THE PMO AS AN ENABLER OF TRUST AND CONFIDENCE IN A DISRUPTIVE PROJECT WORLD

TODAY’S TURBULENT AND INCREASINGLY DYNAMIC AND COMPLEX BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTS DEMAND HIGHER RESPONSIVENESS TO CHANGE AND DISRUPTION. THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE FOR PROJECT ENVIRONMENTS, REQUIRING THEREFORE A SHIFT OF THE TRADITIONAL PMO.

Rather than a supportive and administrative role the PMO is a driving force for technological advancements and a transition to a more data informed and technology supported project management practice.

With traditional project management practices becoming more and more ineffective, hence impacting project outcomes and business competitiveness, the PMO needs to ensure the correct alignment with business demand and expectations, and lead a transformation that lifts the project management practice to an approach that emphasises on agility, value delivery, and continuous improvement and learning.

Almost every industry is impacted by disruptive digital technology, resulting in changing business environments that are becoming increasingly complex. At last, COVID-19 also has shown us how fast conditions can change and how important it has become to respond quickly to change and rapidly changing messages.

The trend goes clearly to increasingly dynamic business environments that are primarily impacted by disruptive technologies; and organisations are fighting hard to keep up with the pace of technology and its impact, for not being left behind in their markets.

Accordingly, many business areas are being disrupted, and are undergoing adjustment and transformation. The project management area is no exception and is also vastly impacted but has been really slow in responding to this trend of increasing complexity. A logical consequence is an alarming trend with more and more projects failing and not delivering on their promises, as numerous surveys from leading project management associations such as Project Management Institute (PMI), Association for Project Management (APM), and the Australian Institute for Project Management (AIPM) are indicating.

The new reality where information and knowledge are changing much more frequently than ever before is overwhelming for project professionals which is the reason why many projects are operating merely in a survival mode, with project professionals being forced more and more into a reactive role, rather than being a driver for change.

Some organisations realised already the need for a transition to a new project management approach that leverages modern technologies such as Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for more reliable and confident project planning and execution, and to turn around the declining project success rates and re-establish trust and confidence in projects and their outcomes.

The success of such transformation depends however on a coordinated approach to collaboratively shift to a data-informed project delivery practice. An isolated attempt to make a transition is unlikely to succeed if not all projects in an organisation follow the same direction, as this would be like playing football with an incomplete or reduced team – you are missing players and therefore likely would lose your game.

And this is where the PMO comes in, to play an important and leading role, to bring all the players together, form them to a winning team by guiding them on how to play by new rules. But in many organisations, the function of a PMO is not going beyond a supportive, controlling, or administrative role which tracks schedule, scope, and costs of a program, project, or portfolio. Or, using that metaphor again, the PMO often would compare only to the role of a fitness coach while such needed transition actually requires the PMO to operate as a head coach, leading the team of projects into a new and promising era of project delivery, ensuring their alignment between each other and their consistent adherence to new processes. Play together and play by the rules, otherwise you lose.

It requires a new and fundamentally different project delivery model that is rolled out across the entire organisation, a fact that is still being ignored or denied by many organisations. The PMOs role therefore needs to be extended to a more strategic and leading function which ensures that the project management domain evolves along with the overall digital direction and vision of an organisation. In the end, any organisational transformation or change relies on the successful delivery of projects to implement change.

The PMO can accomplish this by acting as a central body and force, leading the project management practice out of the survival mode to a discipline that is characterised by a data-informed and collaborative culture that makes use of data and technology to deliver true business value.

However, the key to improved project outcomes which support an organisation to thrive and advance is to enable the project management discipline to evolve and develop as it is being executed. It means that PMOs need to help in establishing a culture where projects share information and insights, and collaborate extensively, for project management practices can continuously improve for best possible project outcomes that help organisations to meet their operational or transformational goals.

Stages to re-establish project delivery confidence.

(Source: Marcus Glowasz)

The PMO function that has a holistic view across all projects, programs and portfolios in an organisation needs to assume the role of a transformer who establishes a sense of urgency based on collected project performance metrics. Many senior leaders in organisations are in denial for a need for change in project management and have to be made aware of the impact from increasingly non-performing projects on the company’s goals and objectives.

But a solution that leverages data and technology and disrupts processes which often are solely based on experience or intuition, requires a shift of mindset and behaviours, as well as the adoption of a data-informed culture in project management.

With the entire project management practice in an organisation affected, the PMO is at the forefront to not only define new standards and processes but also to build trust in new ways of working, in data, in technology, and to enable a culture that is embedded into organisational values and beliefs.

Author: Marcus Glowasz is an internationally recognised expert in project management with over 25 years of experience in delivering complex transformation projects and has worked with numerous organisations from large international corporates to small business practices. He is an advocate of disruptive technologies and innovation in project management and helps project professionals and organisations to prepare for the future model of project delivery.