Episode 156: Business Driven PMO Setup; Chapter 4 - Managing the PMO: Embracing Flexibility vs. Mandating Conformance
This week The PMO Podcast™ Featured Story introduces, “Business Driven PMO Setup; Chapter 4 - Managing the PMO: Embracing Flexibility vs. Mandating Conformance” presented by Mark Perry (about Mark), host of The PMO Podcast™. Each chapter of the book starts off with a cartoon and the cartoon in Chapter 4 goes like this. There is a picture of the PMO manager standing next to two members of the PMO. The PMO manager says, “In order to best manage the many different types of projects that we have, our PMO needs to establish a more flexible project management methodology. Any thoughts?” The older of the two project managers answers, “Boss, I agree. One shoe doesn’t fit all sizes, but we don’t want to end up with an Imelda Marcos shoe closet of different project types either.” Hearing this, the younger project manager asks, “Who is Imelda Marcos?” In the well intended spirit of establishing consistency in project management, many PMOs struggle with quickly becoming overly bureaucratic and narrowly focused. This can easily result in becoming more and more detailed over a smaller, inside-the-box, point of view. As the cartoon suggests, with experience and upon reflection, the need for flexibility within structure is likely to arrive at the doorstep of the PMO. Some PMOs will recognize and act upon this need, but many others will not. Instead, they will continue to exhibit bureaucratic behaviors not so much because of a desire to be rigid but more on account of a misplaced focus.
The PMO Podcast™ Points Memo asks, “Are all dollars the same?" Let’s say that you have two project ideas to consider. And let’s further stipulate that all factors for both projects are the same such as time, cost, resources, etc. The only difference is that one project will produce a benefit of $1,000,000 in net additional revenue. The other project will produce a benefit of $200,000 in tangible, real cost savings. Which project has the biggest benefit? Which project would you recommend going forward with? Make sure your project business cases properly treat revenue dollars, cost dollars, and expense dollars in accordance with the advice of your finance team.
The PMO Podcast™ Mailbag answers a listener question about ideas or approaches or tools for monthly dashboarding of the top projects of the PMO.
The PMO Podcast™ is sponsored by BOT International, the provider of Processes On Demand, a PMO Setup solution used by more than 1,000 companies.
