Project management audio blog featuring monthly interviews with the most seasoned and recognized practitioners, thought leaders, project managers, and executives on industry-specific business problems to help C-level executives achieve success.
In setting up a project office or project management office (PMO), organizations need a pragmatic approach and the support of senior management. By looking internally and using existing best practices, methodologies and tools, project managers can "jumpstart" the process and more importantly create a project office or PMO that fits their organization rather than the other way around. This re-use strategy can also help keep costs down. BUT can it be done quickly without sacrificing the long-term success of the PMO?
In this episode we examine how to set up a project office or PMO in 4 weeks.
To do this, Wayne Thompson is sitting down with Cornelius Fichtner, who has over 15 years of project management experience. Cornelius owns and manages his own project management training company and in his spare time produces three audioblogs: The PM Podcast, The PM PrepCast and The PDU Podcast. He is extremely passionate about project management methodologies and PMOs. Today he will be sharing his insights and war stores around setting up a project office or PMO in 4 weeks.
Music Notes
1. The opening of the episode – “Offroad” 2. Interview with industry insiders – "Sprightly” 3. The closing of the episode – “Yearbook”
Creating a project office or project management office
(PMO) is often a daunting task. Complicating the process is the fact that when you
try to talk to people about PMOs, there is very little continuous spectrum of
understanding regarding the term PMO.
Either the project managers work in an organization which has matured to
the point where they have encountered the term project office or PMO or it is a
foreign term to them.
One successful approach to shedding pre-conceived notions
and building consensus is to create the PMO from the grassroots – starting with
a clean sheet of paper and building the PMO around the needs of the organization
and the people who make it up. Taking such an approach takes into account the business
context and the culture of the overall organization as you work with the
individuals who have to make it all work and succeed. This is very important from a commitment
standpoint because what the individuals believe will succeed contributes substantially
to their ongoing buy-in and success of the PMO.
In this episode we will examine creating a PMO from a
grassroots or clean sheet of paper approach.
To do this, I’m sitting
down with Mel Bost, who has over 30 years of project management experience. Mel’s
entire career has evolved around project and product development, including
work at Ford Motor Company, Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), UNOCAL, Tosco
Corporation, and ConocoPhillips. Mel authors the blog, Mel BostPM Expert(available at http://melbostpmoexpert.com), based on his own experiences in
developing and maturing PMO organizations with several major Fortune 500
companies. Mel’s blog summarizes successful behaviors of
project managers working in a PMO setting as well as the structure and actions
of a real PMO. Today Mel will be sharing his experiences and insights on setting
up a PMO from the “grassroots,” a blank sheet of paper approach.
Music Notes
1. The opening of the show –
“Highlight Reel”
2. Interview with the industry
insider – “Broadcast News”
3. The closing of the show –
“Yearbook”
Thank you for joining us for the fifth podcast in our series on project management offices. Today we are examining how to set up and maintain strategic management offices to provide the necessary alignment between tactical operational activities and the strategic objectives of small and medium enterprises. To do this, Wayne Thompson is sitting down with his friend and colleague, Michael Kamel, for part two of the two part series on strategic management offices.
Michael Kamel has over a decade of experience in engineering and project management. Currently he works as a Senior Manager in Strategy & Operations at Deloitte where his practice covers the domains of strategic planning, strategy deployment, innovation strategy and project management. Recently he was named President Ex-Officio of PMI Montreal. Today he will be sharing his insights and war stories on aligning operational activities with strategic planning in small and medium organizations.
We would also like to announce our newest partner – The PDU podcast.
Let's face it. Getting your PMP certification is tough but keeping it alive is just as challenging. To maintain your PMP certification you have to earn 60 PDUs every 3 years. That's a tall order for a busy PMP.
Welcome to the PDU Podcast. It brings renowned speakers conveniently to where YOU are. Take advantage of the opportunity to upgrade your knowledge and skill and learn from experienced professionals. And you won't ever run the risk of not having enough PDUs at the end of your 3 years because every month you receive a new webinar worth at least 1 PDU.
So stop going to expensive classroom trainings and also free yourself from the need of watching a webinar on your computer. Instead, get The PDU Podcast and earn your PDUs without altering your daily routine. To learn more check out the PDU Podcastat www.pducast.com.
Music Notes
1.The
opening of the show – “Torn Jeans”
2.Interview
with the industry insider – “Sideman Strut”
Small and medium enterprises (SME) typically are lean, agile
organizations. On one hand, functional managers of SMEs often wear multiple
hats and are focused on executing the day-to-day operations to ensure their
organization’s survival. On the other hand, the executives of SMEs are charged
with creating a strategic vision and executing on that vision to ensure the
long-term viability of the organization. And oh by the way depending on the
size of the organization, the executives may also be working in the trenches as
well to maximize the chances to achieve success.
Like their larger brethren, success requires SMEs to be able to not only
articulate the strategic goals of the organization, but also to capture and
implement them at all levels of the enterprise to ensure that all projects, not
matter how small or large, are aligned to the enterprise’s overall strategy.
The lack of a middle management layer in SMEs, however, often means that there
is no one in the organization to help translate the vision of the executives
into operational terms so that the entire enterprise and all of its projects
(i.e., tactical activities) are working in concert to achieve the same common
set of goals.
Strategic management offices (SMO) represent one approach to help SMEs
align their tactical operations with their strategic planning, bridging the gap
between the operations management and the executive suite while optimizing
resource management and minimizing waste.
In this episode, we will examine what makes strategy implementation so
difficult in SMEs, what is an SMO, and how does an SMO differ from a project management
office (PMO).
To do this, Wayne Thompson sits down with his friend and colleague, Michael Kamel,
for a two part interview on strategic management offices.
Michael
has over a decade of experience in engineering and project management. Currently
he works as a Senior Manager in Strategy & Operations at Deloitte where his
practice covers the domains of strategic planning, strategy deployment,
innovation strategy and project management. Recently he was named President
Ex-Officio of PMI Montreal. Today he will be sharing his
insights and war stories on aligning operational activities with strategic
planning in small and medium enterprises.
Music Notes
1.The
opening of the show – “Pursuit”
2.Interview
with the industry insider – “Sprightly”
Although it is true that Project Management Offices (PMOs) need to adapt to the unique needs of the businesses they serve, it is more important that the leaders of PMOs gauge the true function of their existence. In many cases, PMOs get lost in a siloed role delivering their value to solely the group(s) or department(s) they serve without taking into consideration their impact on other overlapping entities that may affect the business as a whole. In this episode we continue our look at the unique character of the role of the PMO in consumer goods companies and how the highly competitive nature of this industry can leverage its value.
Today we are continuing with the second part in a two part series examining how project management offices provide the necessary visibility for success in consumer goods companies. To do this we continue our conversation with Hugh Woodward.
Hugh Woodward is an industry insider, who has over 35 years of project management experience in manufacturing, construction and IT. He served two terms as Chair of the Project Management Institute and almost six years as a member of PMI's Board of Directors. Today Hugh will be sharing with us his insights and experiences of using project management offices in the consumer goods industry.
Many thanks to everyone who participated in the first drawing to win a netbook. Due to its success, we are pleased to announce that we will be giving away more netbooks between January and June of 2010. To register for your chance, please go to our website, www.pmwarstories.com and click on the hyperlink for the Netbook Contest displayed in the sidebar. Members are limited to one entry per month so don’t forget to visit our site and complete an entry form today. Good luck and thank you for listening.
If you would like to learn more about PMOs, project offices, Oracle Primavera, or managing projects in a manufacturing environment, then check out our monthly internet radio show available at www.pmwarstories.com or through apple itunes.
Music Notes
1. The opening of the show – “Investigation” 2. Interview with the industry insider – “Kickflip” 3. The closing of the show – “Yearbook”
Project Management Offices (PMOs) have been traditionally viewed as a horizontal discipline that can be applied to any project-centric organization. Although the basic principles a PMO can deliver are universal, each and every PMO needs to look at the unique requirements and challenges of the vertical industry they are serving in order to fully deliver the value of its role to an organization. In this episode we look at the unique character of the projects implemented by consumer goods companies and how the highly competitive nature of this industry views the role of a project management office.
We are pleased to announce that this is the first podcast in a series on project management offices, sponsored by Oracle Primavera. Today we are examining how project management offices provide the necessary visibility for success in consumer goods companies. To do this I’m sitting down with my friend and colleague, Hugh Woodward, in a two part interview.
Hugh Woodward is an industry insider, who has over 35 years of project management experience in manufacturing, construction and IT. He served two terms as Chair of the Project Management Institute and almost six years as a member of PMI's Board of Directors. Today Hugh will be sharing with us his insights and experiences of using project management offices in the consumer goods industry.
Additionally, I am pleased to announce that we are giving away a netbook to one lucky member of our community. To register for your chance, please go to our website, www.pmwarstories.com and click on the hyperlink for the Netbook Contest displayed in the sidebar. Members can only enter once per drawing and entries must be received by 11pm eastern standard time on Thursday, December 17, 2009.
If you would like to learn more about PMOs, project offices, Oracle Primavera, or managing projects in a manufacturing environment, then check out our monthly internet radio show available at www.pmwarstories.com or through apple itunes.
Music Notes 1. The opening of the episode – “Two Seater” 2. Interview with industry insiders – “East Ender” 3. The closing of the episode – “Electric Rodeo"
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is as much about prioritizing project deliverables as it is about communicating priorities to the stakeholders involved. Carefully conveying the appropriate messages to all parties will ultimately determine the successful results of a PPM methodology put in place. Visibility to stakeholders in a consistent manner coupled with a standard approach to delivering the details of project performance and business cases to launch new projects ensure better results in stakeholder buy-in.
There is no better example than Hollywood when it comes to conveying a consistent message to its audience (i.e. its stakeholders). In this vein, this episode will examine how visibility delivered in a consistent manner can sustain the success to both a portfolio of projects and/or a single project to its stakeholders - regardless of their celebrity status .
Our show is divided into 2 segments.
In Part 1, we will be talking to industry insider, Kris Reynolds, who has over 10 years of project management experience and has led numerous projects in healthcare and software application development. He is the Director of the Program Management Office at Macrovision, formerly TV Guide, and currently serves as president of the Project Management Institute PMO Local Interest Group of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tonight Kris discusses how a solid project portfolio management strategy has enabled his PMO to sustain its success.
If you would like more information about Macromedia’s PMO, creating and maintaining a program management office, or about project portfolio management software, then check out Episode 26, Episode 25, Episode 24, and Episode 20.
In Part 2, Willie Mayket, our in-house project management specialist, sounds off in “Painfully Honest with Willie Mayket”. This episode’s target is the Hollywood sign and its evolution to stardom.
Project Management practitioners understand that running a Project Management Office (PMO) means different groups within a company will compete for their projects to take priority. As in any group dynamic, individuals are continuously assessing how they can better position themselves for success. It’s the PMO’s role to step in to accurately assess the business benefits of all projects and prioritize them in relation to the greater good of the company as a whole. More importantly, strategic alignment to corporate objectives is key to understanding where sponsored projects fit within the company’s portfolio – the wrong priority can mean the difference between order and chaos. It’s for this very reason PMOs exist to objectively define the business benefits of all the proposed projects at arms length from the business units in which they emerged. In many cases, business units propose projects to eliminate subjective risk. It’s the PMO’s role to assess the proposed risk and implement an objective risk management strategy that can in the end avoid unnecessary costs associated to projects “deemed” necessary.
In this episode, we will examine how project management offices can use project portfolio management tools to define benefits and build business cases to determine which projects to pursue. To do this, we sit down with industry insider, Beth Partleton, who has more than 30 years of project and portfolio management experience in manufacturing and construction. During her illustrious project management career, she was the Director of Strategic Projects for Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; she was a founder, charter member, and president of the Milwaukee/Southeast Wisconsin PMI Chapter; she was Chair of the PMI Educational Foundation Board of Directors and lastly she served on the Board of Directors for PMI’s Manufacturing specific interest group. Today she will be sharing her insights and war stories around setting project priorities by properly defining project benefits and building the business case justification.
Hope you enjoy the episode. Thanks again to our community for sharing their war stories.
Music Notes
1. The opening of the episode – “Catwalk” 2. Interview with Beth Partleton – “Kickflip” 3. The closing of the episode – “Yearbook”
It is not very difficult to convince project managers of the value they bring to the table. The reality is project managers are always a piece of a bigger picture within the organizations they represent. Although many understand the the value of project management, there are equally as many within the organization that still need convincing of the role project management plays in meeting corporate objectives. In this regard, project management offices (PMOs) all face a similar predicament from their initial establishment defining their role within the organizations they serve to reaching full maturity by securing complete stakeholder buy-in and becoming true drivers of their company's success.
At the end of the day, like any other department within an organization, the PMO will be judged on its performance. For PMOs this means getting the job done in a timely fashion within budget and according to specifications, while optimizing the available resources at hand. Consequently each project success linked to the PMO will lead to perceived value and stakeholder buy-in. In other words, a PMOs maturity is based on its history of success.
In this episode, we will examine teammates, maturity, and success in the project office.
Our show is divided into 2 segments.
In Part 1, we will be talking to industry insider, Alison Mills Long, who has over 18 years of experience in project management in the financial services industry. She is a founding member of the PMI Columbus, GA Chapter, and served as vice president of Communications & Publicity as well as Chapter President. She is also an instructor for Continuing Education and The Cunningham Center for Leadership Development at Columbus State University in Columbus, GA.
Alison is currently vice president and BankCard Services Project Office Manager for a leading financial services company. In her current position, Alison's responsibilities include the overseeing new bankcard product launches, advancing soft skills, and managing compliance projects, as well as acquisition activities including portfolio conversions. Today she will share her insights and experiences in defining the role of the project management office, assessing organizational maturity and team skills, and measuring success.
In part 2, we go roaming with the Salty Dogg to examine March Madness and its effect on decision making.
Music Notes
1. The opening of the episode – “Catwalk” 2. Interview with Alison Mills-Long – “Alliance” 3. Roaming with the Salty Dogg – “Collins Avenue” 4. The closing of the episode – “East Ender”
Creating a Project Management Office (PMO) requires a large commitment on the part of an organization in centralizing and streamlining its project activities. Often the creation of the PMO overshadows the actual maintenance and success of its function. In fact, 25% of PMOs typically fail in the third year of their existence. Given this reality, its important for organizations to design a PMO that is built to last. Meaning, PMOs require to have the right infrastructure and buy-in in order to succeed. Implementing a Project Portfolio Management (PPM) methodology that accurately aligns an organizations corporate objectives with its active projects is what keeps the PMO machine going. Without the fuel driven by sound PPM best practices a PMO's chances of success hang in the balance.
In this episode, we will examine how to create a project management office and more importantly, how to successfully maintain it through an effective project portfolio management (PPM) strategy. To do this, we will look at PMOs in a service organization and a manufacturing company.
Our show is divided into 2 segments.
In Part 1, we will be talking to industry insider, Kris Reynolds, who has over 10 years of project management experience and has led numerous projects in healthcare and software application development. He is the Director of the Program Management Office at Macrovision, formerly TV Guide. His PMO was named one of the Top 20 Outstanding project management organizations in the October 2007 edition of PM Network magazine. Kris is a frequent author and lecturer on project portfolio management, PMOs, and project management, and currently serves as president of the Project Management Institute (PMI) PMO Local Interest Groupof Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tonight Kris discusses how his organization created a PMO to develop and indoctrinate a consistent project management methodology and project management discipline.
In part 2, I sit down with industry insider, Beth Partleton who has more than 30 years of project and portfolio management experience in manufacturing and construction. During her illustrious project management career, she was the Director of Strategic Projects for Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; she was a founder, charter member, and president of the Milwaukee/Southeast Wisconsin PMI Chapter; she was Chair of the PMI Educational FoundationBoard of Directors and lastly she served on the Board of Directors for PMI’s Manufacturing specific interest group. Today she will be sharing her insights and war stories around the importance of PPM to maintain a successfully operating PMO.
Music Notes
1. The opening of the episode – “Greasy Wheels” 2. Interview with Kris Reynolds – “Half Moon Bay” 3. Interview with Beth Partleton – “Glide” 4. The closing of the episode – “Electric Rodeo”
