the pmo lifecycle: building, running, and shutting … pmo lifecycle: building, running, and...

The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down

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By William D Dow, PMP, ITIL, CSM, SA, PMPO


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Copyright

Copyright @ 2017 William Dow, PMP

Dow Publishing LLC 1210 N 42nd Place Renton, WA 98056 All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission from the author.

ISBN 978-0-9858695-4-0

Printed in the United States of America

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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• “PMI”, “PMP”,“PgMP”,”ACP”, “PfMP”,” PMI-PBA” are registered of Project Management Institute, Inc.

• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Project Management Institute, Inc., 2013. Copyright and all rights reserved. Material from this publication has been reproduced with the permission of PMI.

• “PMBOK” is a registered mark of Project Management Institute, Inc.

• The Standard for Program Management – Third Edition Copyright and all rights reserved. Material from this publication has been reproduced with the permission of PMI.


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Chapter 8

PMO Staffing Models

Review Questions

1. What is the value of the PMO staffing RACI? 2. What is the value of creating a PMO organization chart? 3. What are the typical PMO roles? 4. What are three basic PMO employee qualifications? 5. When would you hire a permanent employee versus a vendor or contractor? 6. Do PMO managers need to be flexible in the roles they play?

Back in Chapter 4, “How to Build a PMO,” you learned about the four Ps of PMOs, depicted by a triangle. Each side of the triangle represented one of the three process methodologies—portfolio management, program management, and project management—while the P in the center represented the PMO itself. However, that fourth P could also represent the most important part of your PMO: people. Without people, you do not have much of an organization.

As PMO manager, it’s up to you to define your staffing needs. Your staff is the backbone of your PMO. Having the right people in the right roles, where they are most experienced and most comfortable, is key. Without a happy staff who are fully committed to their work, you will struggle to succeed.

Before you start assembling your team, you must identify what staff you need for your PMO. The staffing requirements you need will depend on many different factors—some you can control, and some you can’t. These factors will vary from industry to industry and from company to company. Some of the common factors to drive your staffing needs include:

• PMO Model

• PMO Service Offerings

• PMO Process Methodologies (Portfolio, Program, Project)

• PMO Executive Pet Projects

There are many factors that drive PMO staffing needs, and as we move through this chapter, we are going to arm and prepare you for those conversations.

In this chapter, you’ll discover all the different aspects of choosing a staffing model, as well as managing various types of PMO employees and vendor contractors. But before we go deep into PMO staffing models, and look at the roles you need based on your PMO service offerings, let’s start with the staffing of the PMO manager and what are the expectations of this role.


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PMO Manager Expectations and Qualifications

As PMO manager, you will be subject to varying expectations from different parties—management, your customers, your employees, and so on. To meet these expectations, and to be successful at building and running your PMO, you must possess some specific qualifications.

The first and most obvious qualification is that you must live and breathe project management. At a minimum, you must understand portfolio, program, and project management. You need not be an expert all three of these areas, but you should have a background in at least one of them and be willing to ramp up on the others. Otherwise, you will be unable to help your employees when they run into trouble, and will lose credibility on your team. This could prove difficult to overcome.

Other key qualifications include your ability to assume the following roles:

• Helper: You will inevitably be asked to help your staff in a variety of areas to drive their portfolios, programs or projects.

• Advisor: PMO managers often advise project managers on how to manage their projects, customers on how their projects are tracking, and executives on the state of the PMO. These are key responsibilities.

• Teacher/mentor/coach: As PMO manager, your project managers will see you as a teacher, mentor, and coach. To prepare, be sure you are well-versed in all areas of portfolio, program, and project management.

• Facilitator: PMO managers often act as facilitators, and must be comfortable in this role. Specifically, you will facilitate training sessions, review sessions, and other activities.

• Auditing and quality function: The auditing and quality function comprises a portion of the role of the PMO. Indeed, depending on what type of PMO you create and how important you believe this function is to the success of your PMO, it may even represent the majority of your role. (I believe there is a balance.) Either way, as PMO manager, you must be comfortable handling this function as part of your day-to-day work.

• Strategic planner: PMO managers must constantly balance their strategic work with their tactical work. As PMO manager, you will look at the strategic direction of the company and of your PMO on an ongoing basis and adjust as needed.

• HR manager: PMO managers who have direct staff must adopt the role of HR manager—hiring, firing, giving performance reviews, and more.

As you can see, PMO managers must be prepared to play many different roles in the organization. Successful PMO managers are Jacks of all trades. No matter what role you’re tapped for, and no matter who does the tapping, if it has to do with any aspect of project management, you’ll need to check your attitude at the door, roll up your sleeves, and get to work. This not only shows your value to management, it shows it to your employees. When employees know they can turn to you for support, that you’re there for them anytime, it will have a huge impact on the success of your PMO!

Note Ultimately, PMO managers must be assertive, skilled, and experienced. Not only should they be able to envision the end-to-end planning framework, guiding projects through the process, but they should be able to provide a sounding board and act as quality assurance.


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Ok, now we know what we need to do as PMO manager, let’s see how to align your PMO staffing needs

with your PMO model and different service offerings.

Aligning Staffing with Your PMO Model and Service Offerings

When selecting a staffing model, you’ll factor in many considerations. The most significant of these are which PMO model you’ve chosen to employ and what service offerings you plan to provide. (You learned about PMO models and service offerings in Chapter 5, “PMO Models.”)

Your PMO model and service offerings give important insight into the skill sets required to run your PMO and the kinds of people you need to hire. For example, suppose you plan to run a supportive PMO. In that case, in addition to recruiting employees to handle your various programs and projects as well as other key staff, you would likely consider hiring highly skilled contractors to support or guide those employees in program or project execution. (In this scenario, contractors would be preferable to permanent employees. Often, asking permanent employees to support or guide other employees doesn’t turn out so well.)

Creating a PMO Responsibility Matrix

One of the easiest ways to identify the staffing needs for your PMO is to create a roles and responsibility staffing model, or RACI, for your PMO roles and responsibilities. This will set the foundation for your staffing model.

You’re probably already familiar with the RACI matrix from your previous project work. A PMO Staffing model RACI is similar. The fundamentals are the same; the only difference is that the PMO Staffing model RACI is composed of your PMO service offerings (which you identified in Chapter 5) and maps the PMO roles and responsibilities required to provide those services. For example, suppose you have a “provide yearly PMO funding” service offering. You might map that offering to the “PMO executive” role.

Figure 8.1 shows an example of a PMO staffing model RACI. Across the top, key roles are listed. These roles are typical of many PMOs. Down the left side, a list of responsibilities appears. The intersecting cells contain the standard R (responsible), A (accountable), C (consulted), and I (informed) designations. This sample PMO staffing model RACI offers an easy way to understand the mapping between the services offered by the PMO and staff needed to provide those services.


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Figure 8.1: PMO staffing model RACI

Creating a PMO staffing model RACI provides insight into any holes you might have from a staffing

perspective. In other words, if the RACI contains responsibilities that do not map to a particular role, then you know you need to add a role to handle them. It can also reveal any holes you have from a service offerings perspective. For example, you might discover that a particular role doesn’t have adequate responsibilities assigned to it. In that case, you can either add more responsibilities to the RACI to map to that role or eliminate that role and map the responsibilities it did have to other roles.

Note As PMO manager, you should collaborate with management, customers, and, if applicable, existing PMO employees to create the PMO staffing RACI. That way, you can obtain key information, such as the state of organizational politics and an understanding of specific PMO requirements. You can also set the proper expectations, obtain any necessary approvals, and secure the necessary budget.


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As the PMO progresses beyond the staffing phase and new services are introduced, it’s a best practice for

the PMO manager to update the PMO staffing model RACI accordingly. This serves three key purposes. First, it helps the PMO manager identify the appropriate staff for those new service offerings. Second, the PMO manager can use the updated RACI in marketing efforts to obtain additional resources. And third, it can help you identify which services or roles you no longer need. For example, if you reach a point where a service is no longer needed, you can eliminate it, as well as the role that provides it.

Note If you’re enhancing an existing PMO rather than building a new one, you should create a RACI for that PMO to identify what services it offers, what roles it supports, and where staff might be lacking.


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Typical PMO Roles

As mentioned, the PMO staffing RACI lists several roles that are typical of a PMO, including the following:

• PMO executive leader

• PMO stakeholder(s)

• PMO manager

• PMO administrator/coordinator

• Portfolio manager

• Program manager (there may be more than one, depending on the number of programs in the PMO)

• Project manager (there may be more than one, depending on the number of projects in the PMO)

• Methodology specialist

• PMO trainer (there may be more than one; usually a vendor or contractor rather than an employee)

In addition to these, your PMO might include the following:

• PMO director

• PMO vice president

• Project coordinators (there may be more than one)

• Reporting analyst

• Dashboard team (including developers and/or analysts)

• Resource manager (there may be more than one, depending on the size of your PMO)

• Finance manager

As you create the PMO staffing RACI to determine your staffing needs, you should also build an organizational structure to clarify who reports to whom. Figure 8.2 shows an example of a simple PMO organizational structure. This type of model makes it easier to see what the organization is going to look

like and where various people fit into the structure, as well as to move people around to develop the most efficient operating model.


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Figure 8.2: PMO organizational structure


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PMO Staff Qualifications

The specific skill set needed for each staff position will differ by role. However, there are some essential skills and qualifications that all PMO staff members should have. These include the following:

• PMI certification, specifically in program and project management

• Experience in the organization’s industry

• Formal PMO experience

• Experience using standard PMO tools and processes

• Strong process and analytical skills

• Sharp decision-making abilities

• Strong customer-service skills (especially listening to the customer)

• Proven ability to work well in a fast-paced and ever-changing environment

• Strong methodology background and experience

• Specific expertise in the role

• Strong communication skills

Note To find additional qualifications for PMO employees, try running a search on various job sites for the term PMO.

In addition, PMO employees should have the following qualifications:

• A bachelor's degree in business administration, computer science, information systems, management information systems, or project management, or equivalent experience

• Ten or more years of experience in program management (this might include software development and design, professional services consulting, or program management)

• Eight or more years of experience managing implementations of large-scale, multi-disciplined, cross-functional, and highly visible programs or projects while responsible for multi‒million dollar budgets and a team

• Excellent, accurate, and effective oral and written communication skills as well as positive customer-focused interpersonal skills and attitude

• Proficiency in the Microsoft Office suite of applications, including advanced use of Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Project

• The ability to analyze data and connect the dots to make recommendations to management and project teams in a timely manner

• Experience performing project-management activities in a large, complex program

• Experience creating, managing, and analyzing specific project, program, and portfolio financial data necessary


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One role that requires special consideration is the project coordinator. This is a junior-level project-

management role. In a nutshell, the project coordinator—who is usually fresh out of college, with little project-management experience—is paired with a more senior project manager to drive progress in the project and to handle the administrative overhead associated with project management. Or, the project coordinator might work as an assistant to the PMO manager. Either way, project coordinators—who are typically paid considerably less than full-fledged project managers—are not left to lead project-management efforts themselves. The objective is for the project coordinator to learn the ins and outs of project management before taking on a more demanding role in the industry. Indeed, many project coordinators go on to become extremely successful project managers.

Project coordinator qualifications and skills include the following:

• University or college degree

• A keen interest in project management (for example, a desire to become a PMI Certified

Associate in Project Management [CAPM] and eventually a certified Project Management

Professional [PMP])

• Real-life work experience, ideally in the business world

• Industry experience in the organization’s industry

• Formal PMO experience

• Experience using standard PMO tools and processes

• An understanding of the project environment, scope, goals, deliverables, and budget

• PMO reporting experience

Tip As PMO manager, you should regularly connect with your project coordinators to ensure

they’re learning and growing. Also check in with the project managers who are partnered with a project coordinator to make sure they’re receiving the expected level of assistance. Bill’s Thoughts

I highly recommend that PMO managers hire project coordinators. I’ve hired several project coordinators in my

PMOs, and have found them to be overwhelmingly dedicated to project management and extremely willing to learn

on the job. In my experience, it’s been money well spent. Besides, it’s a great way to help grow young and

inexperienced project-manager types. As PMO managers, we should do our part to give new grads a shot in the

industry by providing them with a place to grow and learn the role of project manager.


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Permanent Employees Versus Third-Party Vendors or Contractors

As you define your staffing model, you’ll need to decide which roles should be staffed with permanent employees, and which should be filled by vendors or contractors (that is, employees outside the company). Sometimes, depending on the nature of the role, it doesn’t matter whether you hire a permanent employee or an outside party. Other times, it does.

Your decision about whether to hire a permanent employee or an outside party will depend on several key factors. One is the PMO model used by the organization (directive, controlling, supportive, etc.) Others include whether:

• The project involves knowledge of company secrets or exclusive information. If so, you should

hire a regular employee.

• It might be problematic for contractors or vendors to see budget information for the project. If

so, you should hire a regular employee.

• It is a long-term project that will span multiple years (and might therefore be too risky to hand

off to an outside party). If so, you should hire a regular employee.

• The role requires in-depth knowledge of the company. If so, you should hire a regular employee.

• Political issues within the organization might trip up a contractor or vendor. If so, you should hire

a regular employee.

• The project is time-based and includes specific deliverables. If so, you should hire a regular

employee.

• The project requires a level of expertise that no regular employees possess. If so, you should

hire a regular employee.

Many say a vendor or contractor should fill the project-manager role. The theory is that an outsider is a neutral party who will be insulated from company politics. If you’re just getting started building your PMO, this might be the way to go. It’s a model many companies use—and quite successfully.

Bill’s Thoughts

Building a network of vendors, contractors, and consulting agencies is a best practice for any PMO manager.

Having relationships with outside parties you can call upon when needed is indispensable.


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Managing Employees and Third-Party Vendors or Contractors

Often, the PMO manager is the functional manager of permanent PMO employees. Not surprisingly, when in this role, the PMO manager will act differently than if they were managing vendors or contractors. In this section, you’ll learn how to approach both scenarios.

Managing Permanent Employees

Some tasks are common among all functional managers (not just PMO managers) across all industries and companies when managing permanent employees. These include the following:

• Performance-management activities: These include documenting performance levels, highlighting and monitoring course corrections, conducting yearly performance reviews, and issuing promotions.

• Employee training: This includes ensuring employees complete standard mandatory company training, such as procurement and HR training. It might also mean providing project management‒specific training to employees.

• Employee hiring and dismissal: This includes hiring and (potentially) firing direct employees in the PMO.

• Employee administration: At most companies, managers are responsible for some level of administration around employees. This includes tracking vacation days, sick leave, and so on.

• Career growth: Functional managers play a key role in growing and shaping current employees into future company leaders.

There are other managerial responsibilities for functional managers, but these are company-specific. PMO managers must ensure they are trained in those responsibilities, and that they care for and support their employees.

Note As PMO manager, it’s important to have a team of employees who are happy to work with you and are invested in the success of the PMO. But if you’re enhancing an existing PMO rather than building a new one (or you’re building a new PMO but are not in control of staffing decisions), then you may wind up with employees who aren’t. If this happens to you, work with human resources to develop a plan to move the individual out of your PMO (or the

organization).

Managing Vendors and Contractors

PMOs use vendors and contractors in different ways, from hiring them to augment staff to hiring whole teams to work an entire project. Often, vendors and contractors become key members of the PMO. Here are some points to keep in mind when managing vendors and contractors:

Bill’s Thoughts

It is so important to build relationships with consulting agencies that will provide you with quality PMO resources.

Whether you need portfolio managers or project coordinators or anyone in between, working with two or three

leading agencies that know your requirements will make it much easier to get the people you need. How important is


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that when your top project manager just left your highest-priority project and you have nobody available to replace

her?


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PMO Career Growth

Earlier, I mentioned that one part of being a functional manager is growing and shaping current employees into future company leaders. It is so important for PMO managers to work with each of their employees to help them progress in their careers at a rate that is acceptable both to them and to the company. Employees who do not see a clear career path will move on very quickly—especially in the project-management field. Skills are portable, enabling practitioners to move from company to company with ease.

To help you with this, PMI has done an excellent job defining a career path for the project-management field. As you work with each employee to pin down their career goals, PMI’s career path offers a great way to initiate meaningful career conversations. The path includes the following waypoints:

• Project coordinator (years 1 to 3)

• Project manager (years 3 to 10)

• Program manager (years 10 to 15+)

• Portfolio manager (years 15+ to 20+)

The PMI career path, shown in Figure 8.3, aligns with current PMI certification requirements, enabling PMO employees to identify what certifications are needed to advance, and when. Note that this career path is very dynamic. As PMI presents new certification offerings, this chart should be updated accordingly.

Figure 8.3 PMO/PMI certification career path


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PMO New-Hire Onboarding Guide

After analyzing the staffing requirements and qualifications for the PMO, one of the best thing PMO managers can do before bringing employees, vendors, or contractors into the organization is to create a PMO onboarding guide. This will help get these newcomers up and running in no time.

The onboarding guide does not need to be formal, but it should cover some of the following areas:

• Company security information

• Company parking pass

• Company email and network access

• Company computer and software guidelines

• PMO marketing materials (including the PMO mission and vision statements)

• PMO centralized repository home page

• PMO training and process links

• PMO methodologies

• PMO centralized status reporting

• Engineering methodologies

• PMO vacation or out-of-office calendar

• Program/project transition guides

Note Creating an onboarding guide is a best practice, and is highly recommended for any PMO. It may take a bit of time to build, but it will add tremendous value for your organization and for the people who join it.


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Going It Alone: Running a PMO of One

A current industry trend is for companies to create a PMO consisting of only one person—a so-called PMO of one. Companies try this approach when they want a PMO, but they don’t know exactly what they want to do with it yet, and they don’t want to spend the money to fully staff it until it proves itself. It’s odd, really, that management can support the idea of a PMO, and can even go so far as to hire you to build one, but then not give you the staff to run it. Indeed, PMOs tend to be one of the few types of organizations that management believes can be successfully run by just one person!

Without mincing words, a PMO of one is an awful idea. Large PMOs with numerous employees can do some great work. A single individual, however, can accomplish very little. A PMO of one just isn’t a recipe for long-term success. It would be very challenging for anyone to run a PMO solo, without some form of help. PMO managers who are placed in this position nearly always feel they are being set up to fail—

because they are.

As PMO manager, you must do everything in your power to ensure your management team does not expect you to run a PMO of one—or if it does, that the team adjusts its expectations accordingly. If you find yourself put in the unfortunate position of running a PMO of one, keep these tips in mind:

1. Get help from contractors: Often, PMO managers stuck in a PMO of one attempt to borrow help from project managers who work for the company, but outside the PMO. This rarely works. From the project manager’s point of view, the PMO work is usually “extra,” and therefore lower in their list of priorities. It’s far better to obtain help from outsiders. Even hiring a recently graduated college student to work as a project coordinator can lighten your load. These individuals often come cheap, and can prove to be a fantastic help.

2. Select the correct PMO model for your staffing model: If you have no staff, your PMO model could be supportive (but limited) or directive (but limited). The limited condition exists because you, the PMO manager, have only so much time to provide the service offerings associated with the model, and will therefore be limited in what you can accomplish.

3. Look for mentoring opportunities within your organization: There may be people in your organization who want to become project managers and who are willing to perform project management‒related tasks just for the experience. Just be careful. The fact that these folks do not have a lot of project-management experience may have a negative effect on the projects they are working on.

4. Show quick wins: This will enable you to demonstrate your value, which in turn may convince management to give you the resources you need to hire a proper staff.

5. Ask your management team for help: A successful PMO requires the support of its management team. If you are running your PMO alone, this is the perfect time to ask for help.

Summary

Assembling a PMO team is a complicated task, especially if you do not have a process in place. One way to make it easier is to complete a PMO staffing model RACI. This will help you identify which roles you need in order to provide your proposed service offerings. You can use the PMO staffing RACI to justify your staffing needs to management. The PMO staffing RACI can also expose any glaring holes in either your staff or your service offerings, and will give you the data you need to request those resources from management.


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As PMO manager, you must take real care in hiring your PMO team. They may be with you for many

years to come. A good hire can have an enduring positive influence, but a bad one can have a long-lasting negative impact, including compromising your credibility and that of your PMO. Be sure to establish a solid set of qualifications and standards that will act as your minimum bar for hiring people in your organization.

There is good chance that you will be in a position that you will be a PMO of One and you will not have vendor support, no additional employees working for you, and will have to do all the PMO work yourself. This is very common in organizations that don’t see the value of PMOs, don’t want to invest much money, or overly commit to having a large PMO. In those cases, keep those five tips and best practices handy and do the best you can, and the more you show value, the sooner your executives will see and potentially start adding resources to your PMOs of One don’t tend to last that long in companies, so hang in there, it won’t last long.

PMO Build Decisions

Back in the introduction to this book, I talked about key PMO build decisions and presented a table you can use to map them out. This table will be an excellent asset to you through the PMO build process, so keep it handy, and use it to track everything as you go. For now, fill in the following:

1. Decide which roles your PMO needs in order to support your service offerings. 2. Decide what qualifications your PMO staff need. 3. Decide which PMO roles are most suitable for vendors and contractors and which roles

employees must fill. 4. Decide whether you will hire a PMO coordinator to help you build and administer the PMO.

Company Profile Information Questions

Earlier in the book, we also presented a set of questions to help you define the profile of your company. It is a best practice to review these again while you are filling in your PMO build decisions.

If the company’s profile information has changed since you first answered the questions, make sure to update accordingly. Failing to keep the company profile information current, could cause you to make PMO build decisions, that are out of date or not tailored to your business.

Answers to Review Questions

1. The PMO staffing model RACI lists PMO service offerings and the roles needed to provide those offerings. The RACI is valuable for determining how to staff your PMO.

2. Organization charts provide a view into the organization’s operating model and help you pinpoint where staff is needed.

3. Typical PMO roles include PMO executive leader, PMO stakeholder(s), PMO manager, PMO administrator/coordinator, portfolio manager, program manager, project manager, methodology specialist, PMO trainer, and more.

4. The three basic PMO employee qualifications include PMI certification, industry experience, formal PMO experience.

5. When deciding whether to hire a permanent employee over a vendor or contractor, some considerations include whether the project involves knowledge of company secrets or exclusive information; whether it might be problematic for contractors or vendors to see budget information for the project; whether it is a long-term project that will span multiple years; whether the role requires in-depth knowledge of the company; whether political issues within


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the organization might trip up a contractor or vendor; whether the project is time-based and includes specific deliverables; whether the project requires a level of expertise that no regular employees possess; and what PMO model you are using.

6. PMO managers need to be flexible because they play a variety of roles and in some cases, they are in PMOs all alone, and so they will need to many different roles to drive a successful PMO.

the pmo lifecycle: building, running, and shutting … pmo lifecycle: building, running, and...

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