PMO Conference 2019 \\ Our Caring PMO – Carol Hindley

Pastoral care is hugely important for Parliamentary Digital Service (PDS) – the IT arm of the Houses of Parliament.  So much so, they have adopted CARE as one of their four core values.

In this session, Carol explains how the Digital PMO fosters genuine relationships and understand their user needs.

Carol will provide an overview of the activities they have undertaken to ensure personal / team health and wellbeing. They’ve built morale and a real sense of community in the PMO. The session introduces the Team Healthcheck concept and explains how it is used as a new KPI of successful delivery – how they have obtained programme board agreement that team health always trumps cost and time on major strategic rollouts. Wellbeing exercises are intrinsic to the success of Portfolio Leadership meetings and the PMO is driving the development of Portfolio professional guilds, supported by programmes of coaching and mentoring schemes for portfolio people. Does the PMO have a “duty of care” to its Programme and Project Managers and if so, what should that look like?

The session also outlines how these activities are having an impact on the Digital Service as a whole and how other PMOs can take away practical insights which will prompt you to consider the benefits of a caring PMO.

Takeaways:

• Learn how team health can become a metric of Project/Programme success, monitored by the PMO
• Understand more about wellbeing’s positive impact on productivity within delivery organisations
• Mental Health issues affect 1 in 4 people – how many people might need some help in your PMO or in your project environment?

Presentation Slides