A “PM Corner” Excerpt – by Jay Demas, PMP

As an often under-appreciated or behind-the-scenes element of many Government or Commercial IT programs, “Project Management” is the discipline that provides the planning and resource scheduling necessary to turn IT budgets into clear and successful returns on investment. Blackstone Technology Group delivers program and project management consulting for IT implementation activities large and small, and we continually rely on the expertise and continuing education of our project managers to deliver success across all client engagements.

If you’re seeking training or more information about project management (whether you’re new to the project management field or already a veteran), there are many resources available to you. A great place to start is the Project Management Institute (PMI) at www.pmi.org. PMI is an international, not for profit, leading membership association for the project management profession. Your membership to PMI includes access to information on certifications, training, degrees, and jobs. In addition, you’ll have access to many PM publications, a virtual library, and a research area. As a member of PMI, you have the ability to extend to membership to local PMI Chapter, PMI Specific Interest Groups (SIGs), and PMI Colleges.

If you don’t find all the information you need from PMI, check out PMForum at http://www.pmforum.org/, the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management (asapm) at http://www.asapm.org/, or the International Project Management Association (IPMA) at http://www.ipma.ch/. Each of these organizations is looking at project management from different perspectives – be sure to evaluate multiple sites to find those that meet your needs.

Perhaps you’re looking to network with other Project Managers? Most people think you have to go to training to meet other project management enthusiasts. However, there are many project management events locally, stateside, international, and even some at sea! In the DC area, for example, you can be invited to attend breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and socials. In addition, there are symposiums, seminars, conferences, and webinars. Some of these events are free or require just a small fee.

More upcoming project management industry event information can be found here:

http://www.pmiwdc.org/events
http://www.pmi.org/pages/calendar.aspx

For more information or career opportunities regarding IT Program Management or Project Management, or to find someone with IT Project Management expertise (with either commercial or government contextual experience), contact Blackstone Technology Group.

Managing drug safety is core to enterprise risk management. Life sciences companies must manage risks with providing needed drugs to patients and decrease safety risks and regulatory non-compliance. Designing and operating a drug safety risk management program poses challenges that can threaten patient safety and regulatory compliance. A tested drug safety risk management program lets patients access needed drugs and makes sure manufacturers are in compliance.

Drugs with normal risks are generally addressed with labeling alone, but drugs with unusual risks need a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) management program to monitor effective drugs that have serious risks. For drugs that have high potential for serious side effects or abuse, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires a Risk Minimization Action Plan (RiskMAP) to minimize drug risks while preserving benefits.

BearingPoint provides life sciences companies with risk planning, which can monitor drug safety. We have extensive knowledge of risk management program delivery and operational design and can help manufacturers integrate data needed to accurately and easily report to FDA and monitor compliance. Our services for development and operation of drug safety risk management programs include:

• Design, development, and operation of FDA-mandated REMSes and RiskMAPs
• Program and vendor management of risk management programs
• Assessment of vendors’ abilities to deliver risk management services
• Drug safety and regulatory design

Integrated data warehousing, data collection and reporting for risk management programs
Overall, we have experience supporting large, complex risk management programs and developing drug safety surveillance tools to decrease risks.

To learn more about the drug safety risk management challenges life sciences companies face today, download our white paper on creating a comprehensive drug safety risk management strategy.

Seventy percent of all large-scale change initiatives fail to achieve their anticipated business benefit ¹. That is an alarming rate of unsuccessful projects. This failure rate translates into billions of dollars in lost productivity, wasted resources, opportunity costs and rework—not to mention the human cost of lost jobs.

Companies that learn to manage change and consistently deliver expected returns from their large-scale change programs can gain competitive advantage. One survey revealed that 80 percent of CEOs called the ability to change a competitive advantage, and 82 percent identified change management as a business priority².

This recognition of the importance of effective change management is prompting many companies to build an internal change management capability. Such capabilities can help managers change their businesses as effectively and efficiently as they’re expected to run them.

Here is a paper that presents insights and guidelines to help implement change programs.

1 – Kotter, John P., A Sense of Urgency, Harvard Business School Press, 2008.
2 – Guy, G., & Beaman, K., Effecting change in business enterprises: Current trends in change management, The Conference Board, 2005.

Is your team ready to rock?

Achieving the right balance when building a new PMO is more art than science.  How many FTE? More consultants?  New Vendors? Full outsource?  Just when you think that, you have your charter and you understand your hiring goals you realize the real fun is just about to begin.

If you have modest reporting needs, conversion goals for growing your organization, or just a list on paper of potential agencies to contact, I will cover those challenges in a different post… today I have some spokes for your training wheels where the landscape is big, complicated, and well charged.

I had the opportunity to construct global standards for contractor procurement, time tracking, and asset retention while working at a global pharmaceutical company that taught me some valuable lessons:

1.       International Hiring is not as easy as International Supervision.

      How can a hiring manager in England retain a consultant in Michigan? When the site management’s interpretation of newly minted laws meant that, no interviews could be allowed?  For our British colleagues the concept that meeting a consultant face to face was too close to the full time hiring policy to be allowed was jaw dropping.  For our finance colleagues transversing the legal and system hurdles so the money flowed in the right manner with the right taxes paid was just as challenging.  Facilitating both with honest SLAs that talk candidly about workload can be a challenge.  Finance associates need to understand that hand writing a transfer to the ledger every month may become 200 transactions without much warning. Often overlooked inline help can become critical when you start looking at users that are in not only other business units with different agendas… but new cultures.

2.       A Tomato is not a To Mate Oh when they have different daily work.

Being really ‘crisp’ about the names of rolls and roll descriptions  before making your PMO national … let alone global… is the Special Assistant in Boise, Idaho the same as the Billing Manager in Atlanta, Georgia…  the Software Engineer III in France may actually be a Software Tester IV in Italy… or even a Senior Design Lead in San Francisco, California.  You may track all of your ‘time’ through your work breakdown structure (wbs) but you will have a much easier time making budget cases and process flows meaningful across the organization if your get the job titles and skill sets settled up front.

3.       Pick your partners as carefully as your political battles.

Global reporting of contractor dollars and workload and skill set sound great… until uncover some very ugly situations as start to ask agencies for the names of all their consultants, the hiring manager, and rates in preparation for getting the right electronic timecards to the right people and the right purchase order dollars in place:

·         Contractor submitted was converted to an FTE 6 months prior… agency still billing weekly for same… sending to central processing… getting paid… agency has 85 other contractors on site… many on critical projects… legal and procurement want to ban the agency… business stakeholders terrified of brain drain / time loss.

·         Contractor submitted not claimed by any hiring manager at the site… unclaimed list goes to business managers globally… actually does work for another department and IT pays for it ‘as a favor.’

·         Entire portfolio of contractors work on 6 – 10 project codes that change monthly and are spread over 15 purchase orders that shift with the hardware fulfillment wind… need a server… charge the people elsewhere until the end of the quarter.

·         Group of contractors compensated well over $300 / hr by niche agency owned by the spouse of a director in a sensitive business group.  The skill set is not unique… the software is… well… special J.

As you work through how your vendor management model will evolve be honest as a governance team (procurement, legal, business, IT) about where you want to be more aggressive about ending bad practices.

4.       Recruiting is not the same anymore.

If you have, 100 – 2000 or more consultants to manage and you are not looking for a high percentage of conversion to FTE than I highly recommend the ‘spot market’ approach.  Bring in a vendor neutral party to assist and reap the benefits of centralized management.  I have worked with Volt’s spin off known as ProcureStaff (http://www.procurestaff.com/) and have seen them grow tremendously over the last 7 years.

While the business process work is still your work… having a partner ‘own’ the master contracts with each agency can make you a rock star to your legal partners… centralizing the invoicing and electronic processing with validated purchase orders, cost centers, and project codes will score you prime seating at the next procurement event… and once your hiring managers become comfortable with the screening staff and only have to review quality resumes you won’t have to sneak into town with your next process improvement road show anymore!

What challenges are you facing in making your resourcing plan a reality?  What are your greatest ledger challenges?  Are you ready to never give a recruiter a ‘suggested rate’ again?

(Photos are the work of Strollerdos, Leo Reynolds, and Roland and are used under Creative Commons License)

One of my favorite building blocks for both teams in general, and PMO organizations in general is the creation of a snack-lore.

A very wise Deputy PMO Manager taught me the power of the nibble… and I have extended his practice in several directions since!

The Lure of the Drawer

Projects are stressful, getting called to a manager’s office is stressful, and combining them makes for very passionate chatter. Our Deputy PMO manager had a magic drawer.


Everything is Better with Chocolate!

Being a diabetic he would stock it with snack mix and granola bars and popcorn as well as whatever chocolaty goodness he could find at the wholesale club. It was always random, and it was always there.

The Prioritization Lesson

When you have a group of firefighters that need to switch brains and learn to live by the power of the approval and not the telephone there are many ways to start the lessons in project management. One of my favorite is candy prioritization. What do you like? Carmel or nuts? What do you value? Chocolate or sours? What do you nibble on while you watch TV? Popcorn or granola bars?

Everyone starts confused, everyone ends laughing. When they show up the next day and a kiss or a cup or a bar is resting on their mouse… they start to believe. When they start looking around they find themselves in disbelief. It is a great team builder to have 15 ~ 20 people start their day on a random Thursday amazed that there is a candy drawer (or sometimes filing cabinet) in the new manager’s office.Can you really go in there in the evening and grab some popcorn? Is there really Ramon Noodles there this week? This upgrade is going sideways… let’s head up to the PMO office and brainstorm on her board and get something to snack on.

The Bad Tasty Meeting

If the conversation at an excellence meeting is going to be perceived as stress filled… I bring snacks… and in a non-lactose, sugar free, non-wheat crowd that can be a challenge in and of itself! The meeting appears to start slow, but the intention is to bring out the informal and the relaxed… (but I’ll save the safe space thought for another post!)

Everyone has a favorite, there are always healthy choices. I have been in organizations where spirits are encouraged if the meeting is at the end of the day while other organizations would be aghast to see alcohol on company property.

The Team Lunch

I can’t let this post go without a thought about the dreaded team lunch. Switch it up! Do breakfast before an early half day team event. Pull taffy, take a cooking class together, or even work a soup kitchen together. Find creative places that don’t call for the same ole’ suit and tie!

I have yet to have anyone frown at both the apple and the chocolate so be bold and daring and you will be rewarded with great team bonds.

Like everything I do… it’s an evolution and not a revolution… it’s about trust and freedom and building a team one training wheel at a time!

How do you diffuse the stress and break the ice in your organization? Do you long to break out of the business lunch?

(Picture is the property of Pink Moose used under Creative Commons license)

GDC Post Mortem - Not your starter Post Mortem for sure!

You want to grow… you want to improve… you want to add value to the organization…

Some projects have failed… some are considered best practices… Some product teams fly under the radar release after release…

So you want to provide another service to the organization and you feel that a post mortem process is the golden bullet?

Here are some thoughts to consider before taking the enterprise level plunge:

Start Slow.

Have a third party facilitator discuss high level thoughts in separate discussions with the business and the technical team.

Skim through the areas of:

Review the results with the exec stakeholders… rolling up across the portfolio for large organizations… What are your trends? What are your strengths? What organizational communication challenges are having the most impact?

Give people time to vent. Give people time to dream. Give people time to talk about concrete change that they want to see in the current / next release.

Round Two

Next release, be more strategic and coax troubled groups to survey or meet at baseline…. with a couple tactical ‘go do’ items for improvement during envision and design.

Are you ready for an enterprise process now? Do you have the executive buy-in?

For those teams not in trouble look at a richer question set at baseline during the next release. Are they enthusiastic about change? Are they ready for document based questions? Do they want to carve out a monthly discussion?

At the post mortem discussion decide on question depth and frequency for the third release…. in concert with the direction provided by the exec reviewers after your second roll up ! Be more formal in the assignment of action items. What release will you be able to incorporate the brainstormed solution?

Dependent system based discussion? Give teams some latitude, but drive them to a central reporting process of actions.

What timing?

Look at creative ways to have dependent systems hold discussions together and then identify action items that are shared or separate. Who is releasing next? Who can take on the complexity of the change?

In any and all cases… time the first round so that ‘go do’ items can be identified before budget season starts. Is there a reporting universe that could be expanded to end a metric crisis? Is there a pattern to the data freshness challenge that a boost to infrastructure in the UAT environment could solve? Let your group learning help set the prioritization in the coming budget year.

Be careful to look at the frequency not just from a project level but the team level… are the same people participating in 4 discussions in one week or one month.

What format?

Surveys in the collaboration tool of your choice with a setting to provide anonymous feedback. Store with the project documentation and incorporate into new hire training as part of the “Where to learn about your system.”

Report in a word document to share with partner organizations and new team members, but rolled up action items in the collaboration tool of your choice.

Presentations in the format of choice for both team and executive discussions.

What else?

What has worked in your organization? In your vertical? In your methodology?
 

(Picture is the property of Crashworks and used under Creative Commons License)

There is a way of doing things and a way of getting things done and they’re not always the same. Most organizations of size have a Project Management Office (PMO) charged with defining processes and best practices (the way of doing things). These organizations typically sell the processes to a CIO to get executive-level support and then use that support as their stick to make sure the processes are followed. These people are often referred to as the PMO Cops by project managers.

So what’s wrong with this picture? The problem is that PMO’s are often staffed with process types who don’t have significant experience delivering projects. If they did, they wouldn’t be in a PMO role. Organizations can’t afford to have their best project managers doing process work. They need them delivering results to the business. Since the PMO team often lacks experience, they don’t receive the respect of the experienced project managers. This causes the experienced project managers to resent the PMO (“who are they to tell me how to manage a project”). This arrangement is common and is doomed to fail from the outset.

Some PMO’s try to overcome their lack of experience by hiring consultants to provide expertise and industry best practices. The problem with this approach is that every organization has a different culture and political climate. Consultants will not have the experience delivering projects within the organization so the industry best practice may not be the best practice for the organization. Once again, the experienced project managers will recognize this and resent the PMO for having consultant “tell them how to manage a project”.

Other PMO’s try to pull their experienced project managers into an advisory committee to review the PMO-generated processes and provide feedback. This often fails because the experienced project managers get frustrated having to keep explaining things over and over to the process types. They don’t typically have time to waste on this. So they start skipping the meetings. The other challenge is that what works for one project manager may not work for another project manager. Project managers have different styles and typically find a way to become successful with their own unique approach(es).

What’s the solution? My recommendation is to refocus the PMO’s role on the following:

• Target Inexperienced Project Managers: Provide processes, coaching, and mentoring services to the inexperienced project managers. They’re the ones who need help. Experienced project managers don’t need a prescribed process. Leave them alone and let them do what they do best. They know from experience what needs to be done and to what extent (the way of getting things done). They also know where they can cut corners. This can only be determined based on experience. So for an inexperience project manager, it’s a good idea to have them go through the whole process without cutting corners. Over time, they will develop a sense of what’s critical and what’s overkill for a given project.
• Apprenticeships: Place inexperienced project managers in a Project Office under an experienced project manager. Let them do the busy work for the experience project manager (example: manage the project schedule, change management process, etc…). This will be a win-win for both project managers. The experienced project manager will free up time to focus on high-value activities. The inexperience project manager will learn by watching the experienced project manager in action.
• Project Audits: Setup a peer review process whereby the experienced project managers conduct project audits on the inexperienced project managers. Most experienced project managers would be happy to mentor the rookies. This will work even better if developing other project managers is part of the senior project manager’s annual review. Developing people is a requirement for moving up the leadership ladder and this can be a great way for a project manager to demonstrate that skill set.
• Training: Bring project management experts in-house to provide training to the project managers. Or, encourage the experienced project managers to conduct the training programs.
• PMIS: Implement Project Management Information Systems (PMIS). The key here is to get the experienced project managers involved in selecting the systems. Also, focus on tools that will help project managers become more efficient and not ones that will make their jobs more difficult. The premium is often placed on controls by management. Controls slow a project down so it’s important to prioritize the key metrics and milestones that need to be tracked and reported on.

Focusing your PMO on these five activities will provide value where it is needed most: developing the inexperienced project managers. Additionally, it will leverage the experienced project manager’s experience instead of trying to change the way they manage projects.

Bottom line: focus the PMO on developing the inexperienced project managers and let the experienced project managers continue to do what they do best: deliver results to the business.

In a world full of consultant-a-minute white papers and promises there are several helpful resources available that can help you build not only your template library, but also your process deck.

State of Oregon: Project Management Office

The Office of Information Services (OIS) for the state of Oregon has presented a simple, but expansive, portal that displays all of the usual pieces and parts you would expect, but also provides a PM process guide and PM blog. The training sections provides a brief window into the classroom offerings. The latest newsletter ( Dated – Jan 2008 ) mentions that a “complete overhaul” is in the works. the cynic in me wants to point out to them that with such a great library of online information and a link to the state mental health services department, there isn’t much that they are missing already!

Program Management Office a Best Practice?

If you are looking for bullet points to build your business case for creation of or enhanced investment in a PMO then look no further then this single post blog on IT Toolbox for a great way to organize your thoughts.

Closer Sponsor Relationships Through Web 2.0 Tech…

What would a list of links be without Gantthead… Nice thoughts on how to bring the Blog to the stakeholder and thereby bring the PMO to to the daily thought process without coming across as spam.

Consultant / Consulting Company Links

Transforming PMO from a cost center to a profit center (Blue Hammock)

This short post from March 2007 on Ahmad Shahzad’s blog does not give
many details, but provides a framework of thought around the PMO as a shared
services financial model.

PMO 2.0 – Program Management Resource Center (Planview)

Nice list of white papers, webcasts, and seminar reviews to help an
existing PMO improve and align with new process thought models.