The Project Management Office (PMO)

Jeff Minder, PMP uses his interactive white board to layout issues with Project Management Offices (PMO). Jeff talks about the ills associated with template driven PMO's as well as PMO's that never say no, or as Jeff calls them "Bobble-headed" PMO's.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• PMO
• PMP
• PMBOK
• Project Management

[jpindahaus]

Jeff, my question is, if you are not using templates to capture the Idea,the business challenge our lines of business are trying to overcome, a high-level business requirements, potential funding source, and so on, how do you capture the information? Are you saying that when the "Idea Man" comes up with an idea, that we have strategy meetings or discussions to say something like "yeah, that's a great idea..." or "... let's continue to investigate..."? Thanks!

[JeffreyMinder]

@jpindahaus It is more complicated than that. Most great ideas are coming from right brain dominate folks. They see the system as it is today, and where it can go tomorrow. They mostly hate details, data, written stuff and don't respond well to rigid schedules and meetings. You need to meet with them individually, hash out "what it looks like when it is done" (scope) and support their vision with prototypes, pictures, story boards etc..to help them "comprehend" (see Blooms) what they need.

[3054509]

This evening I received a call from my manager. He told me that starting from tomorrow, I'll get this position within the progect for an inmportant client.I'm very scared ;-) Tks for the introduction...and sorry for my english...

[JeffreyMinder]

Well done and good luck...

[JeffreyMinder]

There are 37 different definitions for the word template. A lack of skill and study is the result of continuous use of templates. Templates kill innovation and reduce communications between teams. As a test, take your existing templates and ask each of your team members to define them off the top of their heads in a project meeting. Ask them "what is a scope"..."what does the word system mean" what is a WBS...and on and on...then let me know how effective those templates have been.

[shamalbaba]

One of the problems with most PMO teams is that they try to get away with as little as possible. Everytime they are asked about something, they send a URL, which is usually a set of nested pages . I can go on and on about how frustrating and sometimes irritating PMOs can be.

I am not sure why you are so much against templates. You can not have everyone developig their own documt structure.