The Project Management Center of Excellence: PMO Evolved.
June 30, 2008
In the mid-1990’s, there came about a well-defined bit of cost-cutting wizardry called the “Center of Excellence.” The COE was well-defined both because of the intent of its function in organizations, and because of its innate irony; you see, a decade and a half ago, the Center of Excellence involved lay-offs.
The COE was fashioned as a method of saving money by centralizing the best of all duplicate resources inside a large organization into one place. This center would then take on the task of managing their piece of the organizational puzzle, while any similar divisions outside the center would be dissolved.
But, like many other accidental discoveries, something wonderful happened. Before long, the COE approach took on more than just a functional use inside the organization — the COE began to live up to its name.
In modern project management, the specific tasks that fall to the Center of Excellence varies quite broadly from organization to organization. However, there are trends and best practices that define the high level function of the COE in the Project or Program Management Office.
First, the Project Management Center of Excellence provides educational and intellectual resources to the project management function of the organization. It is here that the organization houses the body of standards and guides for excellence in the internal project management operation. The PM-COE is the home of organizational methodology for project management.
Second, the PM-COE drives hiring and training against those standards. Global organizations striving for project management excellence are benchmarking their own processes and procedures against results. Ensuring human resources are hired, trained, and prepared to deliver results falls to the PM-COE.
Third, the PM-COE defines strategy in project management for the organization. This is the primary resource for intellectual capital in the broader field inside the company and provides access to the tools and technologies project managers will need to accomplish their jobs today, and in the future.
Finally, the PM-COE really can help grow profits and cut costs. Perhaps it is in the managerial DNA of the COE concept, but when resources and tools are pooled in such a way as a function of the PMO, new opportunities for greater efficiency become naturally apparent.
The PM-COE is a partner to the PMO. While the PMO is focused tactically on managing projects and delivering results, the PM-COE becomes the pit crew, ensuring project managers are trained, equipped, and prepared for work. It becomes a symbiotic relationship, an invaluable partnership that invariably results in better project management.
Even more, however, organizations that have adopted the PM-COE model as a function of the project management office have demonstrated a tacit commitment to not just running projects, but to learning through project management, and defining the project culture clearly through eduction, information, professional development and strategic awareness.
Cadence is a key partner in advanced training and consulting services designed to assist organizations interested in maturing and growing their project management office initiatives. Contact Cadence today for more information.
OPM3: The Three Elements of OPM3
June 16, 2008
Last week we introduced OPM3, the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model, with a brief overview of the tools and infrastructure it provides in organizational project management. This week, we continue our discussion with an exploration of the three elements that provide the foundation of the OPM3 model.
First, an important distinction. Historically, standards in the field of project management have focused heavily on the individual project manager or program manager. This stems from a convention of measuring aptitude: what do you know, and do you know what to do in a project management context. OPM3 on the other hand, represents a first for the Project Management Institute, addressing not only individual project manager competencies, but best practices across the organization for portfolio, program, and project management.
As a project manager, using the word organization may seem daunting. In the context of OPM3, however, the organization could be your entire company as easily as it could be your own functional area. This is the real beauty of the model: it scales impeccably.
The Knowledge Element provides the foundation for OPM3: 557 best practices as defined by thousands of project management professionals at work in the field. The Knowledge Element doesn’t provide any specific guidance on implementation, rather it provides a background on OPM3 components and operation.
The Assessment Element provides access to the OPM3 Self-Assessment, the online tool that allows users to compare traits of their current organization against best practices as defined in the OPM3 model. Through this self-assessment, you will become keenly aware of strengths and weaknesses in your organization, and see just where you stand against the continuum of organizational project management maturity.
Still, the data you cull from the assessment process might not be an appropriate picture for your organization. That’s why, as a function of the assessment process, you are able to define which best practices apply most critically to your project, program, or portfolio environment.
At the highest level, your OPM3 journey could end there: with a snapshot of your current capabilities and a new awareness of where your organization stands on the maturity continuum. However, assuming you are investing in the process for continuous results, the Improvement Element will help you deliver. Here, you will use the data from the assessment process and build a plan for improvements on key best practices for your organization, implement those improvements, and then re-assess to ensure successful implementation. Each change is specifically targeted to advancement along the maturity continuum.
While the self-assessment tool is comprehensive, like any assessment, interpretation of variables can be tricky. That is why specially-educated Cadence project managers are available to help your organization begin the OPM3 assessment process, a powerful tool for ensuring your projects are delivering the right results today.
OPM3: Why it’s time to care
June 9, 2008
There are funny cycles in the field of project management.
PERT charts are no longer cool, for example. And we do a bit more planning these days than we did in the 50’s when most of our so-called “complex” projects were still run off a simple Gantt chart. But today’s projects have redefined the nature of the word “complex”. Teams are broader. Budgets are bigger. Deadlines are tighter. Stakes are much, much higher.
A decade ago, the answer was the PMO. The project management office was to be the central repository for project practitioners in medium and large companies. In the best examples, PMOs were user-driven and organic, managed by a savvy suite of experts who knew how to get the most out of the tools they used. And still, project complexity grew.
Today, the PMO has evolved. OPM3 stands to formalize project management operations and help to define a clear path for process improvement.
What is it? OPM3 stands for Organizational Project Management Maturity Model, and it is a model that is owned by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Unlike so many other maturity models in the field, however, OPM3 was crafted by thousands of project management professionals, volunteers, and experts across 35 countries around the world. This is not an ivory tower theoretical application.
In short, it is a big deal.
Perhaps because so many people were involved in its genesis, simply diving into OPM3 can prove a bit unwieldy. Put simply, OPM3 helps organizations understand a broad scope of best practices in the field through a knowledge element; measure organizational performance against those best practices through the assessment element; and build a bridge to meet those best practices through the improvement element.
There are 557 of these best practices, each broken down into a few meaningful capabilities. As such, where OPM3 shines is in dealing with the dramatic increase in complexity in today’s projects. In fact, OPM3 specifically encompasses a whole-organization view of project management, something Cadence has long professed as a key success factor in projects. OPM3 best practices cover project, program, and portfolio management through four key stages of process management: Standardization, Measurement, Control, and Continuous Improvement.
Too often, we see projects that have fallen prey to organizational ill-will. Projects that have fallen through the cracks of management, projects that are spearheaded in spite of misalignment with organizational priorities, and projects with no executive support or leadership. Where OPM3 shines is in helping organizations turn key strategies into projects, and ensure that all projects serve in the achievement of broad strategic vision.
Specially-educated Cadence project managers are available to help your organization begin the OPM3 assessment process, a powerful tool for ensuring your projects are delivering the right results today.
Appreciate Change: 3 Tips to Help Your Teams Adjust to the Inevitable
May 19, 2008
We spend a great deal of time, as project management trainers and practitioners, focusing on the activities that occur at the beginning of a project. Defining scope, developing the scope of work, recruiting and developing resources around the project, scheduling - these activities tend to receive the greatest attention as new project managers tend to require the most refinement in the planning phase of their projects.
Where we are brought back into the project process comes when the first change occurs. Dealing with change on projects is one thing. But integrating change in a positive and proactive manner is something else. Here are three points you can use to prepare your team for big change when it happens.
1. You cannot plan for change.
The nature of change itself is that it is unexpected. It is dynamic. It is fluid. It will come from all directions and areas of the business when you least expect it. There are two points to be aware of as a leader of your project team. First, if you did your planning right up front, sudden change is likely not the result of poor project management. Second, if the business requirements are changing around you, it is not always an indicator of poor project sponsorship. These two points are often unfairly delivered in tandem. It is up to you to keep your team motivated and productive as you work to integrate change, no matter where in the organization it comes from.
While you cannot plan for change, you can certainly plan what will happen when you are confronted with it.
2. You cannot insulate your project from last-minute change.
If change is truly dynamic, unexpected, and fluid, beware the tendency to build in a drop-dead point for change on your project. As experienced project managers will tell you, change happens when it happens, whether or not you have placed a moratorium on your project.
In fact, change that hits your project after your deliverables are “feature complete” will still have an impact, if not on your own project, on your stakeholders and the organization.
3. You cannot create perfect stability in your project.
In fact, not only is it impossible to create stability within your project environment, it is a detriment to your project to attempt to do so.
However, the project plan is a document that invites assumptions of stability. But markets change. Technology changes. Working to insulate your project with too much rigidity in your project plan will also insulate you and your team from great potential opportunity that comes with maturing markets.
Building a model into your project planning process for dealing with change will help you answer all three of these points with flexibility and efficiency.
First, build a change process that is accepting of all change as change requests in your project plan.
Once you have captured these change requests in a simple system, you are able to review each under the guidelines set by the project in the first place: where will this requested change affect the project Cost, Schedule, or Performance against plan. The result is a system of options - options you are able to review for sign-off with your project sponsors. Options which allow you to remain completely flexible in accepting change at any point in the project, and delivering a platform for processing that change in an open and dynamic arena.
Visit cadencemc.com to download the Cadence Change Request document. This tool has helped project managers around the world by providing a mechanism for capturing each change request - and the impact of the change - in a single page. Available for free right now on cadencemc.com!
Getting Clever: Building Partnerships to Increase Training Opportunity
May 1, 2008
It is time to get clever.
We have been sharing thoughts over the past two weeks on how to secure training resources and create opportunities to develop professional skills in a volatile training market. Today, we review a strategy for bringing project management training to your teams when they need it, and working with your training and development teams closely to implement it.
The Joint Venture
Most the work we do involves project managers working on projects that involve more than a single core team. Project managers are integrating the efforts of extended project teams including internal and external customer teams, contractors, and suppliers. With such a variety of team backgrounds, our partners quickly realize that a crash course in project management planning and discipline will go a long way toward streamlining the project process and ensuring that all team members share the same project management language.
Our most innovative clients are leveraging these extended team relationships as extended training relationships; sharing the load — and the costs — of timely and effective training between companies and divisions to ensure that training comes when you and your teams need it the most.
The New Role of the Training Department: Ask for Help!
There is a secondary message in this strategy for HR, Training, and Development professionals. In times of fiscal constraint, their role changes, too.
Traditionally, the training and development arm of the organization works diligently to provide on-going training across the enterprise. But as we have said before, when training dollars are cut, so too goes the variety and timeliness of the training that might otherwise play a critical role in your project plan. If the training dollars aren’t coming from the organization at large, it is time for you to begin to budget training into your project budget.
In this new world, project managers must remember that it is absolutely appropriate to ask for help. Invite a representative from training to join your team. This way, you can keep your training teams apprised of your project schedules, the specific tactical importance of training, and when that training will make the most difference in your ability to deliver results. Put the responsibility of providing access to training on the team member best equipped to deliver it.
The message to training teams is equally important: Be on the look-out for ways you can provide strategic and tactical assistance to projects in your organization. The more involved you can become in finding strategic training alliances between teams, and providing access to training when it is most critical to the organization, the better your ability to increase the importance and visibility of the training function.
Training Resources: Be Creative when Looking for Training
April 21, 2008
When traditional training channels inside your organization are strained, but you find you need training, it is time to get creative.
First, make sure you have a clear understanding of your training needs. Project Managers are in affect “Mini CEO’s” for their projects. The skill requirements are broad — from core business skills to finance, management, leadership, communication, and more. While it is important to have a focused competence in project management, don’t forget that the best project managers — like the best in most fields — are the most well-rounded in their search for life-long learning.
Cadence has worked closely with the Project Management Institute’s Career Framework initiative. Members and credential holders have free access to this valuable tool: a diagnostic tool that assesses your skill level across over 100 discrete characteristics. From project and portfolio management to budgeting and so much more, you will have a roadmap that not only defines your level of proficiency in each field, but highlights the holes in your background for future development.
Once you have your skill audit, put your plan together. Which skills would you like to hone and craft in the next year? Next six months? Next quarter? When building your plan, like any good project plan, it is critical that you assign a date to your own skill development activities. With dates in mind, you will be prepared to look for resources to meet your personal skill development needs.
Where to look? Volunteer! First, contact your local PMI chapter. You can find a list of local chapters through PMI.org. Chapters are constantly looking for energetic and enthusiastic partners to help develop local membership. Do you need to polish your financial skills? Volunteer to take on budget and finance. Any of a number of roles and committees exist within your local chapter, and as a result of your volunteerism, you gain access to a library of resources and training opportunities, in some cases at reduced, or no cost at all.
Training firms like Cadence are an excellent source of additional bite-sized training opportunities. We provide a number of free resources, webinars, ebooks for our partners. Consider a lunch-and-learn session, for example; a more interactive environment for knowledge sharing and continued team development which often inspires team members to push for additional skill development themselves. We do our best to pack nuggets of gold into every podcast and newsletter, and can inspire even more opportunity to learn, and to connect with the companies that are driving the industry forward.
Finally, remember to think broadly. The management and leadership spectrum, even within the field of project management, is vast in scope. Remember that the goal of your training and development efforts is not to earn another certificate, but to add skills and tools to your personal catalog, and to deliver results today.
Get the Training You Need; Hone your skills, even in a volatile market
April 7, 2008
Scan the top news websites and it will not take long to find news about our “volatile global market.” While the overall tone of these economic editorials is typically negative, we tend to take a different approach. In times of volatility, there lies great opportunity for success through project management. Over the coming weeks, we will share some of our thoughts on navigating the sea change that can come with market volatility inside and outside the workplace. The most important: Focus on you.
1) Your Company Cuts Training. That is Not An Excuse.
As the economy becomes less sure for organizations around the world, one of the first departments to feel fiscal constraint is training and development. The more traditional “soft skills” classes are cut first, followed by core training. But, just because the organization has slowed down training investment does not mean that you are off the hook.
Remember, your skills matter. When the economy slows down, it becomes even more important to remain competitive, to take the time to sharpen your project management wits and shore up confidence that you are continually equipped to deliver results for your organization, even when the going is not so good. Bottom line: your demonstrated effort to keep your skills sharp is one direct indicator of your value.
2) Not all Training Pays. Focus on the Payoff
When you are looking for training opportunities, make sure you are looking for those that will most likely offer an immediate and appreciable impact on your own performance. Is the course going to help you do your job more efficiently when you return to work tomorrow? How about over the coming two weeks? If not, then you should keep looking.
As a project manager, your role is to deliver results on time and on budget. Taking the time out of your project schedule to get the training you need to perform can be one of the best investments you can make in yourself, and in turn your organization, but it had better be the right training. For example, even if you know you will need a Portfolio Management course sometime in your career, better to focus on the skills you need to sharpen to deliver your projects today, and to help you model the right project behavior for others on your team instead.
3) Sell Your Value
This can be one of the most challenging facets for project managers: it is your responsibility to sell yourself to your organization … continually. As companies centralize an increasing number of systems, and managers take on more direct reports, ensuring your record stays current can be a big — sometimes frustrating — job.
Document everything quickly. For every course you attend, document the outcome and submit it to your manager and your human resources or training and development office. If a form does not exist to allow you to do so, prepare a simple email outlining the course name and topic, the high-level objectives, and outcomes, along with a statement of how the course applied to your daily functions on the job.
Do you understand your own training system? If not, learn it! Even in times of constraint, resources exist to help employees get the training they need to stay sharp. Make sure you understand the ins and outs of your own training department, how to apply for training, how to petition for training, and how to find the internal funds you need to make sure you — and your team — are working at peak efficiency.
Cadence announces broad support for educators through PMI Educational Foundation
March 26, 2008
Cadence Management Corporation has made a $100,000 (US) contribution to PMI Educational Foundation to support project management education programs for primary and secondary school teachers and administrators. This contribution will make it possible for educators to attend project management training courses that will provide them with new capabilities to enhance their classroom instruction and on-the-job management skills.
“The primary purpose of the PMI Educational Foundation is to promote economic, educational, cultural and social advancement through project management by making it more readily available to those who want to learn about the profession and the practice of project management,” said Greg Balestrero, chief operating officer of PMI Educational Foundation and chief executive officer of the Project Management Institute (PMI). “It’s through the generosity of Cadence and other donors that we are able to provide opportunities for those who otherwise may not be able to take advantage of project management educational opportunities.”
“In order for educators to successfully adopt project learning teaching methods in the classroom, it is necessary for them to have a working knowledge of project management themselves,” said John R. Patton, chief executive officer of Cadence Management Corporation. “By providing project management training to teachers and administrators, they will not only help students succeed but they also will learn a valuable skill set to help them in their own lives and careers.”
Project learning teaching methods utilize teams of students working together to create a solution for real-world problems. Through this approach, students are able to gain a more complete understanding of the subject matter while developing essential 21st Century applied skills such as collaboration, communications and leadership.
In addition to supporting PMI Educational Foundation through its contribution, Cadence Management Corporation supports the project management profession by participating as a sponsor of events such as PMI Global Congresses which are held four times a year in different locations around the world.
When Teams Collide: 3 Strategies for Managing Operations and Project Constraints
March 21, 2008
You run a lean project organization. You are an organized and dedicated PM, and you have the respect of your team. You know how to drive your organization to deliver project results. Then one day, work on your project stops. What happened?
If there is just one thing that you can count on as a project manager, it is that someday your project team will run into the wall of on-going operations. That day is today.
As business cycles change, subject to the winds of economic volatility, the impact often hits on-going operations first. Your project team is suddenly called to take on a greater operational role as functional managers struggle to meet organizational demands with existing staff. As a result, your project suffers.
But, the project must win. What can you do to help your organization, and your teams’ functional managers, understand the importance of the work their staff is performing on your project?
- Workload Planning. Make sure you have an intimate understanding of the specific time required for each team member to deliver their required tasks on your project. If you have planned thoroughly, you know how long each task will take and where those resources are coming from, but now the discussion will change. Take your data to the functional management and request a meeting to work through a workload planning matrix. Help them understand where the resource is coming from, how their time will be allocated, and most importantly, where you will be able to be flexible to help keep operations staffed fully and operating at peak efficiency. The message is this: You understand the importance of the operational environment and you are supportive of the manager’s needs. Now, how can you work together to meet the needs of the project, too?
- Seek Understanding. While your first effort is to work directly with functional managers to find a solution to your resource collision, it is equally important to present your findings to the project sponsor. Beware the urge to grovel, however. This is not a meeting for you to complain about lack of resources and cooperation from line management. Instead, arm yourself with the workload planning data and operational requirements, your team resource requirements, and present three alternative solutions to your resource puzzle. Will your schedule slip if you don’t get the team back to work? Will the budget increase as you are forced to deliver your project using outside contract labor? Or will you move key deliverables outside of scope? The message is this: You understand both the importance of the operational environment, and you are proactively working to deliver your project at the same time. Presented with this data, along with strategic recommendations, you will put your sponsor in the best position for providing feedback and guidance.
- What can you do? Planning takes time. You worked hard with your team to build a project plan that works, that takes into account all the variables of the project and the nuance of the schedule. But if you are going to make a case that you need resources from operations to deliver on your project promises, you have to show that you have taken every possible action to deliver your project without impacting operational requirements. For example, do you have resources on your team with skills that overlap? Do you have resources you could train to take on the skills of others? In short, how would you get your project done with fewer team members? What else could you do to show that you can deliver, and manage, with less?
This is a complicated process, and likely one of the most potentially-charged political discussions you will have. So, communicate with heart. Show that you truly understand the constraints, and that you will do whatever it takes to find a solution that works for all players with energy and humility.
Project Classification: 3 Tips to Building Your Organization’s Project Sizing Guidelines
March 10, 2008
As a project manager, you understand the importance of scope in your project management process. Too many organizations forego any formal project classification in favor of straight project prioritization. In small- to medium-sized project organizations, this can be appropriate. But as your project organization grows in both size and complexity, and the number of projects the organization takes on increases, having a sound classification system can help project managers and sponsors find common ground around project scope, funding, and staffing.
Here are a few things to consider when helping your organization define a project classification system.
- Size. How big is this project? When you are trying to answer this question, think beyond the simple rules of dollars and headcount. Instead, ask yourself what the strategic importance of the project is to the organization. Is the project enterprise-wide, or localized to a smaller group or division? Is it for a key current or potential customer? Will the project include customer team members or full extended teams from other divisions?
- Risk. What are the business and technical risks to the organization for taking on this project? Where does the risk come from? You might find that the biggest risk comes from your own internal culture not accepting the project justification. In this case, does the project have a key executive sponsor and champion? Finally, what are the risks of not taking on the project?
- Time. Planning takes time. Based on the size and scope of the project, the breadth of the project’s impact on the organization, and the level of risk involved, how much time will you and your team be involved in the project planning process? The answer to this question will be supported in detail by the number of team members and expertise needed, number of deliverables in the final project plan, size and detail of the Work Breakdown Structure, and granularity of schedule. Micro or small projects might involve 2-3 people and a 1-hour meeting to develop the project plan. In contrast, an enterprise-wide software implementation might require 15,000 hours or more, with core and extended teams.
As you are defining your organization’s classification system, remember this: the key to successful classification is documentation at a level appropriate for the project.
Prefer working in a system that works? Graduates of the Cadence Project Management seminar gain extensive experience in planning projects that deliver results. Bring your projects, and your teams to the next public project management seminar and get your projects on the right track!
