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PMOs, Portfolios and the expectations game |
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Written by Administrator
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Having implemented a “few” PMOs, I can share a phenomenon that many of you can relate to - the notion that “Portfolio Management” or “the PMO” is going to make an IT department’s situation different because of their existence. I can sadly say that I’ve heard too many seat pocket ideas (like those found holding executive magazines in airplanes) blurted out with conviction, such as, “Well, we have Portfolio Management/a PMO/fancy software - why is this happening?” when problems persist.
Unlike Dorothy’s ruby slippers, you can’t just “get” a new methodology and change the fate of your IT organization. Yep - you’ve got to have a plan to shift your culture’s behavior over to a point where new techniques and methods can be leveraged, like a PMO, or Portfolio Management - even software that can lift a huge burden off the working population and change the conversation is useless if the culture refuses to budge.
If you monitor this blog, you know that I’m a Six Sigma fanboy - one of the little tricks that is embedded in the steps to improve a process is soliciting the customer’s feedback about what’s wrong and what can be done. This has another name in Change Management circles - it’s called “buy-in”. If someone tells you they know what’s wrong and how to fix it, when you return saying, “You’re right - get after your solution”, they’re 1000 times more likely to act than if you gave them a solution they didn’t think of.
Long story short - misplaced expectations are rampant with PMOs, Portfolio Management and other methods. If you have the task to bring success to a PMO or Portfolio Management process, do yourself a favor and get the folks who have the most powerful expectations (those that could do the most damage) involved in crafting the cultural change and put the ball in their court. The glory isn’t in deciding what will be done - it’s getting it done that drives most of us PM junkies. |
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7 Deadly sins of measuring project results |
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Written by Administrator
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Do you know how your project’s performing? Are you sure???
Measuring project results occurs in every project – task completion, performance to schedule, etc. Many PMs, managers and leaders believe that the efforts they are making toward measuring project results are “good enough”. There are, however, potentially fatal mistakes (figuratively) that can be made in managing the data collection and analysis of project measurement results. You can’t manage what you can’t measure is almost a cliché – but this saying has never been more appropriate.
So how do you avoid the 7 deadly sins of measuring project results?
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How to know what project success looks like |
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Written by Administrator
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In the early phases of a project, the team members, stakeholders and sponsors are all focused on the work ahead - they are gathering requirements, setting up a business case or getting familiar with the product that will be central to the project. One of the items that doesn’t get much attention during this initiation phase is project success criteria, or said differently, what dictates project success.
This is an innocent omission by most accounts - there should be plenty of time to capture success criteria. However, more often than not, project teams and project managers alike forget to factor capturing and verifying success criteria back into the mix. Typically, if this gap is caught, it’s caught right toward the start of implementation. By harmlessly forgetting this critical step, there can be all sorts of negative karma that can overshadow an otherwise successful project deployment. One of Covey’s Seven Habits says to, “Begin with the end in mind”; that is precisely what you must work to get during the start of the project.
How do you know what project success looks like? First you will need to set project goals in the Statement of Work. These goals should follow the standard S.M.A.R.T framework of goal setting (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-Boxed) and need to be set in the future (the Finance organization saves $20k a quarter through efficiencies in operating practices within 2 quarters after implementation). Second, after your general requirements are laid out, bring your team leadership together for a discussion about success criteria.
This discussion will require you to keep a strategic vision of the end goal - to emerge with your team united behind a success “picture” that is tangible, measurable and deals with not only the financial and efficiencies details, but talks about how the intangible benefits helps your customer. Something as simple as a form not looking just right or a report being accurate to specs but not usable is enough to drive your customer’s opinion of success toward a negative bias.
Once you’ve facilitated the discussion and get success criteria, make certain to revisit these factors often and update them if something changes or someone finds a success factor that was missed. If you take proactive action to make success criteria a focal point, you will never regret taking the time to construct and paint the image of success for your project. Without that image, you can liken your challenge to putting a puzzle together without the picture on the box.
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Project Selection Process - Budget Cycle |
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Written by cris
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The core mission of Clarity is to provide a Portfolio Management construct for the organization, along with delivering the Project Management components that are needed to fulfill the PPM solution. This system depends on a process within the organization to select and prioritize projects based on the goals and alignment with Corporate priorities. If you are fortunate, you will have the opportunity to begin a new phase of your Clarity implementaiton through the integration of Clarity into your budget cycle.
My wife is an Accounting professional who spends her working time in two major areas - the period close process and budget cycles. Each quarter, about 6 weeks after the quarter begins, the group she is in begins a process akin to water torture - they begin pulling together spreadsheets, figures and reports to align the current budget to the next quarters expectations. Each manager pulls together a set of figures that details how their budget will be spent, and these worksheets are rolled up to their reporting manager and so on. There are usually three or four rounds of revisions, trimming and painful decisions regarding what to cut (in an environment where hard data about priorities is sketchy). This process typically consumes the better part of the rest of the quarter - and takes a tremendous amount of effort.
Cut to a budget cycle that leverages Clarity for the data component of the budgets. The managers of projects and programs have realistic budgets of time and cost that can be included in a portfolio. The manager of the portfolio (the budget owner) can review the priorities of the projects (and KTLO or keep the lights on efforts) as well as the risks and benefits of the components of the portfolio. In the event that the budgeted amount for the portfolio must be reduced, the manager has the ability to setup scenarios. These scenarios allow the adjustment of portfolio investments of all types (projects and KTLO efforts) in an area where the change won't affect the current operations.
Through effective scoring and evaluation of the investments the manager can decide where budget dollars can be allocated most effectively, and make this case with the proper understanding to help everyone. The spreadsheet onslaught is removed, as all of the information needed to deliver the budget cycle process to completion is in Clarity. The pain is also reduced, as well as the time it takes to complete the cycle (usually over 50% less time is needed for the budget cycle compared to traditional methods).
Using Clarity for your budget process is a wise choice, assuming of course you spend the time and energy to build a process that can take advantage of Clarity's benefits. It's also the first step in a healthy Project and Portfolio Management solution - the creation of an intake/budgeting process for prospective projects and operational requirements. The development of a working projects queue is the first step to effectively managing your project load in alignment with your resource constraints. |
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IT Project Mechanic Tools 