though our gut knew). Once I stopped and created a prioritized list of everything in the works and in the pipeline, no easy feat but needed, I could then defend a change request and say, “if we do this, we won’t be able to do that”…. Then all of a sudden, the fires became something we could prioritize in, down the road. Since PMOs are all about establishing standards and tools, Project Visibility is a Company’ best friend in keeping fire fighting in check (and allows me to sleep better at night).

Again, very good outline – I look forward to the PMLessonsLearned call.
-Lou Piombino
Sr. Project/Program Manager