From project manager to Super Project Manager!

Here’s what’s stumped me. A person’s ability to manage a project used to correlate very well to one’s age. Don’t get me wrong. People were just as smart in the past and had many mentors to guide new managers; however, today a lot of focus has been placed on putting together a project management framework that doesn’t require as much experience to master. The PMP and PRINCE2 frameworks have raised the bar in managing projects. So what does a veteran project manager do? How does someone with years of project management experiences take it to the next level? Here are three things that you need.

Soft skills – Getting things done through influence

The main difference I see between the younger project managers and their older counterparts are in the ways they go about getting things done. Although technically more savvy than the older manager, younger managers rarely are able to get their team to form as quickly or communicate effectively with the project sponsors. The difference seem to be in the way that more experienced project managers employ a wider range of psychological know how, either consciously or subconsciously. Soft skills like, persuasion, negotiation, and conflict resolution seem to require someone to have gone through the experience before to be able to do well at it.

Deep industry experience

Although the perception of a great manager is that he/she is able to handle projects across any industry, I find that like any service professional, great project managers have deep industry knowledge. In my experience, a project manager who has served an industry for many years will almost always outperform a person who has been a project manager for a diverse set of industries. This is counter-intuitive to the idea that seeing how projects are managed across many industries should give one a more holistic idea of how to better improve one’s project management skill. The value I notice from project managers with deep industry skills are that they truly understand the business direction and trends of the industry, and align the project with the strategy as opposed to managing the project by the book. Sometimes, knowing when to change the process to fit the strategy is what is needed.

Strong network

Another advantage that time gives to a more experienced project manager is the ability to build a strong network of other project managers. Having access to a support network to bounce ideas off and also to learn from is invaluable.

The profitable world of project management

A colleague asked me the other day: “Who profits from project management?” It’s an interesting question, not least because I’ve always thought of project management as a cost center rather than a sustainable profitable business. The PMP and PRINCE2 have gone a long way in highlighting the function of project management and putting it on par with other professional skills like accounting, marketing and operations. Consulting, training and software developers have profited from this new found recognition.

Consulting

I’ve always thought of this industry as highly skilled temp workers. Project management consulting has always been an important component in a consulting project. Nowadays it is becoming more common to see project management as a stand alone service offered by consulting companies. Of course industry and technical knowledge still plays an important role as part of the value proposition, however that is no longer always a requirement. Where in the past, I only saw the term ‘best-of-breed’ associated with software products; I am now beginning to hear that in project management consulting pitches too. The idea is to bring in consultants with specific knowledge in project management, and then fill in the rest of the team with specialists required to execute the project.

This is one part of the service industry that is growing rapidly. A high touch business that requires a lot of face time with clients and prospects, low fixed costs and high variable costs, makes it almost impossible to scale profitability.

Training

All you have to do is type in ‘project management training’ in your favorite search engine and you would be barraged with all types of providers. You can get your training served online or offline, in class or via books and CDs, in a university or an independent course provider and in any geography, language and budget you are in. Like consulting, project management training courses have flourished in the last ten years.

I believe this is more a function of demand from students and industry. This has led to the number of inexperienced but trained ‘project managers’ to rise significantly. Whether this would eventually degrade the value of certifications is doubtful. I have been involved in recruiting in more than one organization. Although not a representative sample, I can tell you that project management certifications would get your resume on to the short list.

Software

I’ve seen a lot of products and heard many vendor presentations relating to project management software. I am not a big fan of project management software preferring pencil and paper and then capturing everything in MS Project. However, project management software has been on the rise. Although integration and flexibility issues have given some pause to buyers, the main advantage of project management software is to facilitate a standard method of running a project across an organization. Depending on an organization’s prior experience in managing projects and how tuned the software is to the projects the organization is running, there could be immediate value to using project management software.

Dealing with a dysfunctional template library

So your PMO has a nice shiny template library. After a few months in operations, things start to go wrong. No one is using the template library. Even if templates are being used, it is used in the wrong manner. Reports produced and compiled from these templates are ignored, due to sheer volume, complexity or just plain misinformation. These are all signs and symptoms of a dysfunctional template library. If this sounds like your PMO template library, read on.

If you’ve got a dysfunctional template library, here are three prescriptions.

Appoint a template librarian

I can stress the importance of a good template librarian. Someone who knows what’s in the in template library and how to use it. Someone who is able to say ‘NO’ to new bells and whistles. Someone who is able to integrate new lessons learned into the library. Find one, give him/her authority and responsibility play the role successfully and in no time your template library will be seen as a crowning success.

K.I.S.S

Yep, I’m sure you’ve seen this acronym before. It’s short for Keep It Simple Stupid. I’ve seen unbelievably complex libraries filled with flowcharts, checklists and templates with all the bells and whistles that the PMO consultants have gathered from many man months of work.

Problem is, at the end of the day, when a project manager has been appointed to take responsibility of the project, and is shown the complex project management infrastructure he/she’s got to use, it’s typically not used. If it is used, the templates are usually partially used, or filled in with incorrect information. The information also takes a lot of resource time to compile and produce. Project managers looking to augment the existing templates find that they are so interconnected that making a small change in one template usually breaks many other templates. Bottom line is that, the template library will not get utilized.

Stakeholders, especially the project sponsor and manager are supposed to derive the high-level view of the state of the project using the templates from the template library. Complex templates do not allow this to happen.

Case study templates

Templates are important, but the content that goes in them are just as important. Even with pages of documentation of how to fill in a template, the most compliant and happy project managers are those who have access to previously filled in templates. Not only is it much faster to complete project templates using prior project templates, but also more educational. Project managers know where the pitfalls are in a particular organization. This is not something that one gets from a blank template.

So many online resources, so little time … maybe a quick attempt at organizing?

Okay there is a ton of stuff out on the web relating to project management. Some are useful, some less so. Websites have come and gone over the years, however I am beginning to see a few strong project management knowledge bases emerge and stay the course. I’d like to highlight a few choice places to go for comprehensive project management coverage. For brevity, I will highlight only one site/provider per category.

Overview Category: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management)

This is a continuously evolving site and that is the main reason why I feel this is the best overview material on the subject of project management.

Training: RMC (http://www.rmcproject.com/)

Many of my colleagues and I have used RMC materials to prepare for the PMP test. There are many providers today, catering to almost every niche segment.

Wisdom: Max Wideman (http://www.maxwideman.com/)

It’s hard to top Max in terms of experience and breadth in general project management. He has written many articles, books and Issacons.

Web-based software: WebBased Software (http://www.web-based-software.com/reviews.asp)

There are many vendors providing project management software. Just make sure you have a general idea of what you are looking for before searching for a vendor. Oddly enough, I have never used web-based software before to manage a project. MS Project has always been the de-facto tool at all my client sites.

Desktop software: MS Project

This is usually available at any large organization and is well understood. The maintenance and license fees and level of training required might make this option less attractive as compared to web-based software.

Podcast: The Project Management Podcast (http://www.thepmpodcast.com/)

There are really only two major podcasts that focus specifically on general project management issues and experiences. The one I listen to more often is the Project Management Podcast, as its content comes from a broad range of practitioners. The other podcast is run by Mark Perry at BOT International (http://www.botinternational.com/thepmopodcast.htm).

Templates: CVR/IT consulting (www.cvr-it.com/CVR_Templates.htm)

Comprehensive and maintained generic template library. The Virginian Government also has a template library (http://www.vita.virginia.gov/projects/cpm/templates.cfm). I have taken a look at the templates both site have created. They are fairly generic, and will help you kick things off. However, you’d definitely need to customize the templates to your particular industry, organization and project needs.

How to set up a template library

One of the first things that you’d need as part of a PMO is a template library. Basically, a template library is a set of documents that a project manager would use to initiate, plan, execute, monitor and close a project. A template library that is well maintained will save you many hours rework. Each template in the library is meant to help the project manager get started on structuring his/her thoughts quickly, thoroughly and best of all, includes all the lessons learnt from previous projects.

Setting up a template library is relatively easy. In this article, I assume that the funding and headcount decision have already been approved. Depending on the size of your organization and the scope of the template library, this project usually ranges between 1-6 months. If you have been tasked with setting up a template library, here are the steps that I suggest you take:

1. Does your organization already have an existing template library?
2. Appoint a template librarian
3. Centralize internal templates
4. Supplement with external templates
5. Present to stakeholders and incorporate feedback
6. Rollout

Does your organization already have an existing template library?

Silly as this may sound, this step has saved me many valuable hours. Depending on the size of the organization you are working with, there is a high likelihood that there is already a template library, or at least a significant amount of frequently used project templates stored somewhere within the organization. If a template library already exists, is well maintained, and is well utilized, it is best to leverage that existing library and build on it.

Appoint a template librarian

Just as in a normal library, a librarian will manage the templates and help project managers identify the right template for the particular stage in a project. Unlike a normal librarian, the template librarian also has the additional responsibility to act as the gatekeeper for the template library. The library’s content should be kept to a minimum. It is the librarian’s responsibility to vet any new additions to the library. The template librarian should be responsible for the next steps.

Centralize internal templates

The best place to start would be current projects, as this typically represents the current best practices of the firm. Interview the project managers, functional leaders, and other project stakeholders. Collect all project documentation while noting the relationship between the documents. By relationship, I mean, what are the impacts of changes in one document to another. This process needs to be laid out in a workflow to aid later discussions.

Supplement with external templates

Once you have gathered and analyzed the internal project documents, you will begin to notice gaps within the project documentation that you have gathered. External templates also help kick start discussions in what should be in a template library. This is especially useful when the organization is still fairly young and does not have many current or prior project documents to fall back on. There are numerous external template libraries. I will review these external template libraries in a later posting.

Present to stakeholders and incorporate feedback

The value of a template library is only created when project managers actually use it to manage their projects. As you gather the internal and external templates, begin to show the collection of templates and how they interconnect to one another. Seek feedback from practicing project managers and incorporate their feedback. Use internal productivity tools, e.g. sharepoint, blogs, wikis, etc…, to maintain a continuing dialog with project managers who will have to use the template library. The success or failure of the template library will be determined by whether or not it is used by project managers.

Rollout

If you have been presenting to stakeholder and incorporating their feedback throughout the project, this task should be fairly straightforward. One important thing that you need to do during the rollout is to establish the template library as part of the project management office. This creates visibility across the whole organization to the template library and it being the central repository of all project management related templates.

The PMO disadvantage

After reading ‘The PMO advantage’, you might be wondering why every organization isn’t rushing in to create a PMO. I have seen quite a number of enthusiastic senior leadership teams who on further analysis, decided to postpone the idea of setting up a PMO. I’ve listed five common disadvantages I have encountered.

High-level buy in required

Setting up a PMO requires sponsorship from the highest level of the organization. Although a many PMOs can exist at a lower level, to fully realize the advantages of a PMO, it has to be bought in by all senior leadership representing each functional group. Funding, resource deployment and leadership, the requirements of a successful PMO, all are derived from senior management.

Communication

To realize the advantages listed in a previous article, after buy-in from senior leadership is obtained, the organization needs to create a coordination and communication framework between each of the functional groups. Once senior leadership has agreed to a PMO, different expectations of a PMO will start to be raised from the various groups that will want to use the PMO. Insufficient communication between groups has been one of the main hurdles in creating a successful PMO. Silos that have been created and exist in the organization do not disappear overnight just because a PMO has been created.

Complexity

Many large organizations have small PMOs that have been created to run a project or projects for a particular subsidiary. Pooling the resources from across a large organization and creating processes and controls require a deep understanding of how each group is going to gain and be impacted by the changes. The high level of complexity can be extremely daunting, to PMO teams that have not had the experience of operating a project office across multiple geographies, subsidiaries, cultures, and languages.

Underutilization

This is a key disadvantage especially for small to mid-sized organizations. Utilization of project managers within a PMO improves the skills of the project managers, increases morale and realizes the economics of setting up a PMO. Small to mid-sized organizations, especially those that are not in growing markets/industries, tend not to have a robust pipeline of projects to fully utilize a full time PMO. These types of companies are better served by project management consultants, who are then able to better manage their utilization across numerous projects in other organizations.

Operational organization

Some organizations are just not suited for a PMO. Operational types of organizations, especially those in manufacturing, mining and utilities have very limited use of a PMO for their day-to-day operations. These organizations tend to get better economics from engaging management consultants who in turn act as the organization’s PMO.

How much is this PMO thing going to cost?

Thinking about setting up a Project Management Office (PMO)? There are certainly many advantages to setting up a PMO (link to previous post), but what does it cost to set one up? There are many ways to come up with a ball park figure for the cost. Here is a short list of techniques I have seen used in deriving that figure.

Multiples

This is the technique I have seen used most often to come up with a rough estimate of the cost to set up a PMO office. The multiple used tends to be guided by the type of projects the PMO is being set up for. For a technology PMO, the general rule of thumb is a 10:1 project manager to staff ratio. Multiply that by the expected expense per project manager, add an overhead and you have your ballpark number.

If records have been kept about previous projects, management would be able to use these numbers to project what their PMO needs would be in the coming months. Depending on the size and complexity of the projects, a 1:1 project to project manager ratio all the way up to 1:5 have been used.

Large organizations with strategic plans would be able to forecast their future project requirements based on their plans. They would then use the above ratios to determine their PMO size.

Comparables

Similar PMOs either internal or external to the organization would act as rough comparables for the organization. To fine tune the information derived from comparables, the organization has to search for PMOs serving the same or similar projects, industries or groups. Unless the organization has prior experience in setting up a PMO in another part of the organization, this information is rarely available to the decision makers. This is usually where consultancies or other information gathering firms would be able to help.

Detailed expense modeling

Once the general idea of setting up a PMO has been accepted, a more detailed expense modeling exercise will need to be done. Either an internal finance analyst or consultant would be used to develop a model. This model usually includes information already derived from comparables and multiples analysis. The model would also include, attributes like, annual compensation for the PMO team, general administration expenses, project management training, and other items of that nature.