Stakeholder Relationships and the Agile PMO

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?