Agile PMO

Here we are at Project Challenge this week launching the new Inside PMO Report about the Agile PMO To download your own copy and have a read, download the report here You'll need to give us a few details to download it - we just want to know how many people are interested in the subject so hopefully you won't mind!

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Many PMOs now need to support Agile projects as well as traditional waterfall projects, moving to be a hybrid or bimodal PMO. PMO Flashmob launch the latest Inside PMO report bringing insights from PMO Managers working in hybrid PMOs today. The report looks at the functions and services required and answers the questions – what stays the same, what needs to change, and what is new. The question for the PMO community is, “do you understand what additional skills and competencies you need working in a hybrid PMO?” Many of the skills you have are still required, but some will need further honing or developed from scratch.  The report looks at how the services of the PMO change when supporting Agile projects and what associated skills you will need to have to do that successfully.

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The PMO Mini-Masterclass on the Agile PMO in Practice was all about learning from another organisation's PMO - Ticketmaster International - and how they support Agile projects within their business. The session was held at Ticketmaster in London and was carried out by John McIntyre, Head of PMO supported by his PMO team members. The full presentationkl The aim of the session was: Understanding the main principles of Agile projects – what constitutes an Agile project, which core processes and techniques are in play The role of the PMO in supporting Agile projects – what changes were needed within the PMO, what skillsets and knowledge people within the PMO needed; how the PMO provides governance of these projects and what will be needed in the future. There wasn't a Powerpoint presentation as this session was delivered in an Agile way, complete with sprints, backlogs, retrospectives and burndown charts.

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Back in October it was the annual Agile Business Conference in London and we asked PMO Flashmob regular Brenda Nombro to go along to the conference to find out more about what the PMO community could learn from the conference. Brenda already gave us one insight in Agile PMO – How Much is Enough? Here’s Brenda's second article on a more behavioural side to the work the PMO does, here she is to tell you more. Another session I attended was run by Agnieszka Gasgperini who was an enthusiastic and engaging speaker. While there are many ‘what colour of personality are you’ assessments and models out there, the Relationship Awareness Theory takes this a step further into the business context, and more specifically into how we react to stress. The more I read and talk to people about the PMO in an ‘Agile’ environment, the more I see how we need to redress the balance of our skill set. In some more traditional settings we have become really focussed on our technical skills; on planning, managing dependencies, identifying risks, writing reports – this is great as we are really good at it and experts in our field. But do we need to shift now to our people focussed skills? Facilitation, bringing the right people together, getting the decision makers and sponsors engaged, managing and resolving conflicts – this is what we do, but can we do it better and show how, when it is done well, that the PMO has a greater role to play?

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In October it was the annual Agile Business Conference in London and we asked PMO Flashmob regular Brenda Nombro to go along to the conference to find out more about what the PMO community could learn from the conference. Brenda will be creating a few articles on different presentations she attended. Here's Brenda to tell you more. The conference agenda was jammed packed and for every breakout session I could attend, you missed another three, however the first session that I attended on Day 1 was a bit of a no-brainer – How Much is Enough Governance when it Comes to an Agile PMO? from Jonathan Stout from AXA. It was clearly a topic close to many hearts as the room quickly filled with many standing or sitting around the edges. The presentation wasn’t particularly well delivered and felt very clunky at times. I had hoped for some real practical examples of how the theory becomes practice, but this was lacking and I didn’t get any idea of specific context despite some anecdotal examples. Having said this, there were some points on which I can reflect.

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