Read this if you or your government agency may be interested in project management or a project management office.
You may think that PMO stands for Project Management Office, Program Management Office, or Portfolio Management Office, and you would be correct. However, when establishing your PMO priorities, think:
1. P – Planning and Processes
2. M – Motivation
3. O – Operations
Determining where your organization will focus your efforts is fundamental to the successful functioning of the PMO, whether the PMO is well established or just getting started. With multiple competing projects and initiatives, spending some time planning and developing your PMO priorities in the short term will save you time and effort moving forward.
According to the Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) research, they reported that "aligning projects and strategic objectives has the greatest potential to add value to an organization.”
The “value” here must be determined by each organization, but through establishing your PMO priorities early, you promote a culture of project management in order to gain greater experience in project management practices and personnel. This allows for more efficient processes, more focused and flexible project managers, greater scope, schedule, and budgetary control, and ultimately more successful projects implemented.
Planning and processes
The first step in establishing the priorities for your PMO requires planning and evaluating existing processes. Identifying all projects for the upcoming year is an excellent place to start. For each project or initiative, you will want to pull together information that will assist you in the prioritization process. This may include items such as type of project, expected outcomes, aligned strategic objective(s), targeted length of the project, targeted start date, funding sources, types of approvals needed, resource capacity, and risk versus reward analysis. Each organization can make the determination of what kind of information is necessary in this step to make prioritization more streamlined and specific to their current structure and processes.
As new team members enter and exit project work, there is a risk that knowledge transfer of the PMO processes get lost, or deviations in processes begin to occur. PMI notes “high-performing organizations succeed through a strategic focus on people, processes, and outcomes” and 74% of these high-performing organizations are supported by a PMO. Taking the opportunity for continuous process improvement―to review and share the PMO processes and templates with the organization on a reoccurring basis―helps to ensure consistency across programs within the organization. With consistency comes efficiency, allowing your project teams to focus on the work at hand, and not recreate processes. Consistency and efficiency will help streamline administrative activities, improve resource estimates, and increase the likelihood that projects will come in on time and on budget.
Motivation
The second step in establishing PMO priorities is motivation. Having a working knowledge of your organization will help in this step―knowing what excites or drives them to succeed. Motivating factors may vary for different organizations. For example, if you’re a government entity, the deciding factor in priority may be a legislative mandate. Early identification of your organization’s motivating factors allows you to expedite the prioritization efforts and increase planning time for high-priority projects, including aligning resources sooner. Here are a few ideas to consider when thinking about finding what motivates people in your organization:
- Durations/meeting timeframes
- Legislation/mandates
- Strategic plans and goals
- Recognition
- Policy
- Outcomes/potential impacts
- Level of risk
- Return on Investment (ROI)
Operations
The third step in establishing PMO priorities is operations. By outlining operational aspects of the projects before establishing your PMO priorities, you can see the big picture and organizational strategy. Per PMI, organizations which “align their PMO to strategy report 38% more projects meet the original goals and business intent, while 33% fewer projects are deemed as failures.” This allows you to understand dependencies between projects, identify possible duplication or gaps, and plan for resources earlier. Below are a few examples to consider with this step:
- High-level strategy (will the work be delivered in phases or at the end of the project)
- Approximate Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs) required
- Skill level needed for the resources
- Organizational charts and reporting relationships
- Approximate cost for the project/initiative
Now that you are aware of the three steps―planning and processes, motivation, and operations, you are ready to begin establishing your PMO priorities. Evaluating all three steps helps ensure you’ve considered everything before prioritizing the work, although some items may clearly have more weight than others. There is no magic formula for establishing PMO priorities, and given the same projects, different organizations would have different priorities. One organization may define and identify project work as high, medium, or low, while another PMO may number projects, with number one being the first project to start. Either way is right.
The important take-away is for your PMO to develop a consistent methodology as you are establishing priorities now and in the future.
Does your organization need help establishing your PMO processes, prioritizing, or developing strategic plans? Contact our Medicaid Consulting team for more information on how we can help.
Resources cited
Project Management Institute. PMI’s Pulse of the Profession: The High Cost of Low Performance. PMI.org. Accessed July 8, 2020. https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/pulse-of-the-profession-2014.pdf?v=eb9b1ac0-8cad-457f-81ec-b09dbb969a38
Project Management Institute. PMI’s Pulse of the Profession – 9th Global Project Management Survey: Success Rates Rise – Transforming the High Cost of Low Performance. PMI.org. Accessed July 8, 2020. https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/pulse-of-the-profession-2017.pdf