The Secret is Using a Top-Down Approach
“How do you sell management on the relevance and importance of the PMO to the organization?”
This is one of the top questions pondered by the majority of PMO leaders I speak to every day. The question puzzled me for some time because I had difficulty understanding why anyone would need to “sell” the concept of a PMO to a management that established and funded it.
After hearing this question a few times, it dawned on me that the word “sell” was the issue. The real question was actually “How do I, the head of the PMO, garner support and cooperation throughout the organization for the form and function of the PMO?” – a very good question indeed. The answer is more simple than you might think. To garner support for the PMO, you must help the business unit, division heads, and the like understand how the PMO will help them achieve their goals and objectives. Specifically, those goals and objectives that are directly aligned to the successful execution and deployment of projects they have critical stakes in but do not have total control over. Even more simply put, they need to know: what’s in it for me!
Top Down Alignment
To do this the PMO must become aligned with the organization’s strategies, goals and objectives. This can only be done from the business plan (top) down. The savvy and successful PMO leader is one who understands the organization’s business plan and its impact across all facets of the organization. This understanding must manifest itself in the way the PMO:
- identifies project opportunities
- vets/justifies those projects
- prioritizes those projects
- resources those projects
- leverages project teams and progress
- communicates and collaborates with stakeholders
- monitors and tracks project benefits realization and more.
Aligning the PMO to the organization requires that all aspects of how the PMO is organized, how it functions, and the tools it uses and the governance it pursues will directly support the organization’s ability to achieve its business objectives. The process of achieving this state isn’t exactly rocket science or even all that complicated. It does however require a top-down approach and a PMO leader that thinks more like a business person than a project manager.
Before we go further, here’s a simple definition of alignment:
Organizational alignment is a state that is reached when an organization’s vision, mission, objectives, policies, operational processes, asset/resource management and supporting systems consistently delivers value (desired outcomes) to stakeholders (owners, customers, employees, alliances and communities) in a way that is free of contradictions and cultural anomalies.
Alignment and Resource Management
The “resource/asset management” portion of the above definition, specifically project related, is where the PMO comes in. With that focus in mind I offer this definition of PMO alignment:
The ability of the PMO to deliver value through the management of an organization’s project assets that directly and measurably supports the current business needs of the organization while creating a framework that rapidly detects changes to those needs and recalibrates the value delivered in context to the changes in the organization’s strategic initiatives and its supporting business culture, policies, and processes.
What is striking to me is how rare it is to find PMO leaders that have internalized the alignment imperative. In many ways, aligning the PMO to the organization’s strategies and objectives is like aligning a person’s spine; it takes continuous adjustments in order to adapt to changing influences of motion, external stimuli and more. However, unlike people, organizations can’t go to a chiropractor for periodic adjustments. Instead, what is needed is the development of an organizational structure and culture that dynamically self-adjusts and recalibrates to an ever-changing environment.
The 4 basic steps to a top-down approach to PMO Alignment
- Understand (really understand) the organization’s strategies and objectives
- Create and validate an Alignment Gap baseline
- Develop a three-to-five year PMOA Achievement Program Plan
- Follow the Plan & Publish Progress
Let’s look closer at each step in detail.
Understanding Organizational Objectives
Fundamental to achieving PMO alignment is understanding of what the organization’s strategies and objectives are, what initiatives, programs, and projects support them and how successful deployment of these assets will manifest themselves in terms of operational effectiveness, competitive dominance and customer spend, loyalty and retention. Gaining this understanding and staying in the loop regarding changes to those objectives and strategies is where the process begins; the top of the top-down alignment process. The trick is in getting management to commit to meaningful measures that are not vague or esoteric. These measures must be very easy to understand by those who will be expected to achieve them.
Create and validate an Alignment Gap baseline
The quantification of the organization’s goals and objectives need to be understood in context to where the organization is today. The delta between the current situation of the organization and what it would look like once the goals and objectives are achieved provides the context for understanding how aggressive those goals and objectives are. This delta also provides the true improvement to be achieved and insights into the amount of change that will need to take place if success is to happen. All of this directly impacts the alignment challenges facing the PMO. The PMO now needs to assess this challenge in context to its’:
-
- organization structure
- available talent
- external and internal perception of the PMOs past performance and cultural fit with the overall organization
- relationships with PMO leadership’s peers, line-of-business leaders and other stakeholders
- the frameworks, tools, and technologies it has deployed
- project management capabilities
- project prioritization, justification and management maturity; etc.
It is absolutely critical the PMO take an unvarnished view of itself across all the categories being assessed. The PMO leader might want to consider conducting a formal 360o assessment of the PMO organization to help evaluate how the PMO is seen by those inside and outside of the PMO. This is usually conducted by third party professionals and entails a baseline survey, focus group facilitations to create a baseline score in key performance and relationship areas.
Next, improvement goals are established (acceptable score levels) and a program established for moving the PMO towards those goals. Finally, six to 12 months later a second round of surveys and focus groups is performed and the new scores tallied. The improvements achieved are compared to the goals established. The results are published and further improvement needs reviewed. This process is not inexpensive and can easily run into the mid six to low seven figures to complete depending on the size of the enterprise and the PMO.
Basically, the PMO’s organization structure should reflect the above services with the addition of project management and application development to round things out. Also, these areas provide a great starting point for assessing the PMO’s talent levels in context to providing these services and functions.
Once a baseline has been established and the gaps between where the PMO is today vs. where the PMO needs to be to achieve initial alignment, a program for achieving that alignment can be developed.
Develop an Achievement Program Plan
The achievement program needs to have two key components:
- The first is the initial project to move the PMO from its current state to an aligned state
- Second is a continuous recalibration process that keeps the PMO aligned. This second part of the program is on-going and should include the following:
• the PMO’s inclusion in the business planning process;
• formal peer relationship management process and 360o reviews (about every three years);
• regular publishing of the PMO’s alignment compliance status;
• periodic updates on industry best practices, competitive position, innovations, etc.;
• future opportunity strategies and plans of key vendors (to stay abreast of new approaches and tools);
• formal capabilities reviews at least every two years (people, tools, facilities, etc.).
Follow the Plan & Publish Progress
The final step is pretty straight forward. Follow the plan like you own it, because you do.
PMO Alignment Indicators
Alignment isn’t something that is achieved once and forever through a single project. Maintaining it is a continuum that requires misalignment detection indicators. It is these indicators that are missing from most of the PMO governance models and frameworks. As a result, the PMO simply lacks the ability to target and resolve misalignments as they occur. The result is a slow degradation of the alignment state until the pain threshold becomes evident and clear; usually in terms of lost revenues, market-share and profits. Typically, this is followed by knee-jerk initiatives, micromanagement of the PMO and even loss of PMO leadership and staff jobs.
Every strategic PMO needs to incorporate a system of alignment feedback loops that provide the information needed for the PMO to take the actions and initiatives needed to bring everything back into alignment.
Establishing a set of Key Alignment Indicators using data generated by the day-to-day routine operations of the organization and fed back to those affected on as close to real-time as possible. These measures are imperative to create a culture that is nimble, agile and responsive to continuous recalibration.
In essence,
An alignment-aware/self-actualizing PMO organization would represent the pinnacle of organizational maturity. Perhaps it can never truly be achieved but still, it is worthy of pursuit.
Okay, now it is your turn. I am hoping this article has provided you food-for-thought and reflection. Sharing those thoughts helps enhance the experience of your fellow practitioners. Your feedback, comments and observation are always much appreciated.
About the Author:
Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine’s Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe. Currently Michael serves as the National Subject Matter Expert for Business Process Improvement for the world’s largest professional project management portal, projectmanagement.com.
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