Categories
Our Newsletter
- Home
- Help for PMO
Help for PMO
Being the PMO can be a thankless job.
You can be seen as an overhead, an obstruction, a policeman… What you need to be seen as is someone who makes other people’s lives easier and delivers results.
This can be difficult to achieve when you’re charged with bringing more structure and order to a portfolio of projects. So you really have to focus on delivering value. So what is that value?
The whole point of having a PMO is to generate greater value from the portfolio of projects than is possible from managing them individually. To make the portfolio ‘whole’ greater than the ‘sum of the parts’.
There are some easy levers to pull most of which you’re probably already doing - consolidated reporting (including time-sheeting), cross-portfolio planning and reporting and inter-dependency management. These can introduce some efficiencies, but don’t significantly increase the portfolio’s performance. This is our focus — portfolio performance management — addressing some of the key performance drivers to ensure the delivery of maximum value.
These Guides will
You can have Project Investment Committees, Sponsors, PMOs, Steering Committees, prioritisation committees and so on. They can exist at the enterprise and divisional levels. How do they all relate? What are their accountabilities and measures of success? This Guide discusses the challenges of establishing an effective Governance Structure and provides a set of proforma terms of reference for each governance structure. More information
Understanding Risks
There are eight types of project-related risks, yet most risk management approaches only look at two or three if you’re lucky. This Guide explains the nature and need for the different types of risks and what you need to do about them. More information
Understanding Project Governance
Although project governance has existed for more than 25 years it is still not well understood. This Guide takes you through the top 24 dimensions of governance explaining their importance and what happens when they’re not performed well.
More information
Understanding Business Project Leadership (sponsor primer)
The business often does not get adequately involved in projects because they don’t quite know what to do. This Guide explains the roles of the business on the project and why they’re important. An excellent primer for (would-be) project sponsors.
More information
Understanding “Why am i here” (steering committee primer)
Projects can be actively governed by interested business executives yet disappear into oblivion and lose all of their value. How? Because these steering committee members did not know why they were there. This Guide summarizes the roles and accountabilities of the Steering Committee and their impacts on the project’s success. An essential primer for every Steering Committee member. More information
How to be a successful Project Sponsor
When appointed to be a Project Sponsor most executives are really at a lost as to what their roles, accountabilities and critical success factors are. This Guide takes executives through the key dimensions of the Project Sponsor role. More information
Understanding Benefits
Although all projects seek to deliver benefits, the nature and dimensions of ‘benefits’ are not well understood. This Guide discusses the nature of benefits and how they need to be managed to optimise their value and how conventional approaches fail to deliver. Essential reading for all people interested in delivering benefits.
More information
How to define your ‘desired business outcomes’
The key focus of projects — clear, measurable business end states that will deliver, enable or support the expected benefits and value. How to define these ‘desired business outcomes’ is a very specific process that needs to be got right. This Guides takes you step-by-step through this key process. More information
Consultants.Con
Two interleaved stories, one of the managing partner of a (fictitious) international consultancy answering the questions of a group of new recruits; and the other of a set of CEOs quizzing an ex-strategy consultant, now CEO, on how to get the best out of consultants. Based entirely on true stories it gives a valuable insight into how consultants work and how to make them work for you. More information
You can be seen as an overhead, an obstruction, a policeman… What you need to be seen as is someone who makes other people’s lives easier and delivers results.
This can be difficult to achieve when you’re charged with bringing more structure and order to a portfolio of projects. So you really have to focus on delivering value. So what is that value?
The whole point of having a PMO is to generate greater value from the portfolio of projects than is possible from managing them individually. To make the portfolio ‘whole’ greater than the ‘sum of the parts’.
There are some easy levers to pull most of which you’re probably already doing - consolidated reporting (including time-sheeting), cross-portfolio planning and reporting and inter-dependency management. These can introduce some efficiencies, but don’t significantly increase the portfolio’s performance. This is our focus — portfolio performance management — addressing some of the key performance drivers to ensure the delivery of maximum value.
These Guides will
- enable you to fast track your governance structure implementation or improvement (or just validate what you’ve already done)
- give you proven templates for each governance role that spells out their accountability and contribution to your projects’ success
- make clear how the same basic roles (eg PMO) at different levels of the organization can interrelate and be effective
- enable you to scale your solution to your organization’s size, complexity, culture and structure
- provide assurance and comfort (for all parties) on the veracity and effectiveness of your proposed/actual governance structures
- give you a game plan for moving forward, fully aware of all that is required for governance structures to be effective
- provide you with a wealth of supporting material to make your job easier
- put you in control of this complex task.
You can have Project Investment Committees, Sponsors, PMOs, Steering Committees, prioritisation committees and so on. They can exist at the enterprise and divisional levels. How do they all relate? What are their accountabilities and measures of success? This Guide discusses the challenges of establishing an effective Governance Structure and provides a set of proforma terms of reference for each governance structure. More information
Understanding Risks
There are eight types of project-related risks, yet most risk management approaches only look at two or three if you’re lucky. This Guide explains the nature and need for the different types of risks and what you need to do about them. More information
Understanding Project Governance
Although project governance has existed for more than 25 years it is still not well understood. This Guide takes you through the top 24 dimensions of governance explaining their importance and what happens when they’re not performed well.
More information
Understanding Business Project Leadership (sponsor primer)
The business often does not get adequately involved in projects because they don’t quite know what to do. This Guide explains the roles of the business on the project and why they’re important. An excellent primer for (would-be) project sponsors.
More information
Understanding “Why am i here” (steering committee primer)
Projects can be actively governed by interested business executives yet disappear into oblivion and lose all of their value. How? Because these steering committee members did not know why they were there. This Guide summarizes the roles and accountabilities of the Steering Committee and their impacts on the project’s success. An essential primer for every Steering Committee member. More information
How to be a successful Project Sponsor
When appointed to be a Project Sponsor most executives are really at a lost as to what their roles, accountabilities and critical success factors are. This Guide takes executives through the key dimensions of the Project Sponsor role. More information
Understanding Benefits
Although all projects seek to deliver benefits, the nature and dimensions of ‘benefits’ are not well understood. This Guide discusses the nature of benefits and how they need to be managed to optimise their value and how conventional approaches fail to deliver. Essential reading for all people interested in delivering benefits.
More information
How to define your ‘desired business outcomes’
The key focus of projects — clear, measurable business end states that will deliver, enable or support the expected benefits and value. How to define these ‘desired business outcomes’ is a very specific process that needs to be got right. This Guides takes you step-by-step through this key process. More information
Consultants.Con
Two interleaved stories, one of the managing partner of a (fictitious) international consultancy answering the questions of a group of new recruits; and the other of a set of CEOs quizzing an ex-strategy consultant, now CEO, on how to get the best out of consultants. Based entirely on true stories it gives a valuable insight into how consultants work and how to make them work for you. More information