An Interesting week ahead

Next week looks to be very interesting. I've not written much in the last month because I really haven't done much PMO work. I've been writing Plan documents, so you can imagine how much I want to come home and write more. One of the reasons I'm falling behind on the Accord project - more on that later.

So, next week we are going to begin our installation of Project Server 2007. We have some consultants coming in to help us with the setup and some training. I've got a little experience, but not enough to want to jump off that ledge alone. I have been reading up - bought a book and pulled some papers down from the MS site. We have been slowly building a schedule (I use that term loosely).

Our schedule (which everyone calls a plan of course) is running about 2000 lines right now. Probably somewhere on the order of 250 resources. I know that's too big, so we have to figure out how to manage at the level of detail we must (per the contract no tasks >80 hours) and still be able to give some meaningful management information. We have a couple of really interesting challenges ahead:

Size/complexity of the project: This really just a technical challenge, but one that will be with us throughout the entire project. The solution right now for this is a full time scheduler.

Politics: I am not really sure that everyone has bought in to the 80 hours deal, so there may be some work there trying to get the right informaiton into the schedule.

Earned Value: Another contract promise - yikes! MSProject has a the tools, it's collecting the information that is going to be a challenge. Right now, I'm struggling to figure out "value." Is it the value assigned by the client or the value assigned by the contractor? We have a fixed price contract so to the contractor value = bid - cost (or profit). If it costs more to produce something that was bid, that's a problem. But the client has a whole different value proposition based on rate of return, net present value, payback, etc.

Scope: This is tied with the politics too - what isn't. How much of MS Project Server do we want to implement - it's a pretty robust tool - what's enough and what is too much. I'm a minimalist and so is my counterpart, so I think we will go with as little as possible. I just hope that is enough.

Off to read more, check a few blogs, etc.

Quick thoughts on a PMI research paper on PMOs

I just finished my first reading of a great study titled: The Multi-Project PMO: A Global Analysis of the Current State of Practice. I recommend that you take the time to look this over. There are a lot of interesting findings. It will take a while to fully understand them all (at least for me). However, I did see two points that I think are vital. I am glad to see a study that reinforces them to some extent.

It’s about people. I know I harp on this – I think it is vital to a PMO. The study talks about 50% of PMOs being “questioned.” One key finding relates to the performance of a PMO and the expertise of the PMO staff (practitioners) – not the project managers, the PMO people. While not exactly an epiphany, the finding is “Expertise is critical to PMO performance.” If performance is being questioned, it follows that the greater the expertise – the greater the performance and then the less questioning.

It is about YOUR PMO. One thing that the study repeats throughout is the variability of the findings. There is not a lot of correlation between the variables (company size, number of projects, PMO organization…). There is some, and that’s important to look at. The lack of correlation tells us that what you do with your PMO in your company is really what matters the most. Don’t try to implement a cookie cutter PMO. Know your stakeholders – all of them. Understand what their pain points are. Know where they need help and attack that. If you fully customize your solution you can succeed.

Maybe we will get to the point where PMOs are implemented by the book. Where there is a checklist that everyone fills out and that determines how a PMO is built and run. I guess it is our job to move us there. (Personally, when we get there, I’ll be somewhere else.) Until that time, we can think of ourselves as craftsmen (craftspersons). We have tools and materials, but the work that we do for this one PMO, this one time, is what matters.