Have you ever experienced a tipping point with your PMO? Has there been a single event, a point where you can look back and say, “Yes, it was here when things really started to change”
It’s the APM awards soon and another of the finalists for the newly formed PMO of the Year Award is the Portfolio Office at the Open University. Susie Palmer-Trew is the Portfolio Office Manager and we caught up for a chat about what’s been happening for her and the PMO team of five, who sit within the Strategy and Information Office, supporting major change.
The tipping point for the Portfolio Office here took place in October of 2016, but it took almost seven years to get to this point. Was it the seven-year itch that tipped the balance? More an accumulation of experience and determination to do the best work they can for the 170,000 customers they have across the University.
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In many organisations, infrequent consideration of business strategy and annual budgeting cycles results in static portfolios often created 6-18 months ahead of the initiation of the Programmes and Projects they contain. In this session, Ed and Barbara explore how to create and run portfolios of projects, programmes and business as usual initiatives in an agile way.
For Portfolio PMOs the Agile Portfolio Management approach covers key areas including agile portfolio budgeting; prioritisation and blending; governance and fulfilment.
Some of the themes explored will be:
The Agile Organisation and how it can help CEOs and other senior executives reach their goals, do more for less and be competitive and responsive in an a constantly changing world.
What is Agile Portfolio Management, how it contributes to the agile business, how it differs from traditional portfolio management.
Key tips on how the PMO can contribute to make Agile Portfolio Management work in your organisations
Takeaways:
Understand the core themes of Agile Portfolio Management
Take away practical tips on how Agile Portfolio Management works in reality
Understand the role of the Portfolio PMO in Agile Portfolio Management
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The PMO Mini-Masterclass on Portfolio Prioritisation - Building a Scorecard to Help Prioritise Initiatives was all about learning from another organisation’s PMO – Carnival UK – and how they are managing a Portfolio PMO.
The session was held at Carnival UK in Southampton and was carried out by Jess Richardson and Tom Harvey.
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The Portfolio Management Office forms the bridge between the organisation’s strategy and its change portfolio. It enables delivery of the strategy and serves to prove and improve delivery of change.
Providing these services in an investment bank is a challenge. This is an environment which demands pace and tangible outcomes; it is subject to extraordinary external pressures and scrutiny; and it is where the need for portfolio management is increasing.
The way we provide portfolio management into this environment needs to quickly mature to remain valuable. A critical factor for a successful Portfolio Management Office is to show measurable value in the way it forms the bridge between strategy and the change portfolio.
Takeaways:
How bridging strategy to the change portfolio drives PMO value
How the investment banking as a relative newcomer is influencing PMO practises
How maturing at pace should become business as usual for the PMO
The Video
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In this session Henny Portman will take you with him to get an understanding of the role of a CoE, the functions a CoE can perform e.g. standards and methods, internal consultancy, organisational learning and knowledge management, and people and skills. Theory will be combined with his own experiences, resulting in best and good practises. He will show you an overview of more than 50 different standards and methods and how to cope with that from a CoE perspective.
Takeaways:
Understanding the CoE concept
Good & best practices for CoE’s
Get insights in the PM(O) standards wood and don’t get lost
The Video
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Many people believe that the way to make delivery better is focus on ‘doing things better’, but also on ‘doing better things’. If, as a PMO Manager, I’m on top of my game with delivery support, can I help the business ‘doing better things’?
As the ‘PMO Lead’ – my boss (the COO) and I might see me as an obvious starting point to introduce more systematic portfolio management, but perhaps the CFO thinks differently?
I am ambitious – and I know the theory – what might the pathway look like, and what key moments are there along the way?
In this session, David explores how PMO Managers can tackle portfolio management for the first time - exploring different plans and steps
Takeaways:
Options for starting portfolio management in your PMO
Explore tried and tested approaches
Areas to focus on when implementing portfolio management
The Video
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Craig turned 40 in December and following some life reflection he created an eclectic list of 40 Portfolio Management do’s and do not's based on his 20 year career in portfolio management.
Takeaways:
Exposure to real lessons learned
Understanding of solutions to key challenges faced by many people in portfolio management
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The Challenges and Reality of Portfolio Management.
The Inside PMO Report:
As organisations look to improve on the returns from strategy development and increase maturity in programme and project management delivery capability, portfolio management has increasingly taken centre stage as a business function to support that.
Portfolio management is seen as the ‘glue’ or ‘bridge’ between strategy and strategy execution (delivered by programmes and projects).
The PMO or Portfolio Office is the place where portfolio management practices become a reality for an organisation.
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Early December in London’s Fleet Street and PMO Flashmob - the PMO networking group - hosted the first ‘PMO Managers’ Lunch’. These events bring together PMO Managers, from a number of different industries, to talk in-depth about a particular PMO topic. At this lunch, the subject was “Beyond portfolio reporting – the challenges and reality of portfolio management”.
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