Sweating Your PPSOs Assets - How do you get best value out of what you already have? September 2008 - Warwick Conferences
Successful PPSOs all have one thing in common – they know what their assets are and they really know how to work them for the benefit of the individuals who work within them, the programme and projects they support and the organisation they’re a part of. So will PPSOs continue to sweat their assets to extract the best possible service offerings in these belt tightening, credit crunch, recession fearing times? In this 14th conference, delegates were taken through the most valuable assets their PPSO has and learnt more about how they can get the most value out of what they already have without the need for extra spend and resources. Presentations, workshops, networking and Q&As concentrating on the four main assets of infrastructure, skillsets/knowledge, personal skills and information, and gave delegates a whole host of new ideas to take away and implement. And that’s not all, “the sharing of experiences, etc. from a wide range of different organisations” was invaluable and “meeting like-minded people & having relevant, realistic discussions” were just as important as the presentations The full agenda includes;
Wednesday 17th September - Day OneThe 14th PPSOSIG Conference was opened by Chris Walters, the PPSOSIG Chairperson. Chris opened proceedings with a brief introduction:1. The PPSOSIG conferences are not a training experience 2. It is a learning experience 3. Presenters are here to stimulate your thoughts and provide discussion topics, some formally, some informally 4. Don’t be shy – your contribution is as valid as anyone elses , your experience will help them 5. All prior conference feedback greatly values the networking and discussion aspect, its down to you all – take the opportunity Who’s feeling the pinch back at your company? Projects – discretionary spend = first to go. Less projects = less PPSO – are you prepared? Private sctor definitively, public sector – Lib Dems already talking about £20billion savings. Food for thought The first presentation of the morning: PPSO Physical Characteristics – John Zachar. > See the PPSO Physical Characteristics presentation (PDF) John is the fastest person in the room – broke the sound barrier 7 times. Membership Secretary of the UK Chapter of the PMI, educator and consultant for CITI, specialising in PPSO. The theme for the presentation concentrated on the physical attributes for the PPSO, simple but effective advice and tips can make a difference to the success of a PPSO, for example; is the PPSO visible and welcoming? Does your PPSO have an open door policy (come in and talk to us)? The PPSO should be a place where the Project Managers can easily access. Is your PPSO a refuge – a place where the project manager doesn’t get it in the neck about information, delivery timescales etc etc. Providing areas such as hotdesking are extensions of the open door policy – inviting project managers and their teams into the PPSO space. Is the space that the PPSO operates an inviting environment – is there space for the PM to visit? Chairs available for “guests”? Does your PPSO even have a physical location? For example do you take office space or are you a virtual PPSO – taking whatever space you can? The PPSOs which support projects which are geographically spread – how does the PPSO operate in this kind of environment. How does it work when facilitation is needed for e.g., an initiation workshop, the PM would ideally like to offload this kind of activity to the PPSO and not have to worry about managing the process. Location, to be able to carry out this type of activity is crucial for the PPSO and the physical location should be seriously considered by the PPSO. Getting out and about – floorwalking is an opportunity to drop information into the PM and team as well as gaining relevant information which might not be forthcoming through the normal reporting methods. Examples from the floor – for one particular delegate their PPSOs are satellite PPSOs and each offers a specific range of services. The PPSO – could it ever be a paperless office? The demand from the PM is such that moving towards secure online storage is crucial, the PPSO must be in a position to supply this demand. Running the project server has meant that additional skillsets are needed within the PPSO to be able to run the tools effectively and efficiently.
A PPSO provides information, making the project visible – supply the “demand” to senior management. Does your PPSO make the project information physically visible for e.g., covering the walls with this high level information (milestone charts, critical paths, gantt charts, risks, issues etc). There’s also an opportunity here to show the “ideal” for the projects i.e., your organisation may run projects that fall into distinct categories, is there an "ideal" project plan for each of the categories of projects? Asking the audience gave several other examples; Document Templates, Databases of project information, interestingly from the floor in a show of hands – databases were equal in either being devised by the PPSO vs a bought in solution. Questions from the floor – if the organisation is not prepared to spend money on extra facilities or software – what could the PPSO do that is free or has minimal costs? Activities such as floor-walking cost nothing but have a huge impact on the visibility or "marketing" of the PPSO
. John's presentation also covered the Demand (Senior Management who need the reports and information from the PPSO) and Supply (Project Managers who supply the data to PPSO) and the knack of keeping both the Supply and Demand sides satisfied. The terms Demand and Supply were used throughout the conference by delegates when describing their own PPSO functions in their organisations. > See the PPSO Physical Characteristics presentation (PDF) . Personal Assets - Personal Skills Inventory - Lain Burgos-Lovece Lain has 20 years in PM industry with 15 years specialising in PMOs, Lain’s company Serissa , specialises in designing and building PMOs > See the Personal Assets - Personal Skills Inventory presentation (PDF) > See the Personal Assets - Personal Skills Inventory handouts (PDF) . Lain's presentation and accompanying handouts were indepth, informative and packed with ideas - not only for managers of the PPSO but for anyone working within the PPSO. The presentation looked first at the services of the PMO and categorisation according to: People, Process, Tools, Mission – Type of Services. Afterwards we categorise the kinds of talents and strengths your people have – using the same categories (People, Process, Tools) for e.g., do you have a specific person with a talent for a specific system (Tools). You will start to see a balance, overlap and gaps on the Mission Vs Skills giving a clearer indication of where particular services need additional capabilities. One part of the presentation which rang a bell with alot of the audience; " .. at work, are you given the opportunity to do the best work you can do?", The floor responded 10%, the survey was 20% and the people who responded (in the survey) were part of a high performing team (high productivity, customer satisfaction etc) The presentation looked closer at the best way to develop people – and understanding more about how the people within your team naturally feel, think and behave and then building on these unique talents is the most effective way. > See the Personal Assets - Personal Skills Inventory presentation (PDF) > See the Personal Assets - Personal Skills Inventory handouts (PDF) A interactive session for the delegates following each of the main presentations throughout the conference. The So What? sessions gave the delegates the opportunity to share their own experiences and provide answers to posed questions. Graham Shreeve ran each of the interactive sessions, Graham is an educator in P&PM, associate with the major training organisations, part of wider partnerships, Programme Director, Set up PMOs. In this role he played Devils Advocate and Philsopher! In this first session, following the personal skills presentation, delegates were left with an open question - So What? Here is a selection of the outputs from the session; " So What Should we do about applying skills inventory to permanent and contractor staff?" In an ideal world we would perform the skills inventory, we would consider understanding skill of permanent team first. The skills inventory could then be applied to a selection of contractor staff. We could show the benefits of doing this by looking at the benefits to the organisation. Some concerns exist about maintaining the skills within the team " So What Why should the organisation invest in PMO?" Governance, support PM processes, strategic alignment, need to tailor to organisation's needs, best practice, support hub/haven for PMs, MI visibility, break down silos, business change, quality. " So What Is the Use of PMO Resources (delivering best value to the organisation?) Jobs are at risk - what is the best value? Customer needs/expectations, measure our delivery in the short term. What can the PMO do? Sell / Tell. Benchmark our performance. Ask yourself the question (as a PMO Manager) Assess skills, services, talents. Develop strengths and align to the business. "So What - does the PSO delivery value to the organisation? It provides structured governance, which reduces organisational risk. It provides standard reporting mechanisms. It provides clear communication paths. Improves corporate decision making. Reduces risk of failure and overspend. Enhances knowledge transfer "So What - How can the PPSO add value to the business?" Flexibility of roles based on demand / skillsets. Maximising potential of existing skills. Reducing PM admin. Consistency of services , standardised processes etc "So What is the value of developing the skills within the PPSO when it has not determined te value of the PPSO to the business? "So What - How do you develop the skills you've got effectively and match it to the organisational need?" Collateral / reuse. Academies - match to strengths. Develop to career path / motivate. Risk Management – Adrian Wilson Adrian is a consultant and educator for CITI. Adrian has over many years of project management experience and is now CITI's lead trainer for PRINCE2 and APMP, Adrian teaches general project management courses, run workshops, undertakes consultancy and coaches. He's also a pilot with over 20 years in the air force. > See the Risk Management presentation (PDF) “ I take risks” the opening line and so do the audience (driving everyday, flying on holiday) each person is a Risk Manager. The group were shown an excerpt from Indiana Jones. It wasn’t risk management more like crisis management! The definitions of issues and risks- Problems are generally dealt with by yourself, issues can’t be dealt with yourself and are escalated and risk – things may or may not happen. Can a risk be an issue? – yes it can. The presentation gave the audience a good overview of risk management including; the risk management process, risk averse(Stay in bed! – interestingly more people die falling out of bed than contracting BST!) Vs risk aware (where the PPSO should be!), sources of risks, risk profiles ( (different types of projects have different profiles – the PPSO may keep a profile / template of each?) Identification of risks – Time, Cost, Quality triangle. Risk probability and impact - risks that are clustering around the low impact low probability can be removed from the risk log by making them into “assumptions” – we can assume that they’re not going to happen. High probability is classed at around a 1 in 4 / 1 in 5 chance of happening. Risk management strategies were quickly explained by shaking a can of Coke and offering it to a delegate - the strategies Avoid!, Reduce (tap the top and leave, apparently it's effective!), Transfer (give it to someone else), Protect (covered by a coat), Mitigate (dry clean the shirt). The actions to take - a selection of actions – balancing the risk actions vs risk impact (costs of risk actions vs risk impacts) The PPSOs role within risk management predominantly monitoring and reporting the risk actions, risk response and updating of plans. Finally issue management – everything in the pending tray which can’t be dealt with by the PM tends to be escalated. Impact Statements are written to highlight the issue when escalating – the idea is not to “dump” the issue – it’s more about focusing management attention – the written form is much more powerful. > See the Risk Management presentation (PDF) . In this So What? interactive session the delegates were given two questions - “How far do you go with risk management?” or “Why not just manage the issues when they happen?” Here are a selection of the responses from the floor: How far do you go with risk management? > In-house training - courses, CBT, MoR, mentoring Why not just manage the issues when they happen? > Potential impact of issues could de-rail the project
Earned Value Management- Adrian Wilson Following on with the "ologies" theme, Adrian took the delegates through the concepts of Earned Value Management (EVM), EVM can cut through data to give really useful information to the project and interestingly there was only one delegate in the audience who uses EVM in their PPSO. > See the Earned Value Management (EVM) presentation (PDF) So What? - Earned Value Management In this So What? interactive session the delegates were given two questions -“So what are the challenges of doing it?” and “Can you afford not to do it when times are tough?” Here are a selection of the responses from the floor: So what are the challenges of doing it? > Quality of information Can you afford not to do it when times are tough?” > No because ... removes subjective element of project status reporting and enables better resource planning (PM perspective - where do you need your experienced / senior PMs) > No because ... high value, multi functional projects would reap the benefit - especially when stakeholders are the public > There are multi precursors - plans, timesheets, maturity, if not present then EVM not possible
Change and Configuration Management- Adrian Wilson Following on with the "ologies" theme, Adrian took the delegates through the concepts of Change Management and Configuration Management > See the Change and Configuration Management presentation (PDF)
So What? - Change and Configuration Management In this So What? interactive session the delegates were given two questions - “How can you help the PM with Configuration and Change Management?” and “When do you implement change control?” Here are a selection of the responses from the floor: How can you help the PM with Configuration and Change Management? > Provide a QA function When do you implement change control? > From the time the PID is signed off Questions and Answers Panel The Q&A session at the end of the first day was a panel session with Lain, Adrian, John and members of the audience. Members of the audience were invited to post questions throughout the day - here's what was on our delegate's minds: In what ways does the PMO share/control / manage the project management competencies? Have you had any experience of “offshoring” elements of the PMO/PSO and do you believe it is an operating model that can work? Has anyone merged their Business and IT PPSOs – how do they operate with the varying requirements, what are the issues and challenges?(Question not answered) What techniques and tools do you use to measure project progress to make sure they are tracked? What do the panel think of the new P3O qualification? What do you suggest / advise when the PPSO is slightly more mature than the project management community – how do you bring them along apart from training courses? Interesting question which was discussed for a significant length of time. Suggestions that people are going to take away from today? More floorwalking (it’s a quick win), more facilitation
Day Two Desert Island PMOs – the start of the second day – delegates were asked to close their eyes and imagine they were on a deserted island! You have been shipwrecked on an island, and there are lots of projects underway to help you get back to civilisation. You have been chosen to run the PMO, and you have to select which 5 PMO assets you think you need the most to run your PMO and why. Information Assets – Managing Information – Sink or Swim - Lain Burgos-Lovece > See the Information Assets presentation (PDF) > See the Information Assets handouts (PDF) Lain opened the second day with an indepth session on Management Information, the question "What MI would you choose to demonstrate how valuable the PPSO is to the organisation" was put to the audience: Answers from the floor: • Control Tower Report > See the Information Assets presentation (PDF) > See the Information Assets handouts (PDF) In this So What? interactive session the delegates were given two questions - “You are awash in information – how valuable can you make it in your context?” and “How deep do you dig for data (granularity)? Where is the point of diminishing returns for you?” Here are a selection of the responses from the floor: You are awash in information – how valuable can you make it in your context? > Help the PM's to help themselves How deep do you dig for data (granularity)? Where is the point of diminishing returns for you? > When it becomes irrelevant
Future Assets - What's on the horizon for PPSOs - Andy Murray - Outperform Andy Murray works for Putperform, an OGC accredited consulting company (PRINCE2, MSP, MoR, P3M3, assessment, auditing, benchmarking). Andy is the lead author of PRINCE2 2009 Refresh. He's a keen England football supporter (was in the top 300 supporter – loyalty scheme) > See the PRINCE2 Refresh presentation (PDF) PRINCE2:
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The 14th PPSOSIG conference was heldon Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th September