The Project and Program Management Function (PMO) 89
American Management Association
www.amanet.org
So we have a document that outlines all of the product information
needed to actually build a product. Then it becomes the product rec-
ord, so to speak. So that the next time the product needs to be up-
graded or modi ed, you can go back to that sort of source document
and then work from there to do your change estimates and gure out
what needs to be done. We’ve been ne- tuning that document. I mean
we were ne- tuning it basically weekly for the rst couple of months
we used it.
In response to the question, “What are some other ways in which
PMOs transfer learning?” a project manager similarly talked about the role
of tools in his PMO experience:
They can share tools that worked on one project for another project.
And also the ability to use Microsoft Project. Because Microsoft Proj-
ect has many, many di erent ways of using it, with tools and views and
whatever. It’s not really standardizing it, but by using it the same way,
you can give some knowledge from previous projects of things that
work and things that didn’t work, moving on to the next project.
Systems such as intranet portals, databases, and project tracking tools
were also utilized by 65 percent of the PMO leaders to share or transfer
learning from past project experiences. Rachel described how her team es-
tablished an intranet site to share tools and templates:
We put up a site to house the various templates and examples of—
you know, not magic, but actually put up a project management site
so people could nd these templates, and nd the charter document,
and nd an example, and nd a communication plan. Because there
was this endless, like, “Oh, can you send me—Can you send me?” And
then you’re searching through e- mails. So just that is a simple way of
helping people with the tools.
Similarly, Cathy described how her team posts status reports to the
intranet so that others in the organization can see what projects are cur-
rently in progress along with their current status:
But the status reports are out there on the intranet web site that any-
one can reference any time. So we’re trying to keep them current. I
90 Roles
American Management Association
www.amanet.org
do take snapshots (like I freeze the dashboard), and I have historical
information. But what’s out there, like if you were to go on our web
site and click on a particular project, you would be able to see the cur-
rent status of that project.
The use of documents to facilitate learning from past project experi-
ences was reported by 40 percent of the PMO leaders. Documents were
used when tools or templates for the particular purpose at hand were not
available. Mitch, for example, documented a lesson learned in order to
ensure that a vendor, an outside company, was provided with formal writ-
ten notice regarding his company’s expectations for the future when and
if a similar problem occurred: “What we did was we documented [the
lesson learned] and are now working with our vendor to make sure that
when we are working with something that involves both parts of their
company, that those parts are communicating adequately.” Similarly, Vic-
tor described how he used a slide deck to capture the collective learning of
a project team after a lessons- learned session so that it could be forwarded
to others:
It does get documented. We prepare a slide deck, usually about 10
slides, that includes kind of everything that happened on the [most
recent phase of the project], including what scope was delivered; what
scope might we have deferred that we were planning to deliver; how
many hours of work were completed, etc., etc.; and then we kind of
say—there’s a slide for what worked well; what did not work well. We
review that as a management team, and make any adjustments we feel
are necessary, not just to the team that produced the feedback, but
making sure that other teams taking a similar approach also get that
same feedback.
Boundary Encounters
The vast majority of the PMO leaders (85 percent) reported that they and/
or their sta coordinated boundary encounters in order to (1) intervene
with project teams to diagnose and remediate project- related problems,
(2) transfer project management standards to new teams, or (3) continu-
ously improve project management processes.
The Project and Program Management Function (PMO) 91
American Management Association
www.amanet.org
Project Intervention. Just over half (55 percent) of the PMO leaders indi-
cated that they held discussions with key project or management person-
nel in order to diagnose and remediate problems occurring at the project
level. June described how she worked with one of her project managers
to better understand what was happening with a project team that began
to falter:
I think, the project manager that kicked o the project and I sat down
and went through, “Okay, this is what we’re hearing. This is what it
looks like. What is causing this?” We did a little bit of sort of informal
cause analysis and came to the conclusion that where people thought
that others had agreed to move forward, they actually hadn’t yet. Then
we went back and sort of researched it to see if that was true, and it
seemed to be true.
Similarly, Melissa described how she engaged a project team to help
improve its project delivery practices:
So I attended their meetings. In fact, [my boss] had me start running
their team meetings, to gure out what they were doing. . . . So I was
meeting with them combined as well, putting stu in place for them,
standards and things. So that’s how I got into that one.
Transfer of Standards. Some of the PMO leaders (35 percent) reported
that they or their sta met with others in the project environment, in-
cluding project managers, project teams, or senior management, in order
to transfer previously established lessons and standards to future project
e orts. Patty described how she engaged the executive team in spreading
the word about lessons learned from the previous year’s project work:
So much of what happens gets derived out of the lessons learned at the
project team level. It gets bundled up, and it gets incorporated into—
it’s an annual executive training, where we get airtime every year in
front of all of our executives. It’s typically our directors and above,
and the project management o ce has carte blanche to identify and
decide, “What is the most pertinent project management topic, or les-
son, to be given to executives?”
92 Roles
American Management Association
www.amanet.org
Similarly, Seth talked about how he transferred improved practices to
an existing project that looked very similar to two massive failures for
which he had previously developed two case studies:
And this was during the time that we were evaluating what’d taken
place on these rst two deals that I had mentioned to you. And she
said, you know, she threw up a ag, to her credit, and said, “Help.
Somebody’s got to come look at this, because this could unravel.”
And we did and said, “You’re right, and this has all the earmarks of
what we just looked at.” Even though the director position was not
funded in anybody’s budget, we said, “The right thing to do is to put
the x in before we encounter the problem.” So we put the person
in there.
The development and dissemination of the two case studies that Seth
had coordinated enabled others in the organization to understand some
of the pitfalls that large, multi- business- unit projects entailed. He was sub-
sequently able to leverage the learning from these two prior failures by
aligning the troubled project with new practices aimed at preventing the
past failures from recurring.
Process Improvement. Some of the PMO leaders (30 percent) coordinated
delegations from various groups in attempts to implement improvements
in the organization’s project management processes. June described the
quarterly meetings she hosts to improve the organization’s project man-
agement methodology:
It starts with, you know, compared to last quarter—“What did you
think went easier this time than it did last time? What are the things
that seem to be recurring? Here’s the list of issues we identi ed last
quarter; have any of them actually gone away? And/or do you see any
of these still here and/or getting worse?” And then we’ll delve into the
things that seem—and the things that got better, we also talk about
why we think they got better.
Similarly, Greg discussed how he coordinated an encounter with a key
department in which they re ected on their partnership in order to im-
prove their collaborative process:
The Project and Program Management Function (PMO) 93
American Management Association
www.amanet.org
I proposed, and it was very well received, that we have a workshop,
where we bring ourselves together and we talk about, “How can we
leverage ourselves to be more successful? How can we maximize the
e ectiveness of the partnership?” And that was all about looking at
where the partnerships are working really well, what can we learn from
that and transmit it to the rest of the organization.
Re ective Practices
Three- quarters of the PMO leaders described how they engage in con-
tent and/or process re ection (Mezirow, 1991) to diagnose project- related
problems or improve processes that are common to multiple projects. As
discussed in Chapter 2, content re ection involves reviewing how ideas
have been applied at each stage of a problem- solving process or over the
course of a project. The second form of re ection, process re ection, ex-
amines the problem- solving process itself, focusing on the procedures and
assumptions involved in process standards and methodologies that apply
to multiple projects.
Content Re ection. Almost half of the PMO leaders (50 percent) declared
that they engaged in content re ection. Mack described how he engaged
project members in content re ection by polling project members indi-
vidually prior to a lessons- learned session with a project team:
One way, which I like the most, is to ask everybody to, which I’ve been
recommending to project managers, you know, to send an e- mail to
everybody on the team, asking them to write a couple of things. What
went well and what went wrong? What could we have improved? And
send it back to me or whoever is the PM. In that case, what happens is
one person cannot in uence the others. So we just get all the feedback
and somebody synthesizes that data and then presents it in front of the
team together.
Similarly, Suzie described how she polled project members before a
meeting she called to get a troubled project team back on track:
What I did before the meeting, just to make sure I really understood
everything, is I went around to each person that had been involved
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.