How to Embed Improved Project and Program Management Practices in Organisations

Based on a recent study in Harvard Business School Working Paper and the author’s own experience, this article explores approaches that will help to embed improved project and program management practices in the organization, including the role of the PMO as a part of this.

We are all familiar with organizations which implement Program Management Offices (PMO’s) and then disband them later, and / or for a while have a focus on improving project management with investment in training initiatives, and even a stronger focus on following standardised process. There may also be a commitment to ISO certification, which is enthusiastically supported for a while, and then subsides and instead becomes an annual "tick the box" event in order to maintain certification. Hobbs and others (2007, 2008) suggests from their research that the average life of a PMO is about 3-4 years before it will be re-configured or even dismantled, and PMO’s face many issues. The more that changes of direction occurs, the harder it becomes in the future to resurrect these initiatives and overcome the cynicism and weariness of staff who have "seen it all before".

Therefore, when embarking on these initiatives, organisations are well advised to carefully consider past history so that we do not repeat it. It is not difficult to make a long list of reasons why initiatives aimed at improving project and program management and establishing PMO's often fail.

A few common reasons include:

Lack of significant executive support;
Lack of clarity on the roles and responsibilities of the various parties, and particularly a PMO. This is important around their independence and Governance role versus “ownership of projects” role which is often attributed to PMO’s;
Several PMO’s with lack of clarity about their respective roles, resulting in management control issues;
Selection of the wrong people for the PMO, often with an administration focus role rather than a project leadership focus, therefore no PMO credibility or power;
Senior management who act as Sponsors and Steering Committee members do not understand their role;
Change of management resulting in a change of focus and direction, and often resulting in these initiatives being put aside;
Cost-cutting with a focus on reduction of anything that looks like an overhead.

Whilst all of the above reasons have validity, it is proposed that there are often other related reasons, which are either less obvious or unspoken (except in hushed tones).

A recent Harvard Business School Working Paper 11-068 (Hall, 2011) provides some interesting insights on the role of functional experts in organisations, and though the cases the authors review apply to risk management, the same principles can be applied to other similar areas.

In the successful case study referenced by the paper above three issues appear significant:

The risk managers included their requirement for information on risk as part of regular financial reporting mandated by the finance group. This had several advantages as it was not seen as yet another report to be completed by the business, and the mechanism for the regular reporting to finance already existed and was accepted. An astute move by the leader of the risk management group.
The risk management group developed tools and techniques that were very usable and assisted the business groups to better understand their challenges. These techniques also enhanced their credibility at higher levels in the organisation, thereby gaining legitimacy. They were also required to assist in interpreting the information produced.
The risk management group adopted a different approach than the often used compliance approach, instead opting for the stance of "how can we assist you to achieve your business objectives better.” It is similar to a case quoted by O’Reilly and Pfeffer (2000) where the Human Resources department in one of the organisations studied, advised their Human Resources professionals that if they wish to keep their job, their response to business managers was to be “tell us what your problem is and we will find a way to help you” rather than the fairly typical “no you cannot do that, it is against the rules” approach.

On item 3 above, it requires very experienced staff who are confident about their knowledge and its application in order to adopt this stance. However, an observation is that in many instances we have relatively junior staff who are less experienced than the project and program managers they are dealing with, and consequently it becomes more a “follow the rules” approach.

On item 2 above, often what is promulgated as good project management practice is a series of templates, which require a volume of information that needs to be completed. A number of project managers are reported as saying that they would really appreciate receiving feedback from management on the documents they prepare, and in particular the regular monthly report that seems to be so important, but not sufficiently so that any management feedback to the report author is necessary.

One concern is that some of what is taught or used as good project management practice, whilst useful to an extent is actually very ordinary commonsense, however does little to assist either management or the project manager and team in addressing some of their more significant and pressing issues.

Depending on the organisation these issues for Projects could be:

Improving the complete estimating and re-estimating procedure and understanding about the accuracy of estimates, which would assist everybody if they speak the same language and have more realistic expectations, especially about early estimates prior to design;
Formal reviews of key documents including plans, specifications and design, especially for more complicated projects, to avoid later rework because issues have not been adequately considered. There are well-established techniques for doing these reviews, which do take time, but research shows they really pay-off for the time invested;
Improving regular status/performance reporting so that it is concise, more accurate and likely to lead to more effective corrective actions. Particularly the use of earned value, provided that there is commonly agreed procedures for estimating percentage complete, would be an excellent start, although not the complete story here;
A Risk Assessment Model for determining whether the project fits into the category of small, medium or large rather than the often used cost as the sole criteria for determining the level of formality and management controls required by the project.

Recognising that Programs have a different focus, the issue could cover:

Understanding about the difficulty of organisation change, and how to identify and effectively plan for it;
Techniques to improve understanding about the objectives and scope and resulting business changes in order to reduce the normal level of ambiguity about “ends” and/or “means”. This does not naturally occur and is more than just carefully documenting detailed requirements;
Improving the level of understanding about how to identify and track benefits rather than the simplistic approach adopted by many organizations. It is not due to a lack of information on how to do this, but more likely that we want the outcomes (assured benefits) without putting in the necessary effort in the first place.

Training in and implementing such techniques would provide additional value over the more standard processes and templates adopted. Ongoing advice on use from experts will also ensure they are used.

Hobbs and others (2007, 2008) also notes that PMO will change over time as the organisation matures and they also need to balance the tension between “good process” and the business requirement for “flexibility”, which can be overstated, or simply an excuse for a lack of discipline. Both these issues will require excellent leadership in the PMO and also for the organisation to consider their strategy and implications for implementing it. Strategy without a framework for effective implementation will most likely fail to achieve the outcomes. The approaches adopted in the Working Paper case organisation quoted above would certainly assist here.

Another major issue when seeking to improve organization practices around project and program management is to develop a viable long-term plan that addresses all the stakeholders’ needs (senior management, project managers and operational managers and their staff) including adequately addressing the organization change that will be required in order to have these practices accepted and embedded in the organisation. The technique favoured by the author to achieve this is Business Outcome Maps which are derived from facilitated workshops with stakeholders. They address the specific initiatives or activities required, intermediate and final outcomes and their measures, which include changes in organisation behaviour, and also the risks to achieving the outcomes. They help to obtain more informed consensus among stakeholders, and provide a roadmap for the program.

There is an interesting story about a PMO in a financial services organization in Australia (Dovey, 2007), which had good leadership and did the right things, except that it was never able to overcome the opposition from the powerful line managers, who ultimately were able to have it dismantled. The lesson here was that the PMO disturbed the power structure of the organization, the CEO gave way, which ultimately led to his demise when a major project initiatives failed and the Board removed him, and demanded the re-instatement of the PMO.

Initiatives to establish or improve the PMO and the organization's project and program management practices need to be carefully planned as programs of organization change, and as such they will need to have:

An astute and experienced program manager to drive them;
Powerful sponsorship;
A carefully considered change management plan;
Clear understanding about the value to be created, both the intermediate outcomes and the final outcomes which will take longer to achieve. These must be measurable, owned and reported to sustain momentum, and help to avoid its demise during regular cost cutting. It is suggested that some of the claims for the benefits in establishing a PMO or improving project and program management are too simplistic and do not stand the test of time and organisational struggles, re-organisations and staff turnover.

Failure to do the above will result in what the Harvard Working Paper quoted above suggests – the functional experts, including PMO staff, Project and Program Managers simply become “box tickers” or "disconnected technicians" or even "ad hoc advisors” rather than “frame-makers” who are significant contributors to the organisation’s overall health.

References:

Hall, M Mikes, A & Millo, Y 2011 “From Box-Tickers to Frame-Makers: Transformations in the Roles of Functional Experts”, Harvard Business School Working Paper 11-068, http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6593.html downloaded 6/6/2011

Hobbs, B, Aubry M, 2007 “A multi phase research program investigating project management offices (PMO’s): the result of phase 1”, Project Management Journal, Vol. 38, No. 1, March

Hobbs, Brian, Aubry, Monique, Thuiller, Dennis, 2008, “The project management office as an organizational innovation”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol 26, pp 547-555

O’Reilly, C A & Pfeffer, J 2000, “Hidden Value – How great companies achieve extraordinary results with ordinary people”, HBS Press

Dovey, Ken & Fenech, Bryan, 2007 “The Role of Enterprise Logic in the Failure of Organisation to Learn and Transform”, Management Learning, Vol 38 (5), 573-590

© 2011 allPM.com

Harold Ainsworth (PMP) is an experienced business manager, consultant and educator who has worked in both Australia and Asia. His current interest is in helping organizations to improve the performance of the programs and projects used to implement their business strategy and organization change, in order to achieve planned benefits from these investments. Visit his website at www.programvalue.com.au

Artykuł opublikowany dzięki uprzejmości International Institute for Learning, Inc.

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