Adding value?

I was going to entitle this one – PMO’s – so much more than admin. But the phrase that comes up when I speak to PMOs who want to make the move away from admin and support is into ‘adding value’.

Whenever I then probe what they want to actually do then it all gets a bit vague, with people repeating the phrases ‘not admin’ and ‘more value’. So I have had a think about what it is that a PMO should be doing and acting in order to provide ‘more value’.

The best analogy I could come up with for a PMO as to compare the work of a PMO to that of a valet. I was reminded of the stories by P.G. Wodehouse of Jeeves and Wooster and of all of the scrapes that Bertie Wooster gets into, only to be rescued by Jeeves. I see a great deal of similarity in the dealings of a PMO and their PM’s.

After all the hero of the story should be Wooster, with all of the goings on, and you only actually hear of Jeeeves’ involvement when it all gets a little bit too hairy. So I see the role of the PMO, we allow the PM to have all of the fun, dealing with the stakeholders, going to all of the meetings, gaining the prize of the deliverables done on time. Only if there are hurdles to be overcome, tricky stakeholders to be dealt with, deadlines to be achieved does the PMO come into view and quietly and efficiently save the day. They ask not for any extra award or applause, but are grateful of a job well done. Therefore in the mind of the PM the PMO is worth their weight in gold, and wouldn’t be shared with anyone else.

Don’t you think it is about time that the PMO’s become a bit more like the Jeeves of the world? Quiet, unassuming, problem solving, competent and always around when a problem arises, with the solution readily available.

Do you know what you do?

I was out at the PMO Flashmob last night and we were talking about PMO Competencies.

Several things emerged from this discussion, which are thoughts for further posts on the matter. However the central concern that came out of the discussion is that for quite a few people in the room it was difficult to articulate what they actually did or why they did it.

This was before we got into any discussion about what does the P stand for in PMO.

It was a bit like asking a Project Manager what they do and being told they Manage Projects. Which of course is an answer, but it just might not be the most helpful one.

The evening did get better as amongst the assembled group we did manage to work out some of the things that we did, or at least that some of us did. However we found it difficult to group this information into any logical order.

Will we get some competencies from this? Let’s hope so for the sake of our profession.

And for those of you who know what you do then congratulations, now can you articulate that to others?