The Heptagon
Welcome to the Heptagon!
Here at the Heptagon, Lain is here to help with Benefits Realisation, Demand Management and Value Stream Flow.
This room is for Heads of PMO, PMO Managers, PMO Leads and PMO people who are desperate to make a difference.
If you’re feeling trapped in Admin-Compliance Island. Knowing you want to add real value, having some idea of how to do it, but being unable to experiment due to the volume of low value work that “must be done”. We’d love to help you gain the credibility to be seen as a trusted delivery partner and take your seat at the table.
What is the biggest, hairiest challenge you are facing?
The biggest frustration is that, after all these years, so many PMOs at every level are still all about the methodology and the standards rather than about alignment to the business.
A rumbling underground frustration that doesn’t go away is that, even among PMO professionals, we mean such different things by “PMO”. There is, of course, a common thread running through them all, but it is difficult to agree nuts and bolts when the specifics are so different in each case.
Reporting the Hybrid Portfolio – a PMO Perspective
Reporting is arguably the most common PMO responsibility. After all these years, it should be a smooth process – it is unsettling when it just isn’t. In a hybrid Portfolio, you can end up with approaches to delivery that operate in very different ways.
This variety puts a strain on reporting, as square pegs get hammered into round holes. The set of Portfolio reports becomes fragmented, and there is no reliable single view at the Portfolio level.
If you still think that this is a non-issue, please consider this old quote from H.L. Mencken: “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.”
In this article, lodger Lain takes us through thinking and insights on how to approach hybrid reporting.
Adventures of the Self-Aware PMO in an Octopus’ Garden
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. Lucius Annaeus Seneca Fifty years ago this month, in Jersey, a recently qualified butcher: 19-year-old Ian Waterman was ill with a mystery virus. In a few...
Introduction – The Heptagon
I have worked in, designed and implemented many PMOs at project, programme and portfolio levels. I have delivered in three continents and across many industry sectors: banking, insurance, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, FMCG, retail, automotive and higher education. Having pivoted (slowly) to increase my mentoring work and decrease the “reporting factory”, I now concentrate on professional coaching and PMO consultancy assignments.
Lain Burgos-Lovece
Independent PMO consultant and professional coach, working with accomplished PMO managers to deliver consistent benefits to their organisation, so that they can achieve peace of mind
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