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The Project Management Office and the Accidental Project Manager

November 10, 2012 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Office

The Project Management Office and the Accidental Project Manager
By Vaughan Merlyn

Some IT organizations invest a great deal in the processes and disciplines of Project Management. As well they should – much of an IT Organization’s work is performed through projects.

Various approaches are deployed to bring consistency and effectiveness to Project Management disciplines – Centers of Excellence (CoE), Project (and Program and Portfolio) Management Offices (PMO), certifications (such as PMI), and so on. But there’s a dirty little secret out there…
Many Projects Are Managed By “Amateurs”

By “amateurs,” I mean people who are operating outside the supposed disciplines, processes and standards of the PMO or CoE. There are several reasons behind this:

  • In some cases, it is simply a result of project work being deliberately flown ‘under the radar.’ I’ve consulted to IT shops where this is actually an effective way to get things done. It goes hand-in-hand with an “ask forgiveness, not permission” culture!

  • Sometimes it is because the thing isn’t recognized as being a project until it is well underway – or maybe complete – or maybe never! This is an issue that was recognized by the wonderful Jerry Weinberg in his early books on project management.

  • In other cases, it is wanton disregard for the recommended (or even mandated) standards. “These standards don’t apply to me.” “They are too onerous for this particular project.” “I don’t need them because I know what I’m doing.” And so on.

  • In a few cases, it is sheer ignorance – not being aware that what you are doing IS project management, and would better be performed under the auspices of the rules and guidelines at play.

  • One important driver of “Accidental Project Management” is inflexibility in the “official” Project Management methods.

Not All Projects Are Created Equal

To paraphrase Aldous Huxley, “Not all projects are created equal!” Some deserve more rigor and discipline than others. And some deserve different types of discipline. For example, while many projects are most concerned with deliverables, budgets, resources and so on, planned against target dates, others deal with “softer” and more organic situations, where “emergence” is the key property and where planning by target date is unrealistic.

For example, a project that plans for, “30% of the IT organization will participate in the IT Strategy Wiki by July 31″ is not a valid planning approach. Social activities work best through a “pull” approach – let’s identify the things that can be done to encourage and facilitate the “pull” and plan those. The 30% participation may be a reasonable goal and outcome, but it is not a planning parameter in the sense of traditional project management. To plan assuming that date will be reached is sheer guesswork, and anything else in the plan that depends upon this milestone is at risk. I guess you call call the planning approach for these more emergent based needs, “Do while…” rather than the more deterministic, “Do until…”

Increasing Project Discipline

So, what, if anything, can be done to reign in the Accidental Project Manager?

  • First, decide if it matters. Identify the real problems that loose project disciplines cause. One problem may be that it’s the beginning of a slippery slope. It sends a message that we “have standards and disciplines you should follow, but… (nod and a wink!) it’s ok if you choose not to follow them! Another problem is that you may have bad projects – projects that suffer through not being well (or consistently) managed, or projects that should not be undertaken. I often see a cause of waste and dysfunction in my clients in projects that should not be going on, rather than projects that are badly run. A big problem is the implications ‘out of control’ projects have on resource management. You just don’t really know what people are working on, and what availability they may have.

  • Second, if you decide it does matter, determine why it is happening? Don’t make a big deal of this – you may drive the behaviors underground. Rather, do an informal poll – water cooler chats – ask people to ask people – try to get a sense of why people act outside the “official” practices.

Chances are you will find root causes to be:

  • Ignorance (lack of awareness and training)

  • Inflexibility in the “official” practices (‘sledgehammers to crack nuts,’ for example)

  • Lack of bandwidth in the PMO (“they just don’t have time to help me!”)

  • Poor “official” practices (“too bureaucratic, more designed for the benefit of the PMO than for those trying to manage projects!”)

Vaughan Merlyn is a management consultant, researcher, and occasional author. His primary focus for the last 35 years or so has been and continues to be the use of information and information technology (IT) for business value creation. Vaughan is an Executive Vice President with nGenera. In that role, he participates in multi-company research projects, consult with Fortune 500 type companies, and provide Executive Education. His blog can be found at http://vaughanmerlyn.com/.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2012 and is filed under Project Management Office. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 person has left a comment

We posted the article as a discussion in our LinkedIn Group with the headline: “Do PMOs lead to failure?” and commented that the problem is bigger than PMOs. Successful organizations must deploy a balanced approach to succeed. (Join the conversation at the #1 Community for Project Management Online..  )

In essence, the problem is larger than Project Management Offices (PMOs).  Although this article has gotten a fair amount of traction in the project management community over the past few days, this is not the first research to show the discipline of project management can, in fact, make things worse if not properly applied (see the Project Management Institute’s Researching the Value of Project Management).

Most IT projects continue to fail because many project managers and PMOs are too focused solely on the technical frameworks used to manage projects.  PMOs are often known for their rigid adherence to project management templates and processes.  Although project success has a foundation in the structure and technical side of project management, PMOs should offer more.  To be successful PMOs will have to find a way to offer business alignment, but not at the sacrifice of their technical background.

More successful PMOs would offer guidance and project management training on how to navigate the tricky interpersonal, political, and emotional environment of projects - we call it project management people skills, or a balanced approach.

Projects will continue to fail until we, as a profession, embrace the balanced approach of:

1) technical project management skills,

2) business acumen, and

3) the all-important interpersonal skills.

Let us know your thoughts by joining the conversation on our LinkedIn Group.  To learn more about the balanced approach promoted in Roeder Consulting’s project management training courses, view our full project management training schedule.

Kimberly K. wrote on November 13, 2012 - 4:14 pm | Visit Link

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