PMO: People, Measures, Objectives
Getting PMO governance right
Look for the warning signs
First, you need to be aware that your PMO is struggling. Ask yourself where you are seeing poor outcomes. Typical warning signs of poor PMO governance include:
- Deadlines slipping, which might mean the risk of missing punitive TSA deadlines rocketing
- Programme leaders are frustrated by poor quality information which stifles decision making… and/or…
- Programme delivery is being weighed down by excessive and irrelevant reporting needs, which has often grown by layer-upon-layer requests for information
- Programme objectives are being forgotten in a never-ending carousel of meetings with unclear objectives or outcomes
- The PMO is perceived as a policing service rather than as a delivery-enabling service
- Your governance team is high on potential but low on real experience
Identify the root causes
Having identified the symptoms, look forensically for the causes. Review the processes, behaviours and structures of the governance function to see where the problems are emanating from. Examples of questions to ask here include:
1. Is it the people? Perhaps there are people without the necessary experience or commitment? Possibly their mindset or approach is detrimental to success? Perhaps their habitual unconscious behaviours are causing the problems?
2. If there are TSAs, what are the required deliverables? When are these required? What needs to happen in sequence for this to be achieved?
3. Is it the communication? Do we have meetings we don’t need? Do some meetings duplicate or overlap? Do we have the right people present in the meetings, every time? What meetings can we remove to make more time?
4. What’s lacking in the information we need for decisions? Is it the content? Is it raw data or managed information? Is it the timing? Is it a can’t-see-the-wood-for-the-trees problem caused by too much information? Have the decision-makers made clear to the information-providers what they need?
5. Does everyone know their objectives – today, this week, this year? Have we been clear on deadlines? Does everyone know what simple KPIs they are expected to meet?
6. Is it the culture? Is there a sense of urgency? Is there proactivity, collaboration, ownership, positivity?
Create an Action Plan
Your plan will quite obviously be based on your analysis, but will typically include:
a. People. Who’s leading: and who SHOULD lead? What is everyone’s clearly-defined role? What does each person need to learn about delivery in order to be more effective? How will we develop a team ethos? How will the team change as the Programme progresses?
b. Communication. What communication methods will we need for this Programme? From Town Halls to individual coaching, from interactive to instructional: and a smorgasbord of Backlogs, Stand-Ups, Kanbans, Scrums, Sprints. You need to decide which methods offer most value. But don’t forget that communication is not just a one-way process, top down. Ensure you listen too! So your comms channels must genuinely demonstrate two-way flows.
c. Streamlining. What governance interventions can be removed because they are not immediately justified by outputs or outcomes? What are we doing that’s admin for the sake of it? But conversely, what do we need to keep in order to maintain genuine oversight? Do we need e.g. an Architecture Board, a Change Board? What will their Terms of Reference be to ensure that responsibilities and accountabilities are clearly given and accepted?
d. Critical path. What are the major milestones that have to be achieved? What do these look like when arranged in a timeline? Who owns each one? What stage-gate checks will we need? This part of assessment and planning will typically reveal surprises - the unknown sand-traps that hurt programme delivery. We often find that major milestones have unclear ownership and that timelines do not work.
e. Reporting. How should progress and workstreams be reported? How can we report in a way that means everyone has to document and item of relevant information only once in any given report cycle? How can we collate and re-use the same information for upward reporting without manually re-editing? What guidance will we give Project Managers on communicating clearly? What will we have as KPIs so that all relevant stakeholders get the right information when it is needed?
Yes, that’s a lot of questions. But with clear thinking, answers here will transform a creaky PMO from Pressure, Muddle and Overlap to a productive and calm environment based on People, Measures and Objectives.
