We recorded a few sessions at Project Challenge this year and we headed over to PMO Flashmob regular Sunchana Johnston as she gave a presentation on:
Good Project Planners Are Like Gold Dust
Here's an overview of the session:
Full of humour, honest advice and empathy, Sunchana describes her own journey from an unhappy employee to a successful freelance planning consultant. Based on first-hand experiences post voluntary redundancy and a log term aspiration to become gold dust in project management terms, this is a story of transformation and discovery of what skills are important, of acquiring technical skillsets and finding the real confidence, of winning the first contract, of inspiring others and of making contracting in planning & control sustainable. Sunchana confidently gives practical advice on how to start a business, exploring the benefits of employing good project planners, the obstacles and the exciting possibilities of joining the wonderful world of freelancing in planning, with the freedom, self-direction and flexibility that this offers.
Delegate take away from this session:
A clear understanding of what makes a good project planner
Guidance, motivation and confidence to become one
Benefits of employing project planners
There is no surer way to invite PMO difficulties than to rush into a PMO model and people, process, and tools strategy accompanied by efforts to sell the PMO. Yet, despite lack of success, this is an approach still advocated and taken by many today.
Based upon Perry’s years of PMO research and his three book series, Business Driven PMO Setup and Management (2009), Business Driven Project Portfolio Management (2011), and Business Driven PMO Success Stories (2013), published by J. Ross Publishing, this presentation engages participants in thought-provoking case studies and examples, that reveal, challenge, and correct common misguided PMO setup and management approaches.
If you are setting up a new PMO, seeking to improve an existing PMO, or in a highly mature PMO, this presentation will test your convictions, offer you different insights and ideas, and leave you with many “aha” moments that you can apply in the workplace.
Takeaways:
A new, outside the project management community, perspective on the purpose of the PMO
A new way of thinking about how PMOs can be set up and managed
A roadmap consisting of three steps, two tips, and one Golden Rule that will ensure a successful and business-driven setup and management of the PMO
I spent two days at Project Challenge last month.
One of the presentations I managed to catch was entitled "Better planning makes better projects", and was given by Paul Kidston and Simon Taylor of the Association for Project Management's (APM) Planning, Monitoring & Controls Specific Interest Group (PMCSIG). You might think that this title is basic common sense, but organisational experience shows that project plans by themselves are not generally a good predictor of either project end dates or overall projects costs. Having created the initial plan, effective controls need to be applied during the course of the project to ensure the plan remains a usable road map to project delivery. So there is plenty of opportunity for the project management function to be a whole lot better at it!
With this in mind, PMCSIG has taken a "back to basics" approach and written a book on planning and controls, couched in plain English to make it easy to use as possible. I will shortly be reading and reviewing the book, but in the meantime (to help you decide whether the book is worth a closer look) here are my key take-aways from the presentation (which was effectively a "taster" of the book):
Here’s a little exercise for you. Grab a piece of paper and a box of wax crayons and draw me a picture of the Loch Ness Monster. Sure it doesn’t exist in any tangible form but you know of it and you can give me your interpretation... Three humps, water, wearing a Tam O’Shanter and kilt... That kind of thing.
Now... turn the page over and draw me a picture of a PMO. Not quite so easy, huh? For a start it’s unlikely to be wearing any fetching head gear – but it’s a much more difficult concept to draw than old Nessie. You can explain in words what a PMO is and does... but what it looks like is far more complex to articulate – even Michelangelo would struggle to paint a masterpiece called “PMO”.
