Following the introduction and rapid adoption of the personal computer, project management was subjected to new challenges and struggles. Clarity, authority and disciplined applications, so dominant in the era of projects with tangible products, such as in construction and manufacturing, were replaced by uncertainty, lack of definition, absence of knowledge, experience and standards and a chaotic organizational atmosphere among these newcomers to the field of project management..
Throughout the Nineteen nineties the application of project management as a discipline and profession replaced the hasty dives into execution by unknowing executives and managers, especially in.the field of Information Technology ( IT ). Project failures provided valuable lessons that were shared by the community, which led to very positive improvements across the sector. By the turn of the millennium, project management in the Technology sector had achieved a respectable level of maturity in at least half of the enterprises that employed project management.
The global crisis of 2001 - 2003 dealt the Technology sector a major setback : tight controls in managing project priorities, schedules, budgets, and enterprise resources effectively and efficiently, suffered for lack of competent project managers whose ranks had been decimated by short-sighted executives trying to reduce expenses by eliminating overhead ( They saw project management as overhead, and paid for that ignorance many times over ). PMO’s were hit even worse, but the chaos and failures that followed the brutal attack on project management helped create a need for standardization, planning and teamwork that was not common in the earlier carefree days of the Technology sector. Other industry sectors that have become users of project management to develop their products, services and organizations, have been facing similar needs that they did not know existed during the happy nineties.
An acceptable level of project management maturity is an essential ingredient of performing effective capital investments, and an organization can expect a much higher chance of success in attaining such levels of maturity by implementing a Project Management Office ( PMO ) in a planned and dedicated environment. The PMO not only helps overburdened project teams with their planning and monitoring effort, but also helps define projects that are identified by the STRATEGIC PLAN, prioritizes them via PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT, and is instrumental in bringing the ENTERPRISE to a HIGHLY MATURE and productive state within a reasonably period of time, such as a year. Haste, definitely, makes waste in the case of PMO’s.
A PMO is not a cookbook recipe for project success; getting one started guarantees nothing. Such an unrealistic expectation as guaranteed success, is a major reason why about half the PMO’s fold up within 12 - 18 months of inauguration. Only by establishing an attainable VISION, and developing well thought-out STRATEGIES and OBJECTIVES, can an organization make a lasting success of a PMO, which will pay for itself many times by creating economies in the employment of its valuable human and financial resources. There are many PMO success stories, like ARCELIK AR GE in Turkey, PG&E in California and numerous PMO’s or Project Management Centers of Excellence ( PMCE’s ), as they are called by some Silicon Valley companies.
Many IT departments are functionally organized to serve projects in a matrix environment. Standardization, professional and managerial oversight, and the dedication of well-trained resources to high performance can make the difference, as it has done time and again in many organizations that believed in, and persisted with their PMO’s. The PMO, through its members’ desire to help and to excel, can be a key catalyst in achieving corporate goals for investment projects.
An enterprise can expect their PMO to perform the following functions :
· Establish a project inventory by entering all active and planned projects into a database
· Guide and support project teams in :
o Preparing project proposals with financial feasibility analyses,
o Chartering and kicking-off projects,
o Planning and scheduling their projects,
o Establishing control accounts for cost and time reporting,
o Monitoring and reporting on project performance,
o Troubleshooting and recovery planning,
o Closing out projects and maintaining project records.
o Collecting and assessing project performance data to establish planning metrics
· Provide project management advice and training to project teams.
· Develop project management processes, tools and reporting formats
These responsibilities can not be established all at once; they will have to be prioritized and implemented over time, provided the human resources and the managerial time required is provided. As with so many IT organizations, should the implementing enterprise fall into an unplanned and chaotic mode, thereby constantly deferring meetings, working sessions and decisions, the performance of the PMO will suffer and the duration to realize the expected benefits will extend to an undesirably long implementation period. That has happened many times all over the world, and the PMO has been used as the scapegoat in most of those cases. The failure and eventual demise of many PMO’s have been due to a lack of top management support and commitment.
Ahmet N. Taspinar, PMP, REP
Ahmet N. Taspinar