Tunnel vision

“The Agile PMO”. That’s the latest trend in project management, apparently. We’re told that the traditional PMO functions of control over projects are allegedly no longer fit for purpose. Seemingly, we need a new, magical way of doing things, with a whole new set of PMO processes.

I’m sceptical. We now have a vast array of research and amassed knowledge on project management in the UK, and yet our projects seem to be worse run than ever. We have seen some unbelievably weak project outcomes in recent years – with famously overspent, late and just plain unworkable solutions across high-profile organisations. Seems to me that new methods and increased knowledge aren’t necessarily making things better. Compare infamous infrastructure projects of recent years with the 19th century railway pioneers...

Almost 200 years ago, armed with nothing but dynamite and pickaxes, George Stephenson built the Wapping tunnel under Liverpool in only three years. It was the first-ever tunnel to be bored under a city. It was built in two parallel pieces, meeting in the middle to an accuracy tolerance of one inch. Admittedly, the tunnel was only 2km long but it came in on time, in parallel with the rest of the Liverpool Manchester Railway which had had to overcome many geological challenges. The lot was completed in the same three-year period. And that was in 1830.

So what’s the difference? Stephenson didn’t have hectares of research and arcane processes with catchy names. But the two halves of his tunnel still met neatly in the middle, right on schedule.

What Stephenson must have had was high-quality thinking, from experienced people. Two hundred years ago, the same truth stood as it does today - it’s the quality of the people in the PMO that will be the biggest influence in the performance of that PMO.

Here at Ignition Transformation we are experts in bringing out the quality of your PMO. We assess first and foremost how to get your PMO people to succeed on a personal level; then go on to look at the organisational process context and environment.

Because, in real life, there is no one-size-fits-all magic PMO bullet, however trendily-titled – just smart, diligent people.