In this summer series we take a look at the challenges of low maturity. That could be low maturity of PPM, the PMO or the organisation. Find out what challenges PMOs are facing and how they're overcoming them.
In this session we take a look at one of the main challenge areas for PMOs right now - how to support hybrid delivery.
It was an interactive session to help us really understand what the challenge is - and what the PMO can do to overcome the issues and really support their organisations going forward.
Sign in to read more about supporting Agile and Waterfall projects - to balance our portfolios - or is it even about projects anymore.
Megaprojects tend to be over the £1 billion mark in terms of budget and are often under great scrutiny - not just because of the politics but because many of these projects are investment projects - for communities, cities or countries. They also tend to take a long time to deliver, over years, decades and many organisations who run them - their project departments are huge in terms of the people working on them, and the third-parties and customers involved.
Read on to find out what the PMO can learn from megaprojects
PMI's Body of Knowledge is now available as Edition 7. We take a look at the changes and specifically what the BoK says about PMOs. PMOs are part of the system of value delivery - find out more about what that means.
With Excerpt -
One of the main objectives of a PMO is to support and enable effective decision-making. It's such a great objective because there's a lot of scope with how the PMO can do that. From creating reports, giving insights from data, supporting stakeholder engagement activities and the part we can play when people come together to solve problems, make decisions and take action. In this article, we take a closer look at facilitation skills. Within P3O it states that "the P3O is ideally placed to provide an independent facilitation role" and we totally agree with that. Over the last few weeks we have already covered several different frameworks, approaches and techniques that the modern project practitioner can utilise in their day-to-day work that make a difference to people and their performance levels. We have also shared ten different things your PMO can be thinking about to make a real difference to the performance of your PMO. We've already looked at the following areas:
servant leadership;
facilitation,
coaching and;
conflict management.
In this final article of our PMOs Supporting Modern Project Management series, we take a look at facilitation.
We've talked about this a lot at PMO Flashmob - coaching skills.
Skills we could be using to better support those we work within the delivery organisation - skills we could be using within the PMO itself to increase performance and maturity.
We've talked about the differences between mentoring and coaching - we've also talked about being skilled to coach others.
There is one thing we've agreed on over the years, using different coaching skills is one way for the PMO to really help people deliver projects and programmes more successfully - yet equally, we're perhaps not as qualified to do it as we should be.
You can check out some previous sessions like Coaching in All Directions - Coaching Skills for PMO Professionals and Using a Coaching Model in the PMO.
Over the next few weeks we are going to cover several different frameworks, approaches and techniques that the modern project practitioner can utilise in their day-to-day work that make a difference to people and their performance levels. We also share ten different things your PMO can be thinking about to make a real difference to the performance of your PMO. We're going to look at the following areas:
servant leadership;
facilitation,
coaching and;
conflict management.
In this third article of our PMOs Supporting Modern Project Management series, we take a look at coaching.
If there is one thing we can expect from working in project management it's conflict.
Due to the nature of projects - working to provide a solution to something we've probably never done before will mean there are problems to solve; people to bring onside; teams to work together and any number of expectations to be met. Believe it or not, some conflict is good and helps us uncover answers to problems that enable the project to move on and be delivered successfully.
Over the next few weeks, we are going to cover several different frameworks, approaches and techniques that the modern project practitioner can utilise in their day-to-day work that make a difference to people and their performance levels.
We also share ten different things your PMO can be thinking about to make a real difference to the performance of your PMO. We're going to look at the following areas:
servant leadership;
facilitation,
coaching and;
conflict management.
In this second article of our PMOs Supporting Modern Project Management series, we take a look at conflict management.
Modern project management has been mainly focused on the different methods and delivery approaches for managing projects and programmes.
Waterfall, Lean, SCRUM, Kanban, Agile – the list goes on. Utilising the right approach for the right project is key, yet the biggest success factor for successful projects remains the same – effective leadership and management of people in project environments.
Over the next few weeks we are going to cover several different frameworks, approaches and techniques that the modern project practitioner can utilise in their day-to-day work that make a difference to people and their performance levels. We also share ten different things your PMO can be thinking about to make a real difference to the performance of your PMO. We're going to look at the following areas:
servant leadership;
facilitation,
coaching and;
conflict management.
This article covers the first, servant leadership.
It's always good to find out what the latest insights are from research papers based on PMO themes. In this article we take a look at the paper, The Role Played by PMOs in the Transfer of Knowledge Between Projects from the Department of Engineering and Technology Management, University of Pretoria, South Africa published in 2018.
The paper presents a conceptual framework with the promise of further research to come which will look at the empirical results (the realities).
The argument is that projects are focused on the short-term goals, and rightly so, however, we can learn lessons and gain knowledge from carrying out these projects that should benefit the long-term goals of the organisation. The argument is old - how can we really learn the lessons of previous projects to help us deliver future projects better.
The paper presents the PMO as being the function ideally placed within an organisation to play an important role in supporting and facilitating the flow of knowledge between projects. The PMO can be seen as a catalyst - interestingly there are three definitions of catalyst that could all apply, you choose:
something that causes activity between two or more persons or forces without itself being affected.
a person or thing that precipitates an event or change.
a person whose talk, enthusiasm, or energy causes others to be more friendly, enthusiastic, or energetic.
The PMO acts as a catalyst that moderate and mediate the transfer of knowledge between projects. In the rest of the article, we take a look at the role of the PMO in moderating and mediating plus take a deeper look at the research findings.
In July 2020, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), a government organisation, released a white paper which focused on eight principles, "a quick guide for practitioners on things to get right for any project to succeed"
The IPA is the UK government’s centre of expertise for infrastructure and major projects and is aligned with the Cabinet Office and the Treasury.
If you've not seen the paper, take a look at it here. We were specifically interested in what the principles for project success are and take another look at the PMO Principles in light of them. The challenge for PMOs is also how to embed and ingrain these principles within our organisations.
