Operationalizing PPM
As we came into the 4th month of this 6-month engagement we really focused on building up a cadence of meetings and processes which would become their PMO’s normal operating model.
To drive the PPM process we established a Governance Review Board and implemented a series of regularly scheduled meetings. Each meeting was designated for a specific purpose that would have defined inputs and outputs.
Those 4 types were:
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Forum
The purpose of this forum was to render decisions on activating or deactivating any projects in the portfolio. All new project submissions had to present to the forum with the required standardized documents. Where applicable, we leveraged the enterprise PPM tool to capture the inputs on each submission.
The second function of the forum was to perform project health reviews. It was here that corrective actions — as well as project deactivations, would take place. The state of any project would simply consist of either active or inactive.
At the conclusion of the meeting, a summary communication would be crafted and distributed widely to inform everyone about the outcomes.
Change Management Forum
An essential function of any project, program, or portfolio is having in place the proper governance function which would approve or deny any material changes to the project/program. Specific guidance was given on the thresholds of change that would require approval (eg 5% change in the budget) and change control was limited to scope, schedule, and cost.
Release Management Forum
Because many of their projects/programs involved technical changes we implemented a release management forum that would coordinate and approve the release into production. Fundamental components were identified as required criteria before any release could be approved (eg support plan, backout plan, training, etc)
Architecture Review Forum
This forum was put together to address the historical lack of architectural coordination among various streams in the organization. It was designed to force the hand of the CTO to develop a strategic roadmap for various technologies and to ensure that teams were not deploying platforms that were inconsistent, incompatible, or redundant across the organization.
In addition to these forums, we established the process of regular status reporting. On a bi-weekly basis, each project dropped its standardized status report on the PPM site by an agreed-upon deadline.
In the next article, we’ll explain the refinements steps we took to improved quality and performance across the organization.
Ask Method123
Today’s question comes from J.Malone:
Quite a few of my colleagues have been talking up AI (artificial intelligence) and the impact it will have on project management. Do you think this is likely to happen or is this more hype than substance.
We’re constantly hearing the same types of things — in fact, it’s getting harder to avoid the buzz of AI. While I don’t doubt the potential of AI to impact many disciplines I do think it’s (already) having a big impact on data-driven processes. Social media, for example, has been wielding it for a while now — for better or worse. However, I think the PM discipline will have to do a much, much better job of data collection in order to reap the benefits of AI. After all, you can’t analyze and interpret data that is badly lacking. And any attempt to ‘plug’ the data gaps with fuzzy estimates will just yield incorrect conclusions.
I attended a vendor presentation recently that described AI’s ability to recognize projects with more issues and risks as being less likely to succeed. Conversely, those with more milestones were predicted to be more likely to succeed. The folly in these crude assumptions is known to anyone who’s seen real-life projects being managed in vastly different ways by vastly different people.
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Career Corner
“Does PMP certification really matter?”
I’ve seen this question repeatedly for almost 20 years. I sometimes like to respond with the question: “does it matter to who”.
My mindset has changed a bit over time. In earlier days I would have said: “probably a little”. I can recall having conversations with friends and colleagues who were interviewing for jobs and there was definitely a sense that there were 2 piles of applicants — those with a PMP that would get looked at and those without a PMP that would not. It came down to numbers and time — and clearly, managers and recruiters could save time by focusing only on the candidates who were certified. After a while, though, the pendulum may have swung the other way as perhaps a number of ' ‘paper PMPs’ with very little practical experience watered down the credential.
Today, however, I think it has once again become important for well-qualified PMs to obtain the certification simply because of job-market volatility. The data shows that people are much more likely to have to change jobs more frequently and therefore, any competitive edge will be significant.
To that end, Method123 is kicking off its PMP Exam Prep Course