by Dharam CW2 | Sep 29, 2023 | General
Project management is in great demand by many businesses, as are the project managers. Project management is widely used in today’s economy, regardless of the business. Why?
Today’s organizations confront tremendous competition. They must address global issues and respond to internal/external concerns in parallel. In response to obstacles, businesses require a disciplined strategy for planning, organizing, controlling, and managing their resources (including internal skills) to deliver outcomes on time. And these outcomes should be in line with goals and demands. Project managers with strong project management abilities are well-equipped to take on these initiatives. These initiatives may have varying levels of complexity. Therefore, if you are a project manager or want to start a career as a project professional and be marketable amongst other professionals to survive in this competitive environment, this article will provide a good overview.
Transforming your project management career
A project management career might be an excellent choice if you want to increase your income and professional status. Project management roles are often active and interesting, with constant new challenges and possibilities. In contrast, talented project managers are in high demand throughout the corporate sector, as many qualified candidates are looking for these opportunities.
Understanding Project Management
One of the biggest misconceptions regarding the project management profession is that it is fundamentally the same as a more traditional management position. While project managers must be great leaders, their primary responsibility is to manage projects, not people.
Unlike departmental managers, project managers are not a part of the typical supervisory structure used by most businesses. Instead, they function as a type of free agent – a project management profession entails coordinating the work of many individuals and divisions to achieve a certain assignment. Throughout a project, the project manager will communicate with individual contributors at all levels of the organization in connection to various deliverables.
Duties of a Project Manager
Project Manager Duties/Tasks
- Determines relevant goods or services to define project scope, requirements, and deliverables with clients or customers
- Develops, adjusts, or contributes to project plans
- Implements project strategies to achieve goals
- Project activities are coordinated and integrated
- Manages, Directs, or Oversees project resources
- Monitors project activity and resources to reduce risk
- Quality assurance methods are implemented or maintained
- When issues arise, the project manager makes changes, fixes them, or takes remedial action
- Presents or briefs on all aspects of the project
- Participates in the project phase, milestone, and outcome reviews
- Determines the requirements or processes for project documentation
- Creates and implements a product release strategy
Qualities that make a Project Manager in High Demand
Qualities that make a Project Manager in high demand
Effective project management may require the following qualities to become an effective project manager:
- Effective communication skills
A good communicator is one of the qualities of a successful manager since it allows them to interact with people at all levels. The project manager must clearly describe the project goals, duties, responsibilities, expectations, and feedback for each team member to obtain the project goal.
- Strong leadership skills
Effective project management requires strong leadership abilities, such as encouraging and driving the team to maximum performance to achieve their objectives.
- Good decision-maker
An effective project manager must be able to make decisions since they will always be required.
- Technical expertise
Because project management software and other associated programs are vital in achieving project goals, a good project manager must have strong technical expertise to understand technological challenges. In addition, knowledge of theory and technology may substantially assist managers in adopting strategic moves when necessary.
- Inspires a shared vision
An effective project manager can communicate the vision to the team members. A visionary can guide employees in the proper direction while effectively adapting to changes. In addition, they excel in empowering people to experience their vision for themselves.
- Team-building skills
A team must work together, or the project will face numerous relational issues that might threaten its success. Project managers must understand how to offer each of them the attention they require by emphasizing their positive characteristics.
- Handles the pressure
As the project progresses, specific events could hinder its pace and put the project manager’s patience to the test. Therefore, project managers must always remain composed and grounded to avoid losing themselves and negatively affecting their connection with the team.
- Good negotiation skills
The capacity to negotiate is one of the abilities required for efficient project management. Project managers must have strong negotiation skills to resolve disputes resulting from differences of opinion and keep the team functioning together.
- Empathetic
An empathetic leader demonstrates to their followers’ things like compassion, empathy, and gratitude for others’ assistance. Understanding the project’s and its stakeholders’ demands is a necessary step.
- Competence
A good manager can start new initiatives, manage obstacles, and knows what he is doing.
An effective project manager must possess the majority of these qualities to manage the project successfully, along with a professional certification. Professional certificates can add value to their career and aid in success in a competitive environment.
Project Management Certification
A project management certification is a certification that verifies an individual’s project management knowledge, skills, and practical expertise. Certifications like PMP®, PgMP®, PfMP®, and other advanced certifications can aid the professional’s knowledge and adds value to their career.
According to the August 2023 PMI Fact File Stats, there are 1,465,873 PMP®, 4,847 PgMP®, and 1,538 PfMP® active certified professionals globally. Thus, completing those training programs and earning a project management certification from a globally recognized standard organization such as the PMI might improve the career, including staying current with a constantly evolving field, keeping up with the latest technology and practices, and earning a better project manager salary.
A career in project management: Facts and Figures
Project management has become a highly sought-after career path in today’s agile environment. According to the Project management – Job Growth and Talent gap, 2017 – 2027 report,
Project Management – Job Growth and Talent Gap | PMI
- A growing disparity exists between the demand for experienced PMPs and their suppliers worldwide. As a result, firms and organizations are searching for qualified project management professionals. Moreover, it allows one to tailor themselves to their needs.
- By 2027, there will be a demand for 87.7 million PMP positions. Because of increased demand and high attrition, there will be a huge job opportunity for a project management role in the coming future in various sectors, including manufacturing and construction, information services and publishing, finance and insurance, management and professional services, utilities, and others.
- Apart from the fact that there will be a lot of employment for PM positions in the future, it’s also encouraging to know that PM roles will be financially rewarding. According to the report, in the United States in 2017, earnings of project management-oriented professionals in projectized sectors were 82 percent more on average than the salaries of non-project-oriented professionals.
Challenges Faced by the Project Managers
A project manager must handle challenging projects smoothly and deliver positive outcomes. It may appear that being a project manager is a simple and well-paid profession. However, a project manager must work hard and face obstacles daily to balance all parts of a complicated project.
Challenges Faced by Project Managers
As a result, a project manager must be skilled in various areas, including communication, decision-making, delegating, and risk-taking, to mention a few. In addition, project managers are constantly required to manage tasks, resources, time, and money in addition to managing projects. Here are some of the challenges that today’s project manager’s face:
- Scope creep
Scope creep expands a project’s scope beyond its intended objective or aims. It usually occurs when project stakeholders request adjustments. Any change to a project’s strategy can cause confusion, raise the cost of resources, and make meeting deadlines difficult.
- Poor communication
Strong communication is one of the keys to effectively completing a project. A project manager can successfully provide orders, acquire information, and update stakeholders if they have strong written and verbal communication skills. Otherwise, their team might need to be more organized, causing delays.
- Unclear goals
Projects can only be effective if the team works toward well-defined and quantifiable goals. Ideally, every team member is aware of each project objective and the specific expectations of each stakeholder. Otherwise, they may spend time and resources attempting to do something that does not give the necessary benefit.
- Poor budgeting
Smart financial planning and cost management are required to ensure that funds are used wisely. Poor budgeting, on the other hand, may result in unfavorable effects. Without a solid understanding of financial concerns, the team may face cost overruns, aggravating stakeholders and preventing the project from being completed successfully.
- Insufficient risk analysis
Risk analysis is forecasting probable elements that might threaten a project’s success. Although it is an important aspect of the project life cycle, the process is vulnerable to specific hazards. For example, rushing the analysis might result in oversights that fail to anticipate important difficulties. As a result, flaws in the project design, budgetary concerns, or unexpected variables may arise.
- Lack of accountability
Accountability is accepting responsibility for one’s actions and the consequences of those acts, especially when mistakes are made. As a result, responsible people are willing to confront the consequences of their actions and attempt to overcome the resulting difficulties. However, when leaders and team members are not accountable, they can interfere with development in many ways. One way is to undermine team morale, which may withstand the repercussions of a single person’s errors. The other is by decreasing production when project resources are diverted to determine the root cause of a problem.
- Unrealistic deadlines
An unrealistic deadline is impossible or unreasonable to accomplish, given the specifications and needs of the project. When a team faces unreasonable deadlines, they are obliged to compress their operations so that the quality of their work decreases. As a result, the project’s final output will likely fall short of client expectations.
- Uncertainty
Uncertainty occurs when stakeholders, including team members, need clarification about any part of the project they are working on. For example, they may be concerned about the team’s ability to accomplish goals, the project’s possible impact when finished, or the usage of project resources. When uncertainty occurs, it may damage engaged people and lead to poor project outcomes.
Ways to make yourself more marketable as a Project Manager
Making oneself necessary to a current employer or alluring to a prospective one is the key to being (and remaining) marketable. Therefore, it is a commitment to constantly broaden the skills and knowledge to remain current, competitive, and well-positioned to compete for employment in various market scenarios.
Ways to make yourself more marketable as a Project Manager
Here are some suggestions to boost your job prospects at all phases of the economic cycle.
- Upgrade your skills
Keeping your skills fresh, current, and relevant is the best way to stay marketable. Align your skillset with your company’s plans and those of potential employers, and keep up-to-date by attending workshops and conferences to expand and improve your skillset.
Identify gaps that need addressing to position yourself as a highly valuable employee. Focusing on developing your transferable skills (in leadership, communication, or technology, for example) is a smart investment in diversifying and upgrading your career.
- Expand your learning
Continuous learning demonstrates your dedication to growth. Remember that you must stay current on the industry’s best practices and technologies, even if you are not using this information in your current role. Improving your knowledge and qualifications is a vital strategy to boost your worth to a current or future company.
In-house training, distance learning, and online courses may all help you develop new skills and information. Online seminars and professional journals are also excellent ways to stay current in your field, making it simpler to transition into a new job.
- Rework your CV
Refresh your CV with recent accomplishments and current skills so you can take advantage of opportunities as they emerge. Update your CV with concrete examples of your achievements, such as improving business procedures, contributing to the bottom line, or attending key conferences or seminars. Keeping a record of your accomplishments is an excellent reminder of the value you provide to your present position.
- Be flexible
In today’s constantly changing work market, having an open mind and staying flexible about your professional choices will offer a world of extra professional prospects. However, you may need to reassess your expectations regarding industry, compensation, and employment type (permanent, contract, or temporary) to keep your alternatives open and avoid restricting your employability.
- Expand your network
One of the essential job search and career development tools you have is your network of connections. Attend chapter events, networking events, activities, and conferences whenever possible. Networking helps to keep you top of mind when possibilities occur within or outside your firm, as well as creating your reputation as a well-connected and appreciated professional.
- Stay Informed
Anticipating what talents businesses will want now and in the future is crucial. Keep current with essential trade publications, industry studies, and job postings. Staying up to date on advancements and opportunities offers you a good indication of the types of talents that are now in demand, as well as those that are likely to be relevant in the future and which are helping you to plan for future career opportunities.
- Establish a personal brand
Remember that you are ultimately marketing yourself to a potential employer, so maintain consistency in your brand. Any changes to your CV should be reflected on your LinkedIn page, and you should consider getting a professional photo taken to put in your profile.
- Showcase your work
Maintain samples of your best work, as long as they are not the intellectual property of your current employer, and create an online portfolio. This simple method demonstrates your appreciation for your work and its quality. Make sure to include the portfolio in your LinkedIn profile so future employers can see your capabilities.
- Get a mentor
Discuss obtaining a mentor with your management or someone in a career or profession you might be interested in later. Find out what helped them get to where they want to go or what they would be looking for in a comparable job when recruiting. For example, you need to focus on a certain skill set or achievement ahead of time. In that case, you can offer yourself a more suitable candidate for new employment.
Final Thoughts
The project manager’s role is critical since it determines whether a project succeeds or fails. Therefore, being the project manager places a more significant focus on essential abilities and experience; as a result, the project manager is expected to have the necessary talents and desire to perform the research required to stay current and competitive.
But not all project managers are equal. For many of us, the problem is figuring out how to stand out in a market where everyone talks about having a brand. Also, how do you differentiate yourself in a setting where selling your value to the project is frequently more essential than getting things done on the project?
Here are a few suggestions to assist you in establishing your presence as an essential component of your organization’s success and put you in line to be recognized for your achievements.
- Make sure you communicate with everyone in the organization.
- Share your thoughts inside your business and with the project management community.
- Encourage yourself to keep growing.
Feel free to check out my discussion on this topic with Thomas Walenta in YouTube
For any questions related to your Project Management career, training, and certifications, you can book an obligation free 15 minutes session with me by visiting https://bit.ly/2SbhTOK
You can subscribe to the vCare Project Management YouTube Channel to catch future videos of our Q&A series and certification success stories: https://bit.ly/2YF0wJl
You can subscribe to and follow my podcasts and interviews with Project Management Experts on YouTube at https://bit.ly/2NDY8wd
by DharamCW | Sep 8, 2023 | General
From a strategic standpoint, the PMO is critical in project management. Unlike project management, which focuses on the day-to-day operations of a project team, the PMO serves as a framework for project managers, offering PMO methodologies and templates for managing programs inside an organization. In addition, it manages the project management resources required to sustain and deliver projects.
Project management offices (PMOs) are evolving from purely administrative to strategic roles. They are rethinking PMO operations, adopting new technology, and implementing new project management operating models. The evolved PMO is a new PMO concept that is gaining traction. A creative, strategic, and adaptive PMO designed to help modern organizations deal with the volatility of today’s market conditions.
Functions Of A Project Management Office
Functions of a Project Management Office (PMO)
A project management office (PMO) is the foundation of a successful project management strategy in a business. It is a function that gives decision-support information but does not make choices.
A project management office (PMO) supports project delivery mechanisms by ensuring that all business change in a company is controlled. PMOs perform various duties, and their services depend on the department’s maturity and the PMO personnel’s talents. At its most basic, the PMO assists project management teams in making funding, prioritizing, and resource choices. The most mature PMOs provide the following:
1. Governance: The PMO ensures that the appropriate individuals make the correct decisions based on pertinent information. Audits or peer reviews, designing project and program frameworks, and maintaining accountability at all levels are all part of the governance role.
2. Transparency: The PMO delivers information as a source of truth. Information should be relevant and accurate to promote good decision-making and be presented to individuals understandably.
3. Reusability: The PMO fosters knowledge sharing. This aspect prevents project teams from reinventing the wheel and positions the PMO as the hub for lessons learned, templates, and best practices.
4. Delivery support: By minimizing bureaucracy and offering training, coaching, mentoring, and quality assurance, the PMO makes it easier for project teams to accomplish their duties.
5. Traceability: The PMO manages paperwork, project history, and organizational knowledge.
In reality, most PMOs will do various tasks and offer services tailored to the organization’s requirements.
How Business Agility Drives A Shift In Focus For Today’s PMOs
Forward-thinking companies are fast learning that “simply getting the job done” will not equip them for long-term company success. To be successful in business today, firms must provide products and services that satisfy their clients while constantly innovating to grow their markets.
Historically, PMOs were responsible for managing tactical operations that supported project development and implementation. Today’s Corporate leaders recognize that to stay ahead of the market; they need to exploit new possibilities while limiting unanticipated risks – this necessitates a new approach to planning, building, and delivery. Maintaining consistent levels of project success involves more than an organized strategy; it demands a company’s collective attitude to accept required disciplines while staying flexible enough to respond to changes in their business.
1. A major project fails — badly: When an expensive, strategic initiative fails in a competitive market, it compels a company to rethink its strategy. A third of the organizations polled cited a big failure as the impetus for shifting emphasis.
2. A project goes over budget: An underlying driver is cost reduction; project success at higher-than-expected costs decreases profitability and damages customer relationships.
3. A PMO aids a strategic project to succeed: Success, on the other hand, is a catalyst for change. Therefore, the following important reason for building a strategic PMO would be to capitalize on the momentum produced by the successful project.
4. Market competition forces stronger disciplines: Maintaining market share and growing at a controllable rate encouraged larger firms to create consistency to innovate. The capacity to pivot and explore possibilities prompted smaller businesses to establish a strategic PMO.
Key Factors to a Successful PMO Transformation
Established businesses and fast-growing firms are both adapting to changing business environments brought on by competition, acquisitions, developing technology, and new risks. As a result, the importance of alignment, built-in quality, transparency, and the capacity to execute across various project endeavors has never been greater. Innovative design thinking, continuous delivery, excellent quality, and a never-ending drive for improvement are some of the essential characteristics of a modern-day PMO. Here are some causes driving PMO evolution and the seven elements required to turn a typical PMO into a transformation management office (TMO).
Drivers behind the PMO Evolution
Due to increased external business environment constraints, businesses must achieve rapid and substantial value from their projects and initiatives. This aspect means shorter delivery cycles, the adoption of developing technologies, and regularly changed priorities for the PMO. To achieve this transition, the PMO must move its focus from project execution technique to value-driven business results. Change drivers are often aligned with three fundamental needs:
Drivers behind the PMO Evolution
1. Capacity and skills:
- Specific domain areas of technical expertise required
- Extra capacity required
2. Rapid Execution:
- Organizations require rapid execution to address immediate concerns
- No time to plan, but need to execute now to meet deadlines (e.g., regulatory compliance dates)
3. Innovation:
- Legacy project management no longer meets expectations
- Value focus, agility, quality, and continuous improvement are required
Transformation Management Office Critical Factors
Critical Factors to Consider
1. Leadership: TMO core values of alignment, built-in quality, transparency, and program execution must be completely embraced by leaders. They must adopt an agile mindset, emphasizing respect for people and culture, flow, innovation, and continuous development while cultivating a culture of trust and safety when setbacks occur.
2. Organizational Agility: Processes at the program and project levels must be improved to deliver value quickly while allowing companies to restructure and adapt to changing priorities.
3. Lean Portfolio Management: Goals for funding and execution must be aligned around workstreams that bring value to business priorities. Organizations may use this to optimize operations throughout their project portfolio. In addition, governance, monitoring, and decision-making for programs and projects should be decentralized to decrease overhead while boosting agility.
4. Enterprise Solution Delivery: The whole software development life cycle can be aligned with a DevOps methodology that refines and coordinates the work product across workstreams, supply chains, and suppliers to achieve and sustain continuous delivery.
5. Agile Product Delivery: Methods for delivering programs must begin with a customer focus and design thinking while aligning the continuous-delivery pipeline to a release cadence that provides optimum value to the customer.
6. Team and Technical Agility: Teams must be high-performing and cross-functional, with the knowledge and competence to design and execute high-quality solutions and work products aligned with customer-focused business goals.
7. Continuous-Learning Culture: Investing in being a learning organization is critical for employee transformation. Employees must be empowered to discover and uncover future value by embracing innovation and design thinking. Continuous improvement of solutions, processes, and products should be a priority at all levels of the business.
The evolving role of the PMO in digital transformation
Digital transformation has swept across organizations of all shapes and sizes to keep up with the growing expectations and needs of an increasingly digitized world. However, more people are learning that successful digital transformation entails transforming core cultures, structures, and techniques and integrating digital tools. Therefore, the function of the PMO in organizations must adapt to accommodate this shift as organizations evolve to accommodate this change.
According to a PWC study, 70% of organizations had or were working on a digital transformation strategy before the pandemic. Digital transformation may provide several benefits, ranging from better operational efficiency and product quality to increased customer satisfaction and lower development expenses.
However, PMOs have become linked with bureaucratic processes and unnecessary documentation. Their role must develop beyond the conventional limitations of “standards enforcers” to embrace their strategic role as change agents fully. Future PMOs must be at the forefront of emerging technology and implement various tactics that will allow the organization to make the most of available technologies.
Five ways the PMO drives digital transformation
Five ways the PMO drives digital transformation
1. PMOs can inspire and encourage change
The PMO’s role is to assist organizations in gaining the support of all key stakeholders for a digital transformation. Teams are more inclined to invest in digital projects if the transformation’s advantages are personal. PMOs may implement explicit feedback mechanisms to ensure that all important input is easily supplied, reviewed, and acted upon.
2. PMOs act as the strategic arm
PMOs must ensure that their digital transformation plan is consistent with the organization’s overall strategy. For example, investing in high-end software is pointless if your company is attempting to save money and merely needs essential project management tools. PMOs must also comprehend the strategic benefit of digital technology investments and be able to quantify, justify, and carry out plans.
3. PMOs provide support and insight
Digital transformation programs are frequently large-scale enterprise-wide undertakings that need ongoing support and higher-level knowledge to influence their development. For example, PMOs may assist employees via virtual portals with the help of a PPM solution while also gathering Big Data to help evaluate the new technologies’ success and efficiency.
4. PMOs properly manage transformations
Introducing new technology frequently entails forming new teams and learning new skills to ensure a successful adoption process. Managing digital transformation entails guaranteeing the availability of relevant resources, skills, feedback mechanisms, and data collection procedures. PMOs can monitor the full effect of digital transformation activities, manage possible bottlenecks or pressure spots, and optimize ongoing operations.
5. PMOs enable successful digital adoption
PMOs are essential in getting people excited about digital initiatives and driving further use of the tools or processes. PMOs may assist employees in understanding the value of digital technologies by delivering interactive demos and holding learning sessions. When more individuals utilize the application, there is more data to accurately analyze the overall performance of digital activities.
Project Governance and its components
Project governance is an oversight position that includes the project life cycle. It is tied to the governance model of the organization. It provides the project manager and team with structure, processes, decision-making models, and tools for effectively managing and controlling the project. Project governance is critical, especially for complex and risky enterprises. It defines, documents, and communicates consistent project processes to give a whole way of project control and success. It includes a framework for making project choices, defines roles, obligations, and liabilities for project completion, and controls the project manager’s performance.
Components of Project Governance
Components of Project Governance
According to PMI, eight project governance components offer real-world value:
1. Governance Models
The organization should develop a baseline of important aspects required for project governance based on the project’s scale, duration, complexity, risk, stakeholders, and relevance to the company.
2. Accountability and Responsibilities
The project manager’s primary responsibility is to define accountability and obligations. An organization’s operations will only be successful if accountability and obligations are adequately distributed. Therefore, the project manager must specify who is accountable, responsible, consulted, and alerted for each project’s deliverables.
3. Stakeholder Engagement
It is essential to thoroughly understand the project environment while setting the groundwork for your governance plan. The first stage is to identify all of the stakeholders. If even one stakeholder is excluded, it can disrupt the entire project and have a negative impact. One must identify stakeholders from various sources, including sponsors, suppliers, the project team, government boards, company owners, etc. The project manager must identify the stakeholders, their interests and prospects, and, most critically, how to interact with them.
4. Stakeholder Communication
The project manager must design a communication plan after identifying all stakeholders and describing their interests and expectations. A well-planned communication strategy provides all stakeholders with concise, efficient, and timely information.
5. Meeting and Reporting
Once the communication strategy has been properly designed, the project manager ensures that the optimal mix of meetings and reporting is in place. It is critical to design the communication strategy so that each stakeholder knows the mode and content of the communication and the owner, receiver, communication milestones, and decision gates. Furthermore, communication must be concise, accurate, and to the point.
6. Risk and Issue Management
Projects and programs are riddled with hazards and difficulties due to their uncertainty and unpredictability. It is challenging to forecast what will happen. Still, it is vital since a lack of preparation will throw the project team well behind schedule. Any project or program must begin with an agreement on identifying, categorizing, and prioritizing risks and concerns. How the danger or issue is handled is far more significant than the issue itself.
7. Assurance
Project assurance ensures that risks and concerns are addressed effectively and provides the indicators that provide delivery confidence. One of the most important aspects of assurance is developing metrics to provide a view of project success.
8. Project Management Control Process
It is the simplest component yet the most complicated to implement. Process control activities, metrics relevant to the project, and measurements are monitored and controlled. Also, this is a collaborative review; the management must monitor performance regularly and address any variances on time.
Creating project governance is more complex than it sounds. First, a significant investment is required when embarking on a new project. What’s more challenging is determining what advantages are linked with it. The following are four major advantages of project governance:
- Single point of contact
- Problem management and resolution
- Information dissemination and clear communication
- Outlines the roles, connections, and responsibilities of project stakeholders
Reinvent the PMO’s role in the digital age
The structure, provenance, and stakeholders of IT strategy, regulation, and management operations are changing dramatically due to digitization. As a result, the project management office, or PMO, must move its focus from project governance and delivery to digital transformation. According to a Gartner study, 87% of firms prioritize digitalization. Furthermore, today, 77% of an executive’s top priorities depend on technology.
As a result, PMOs are under enormous pressure to transform. But unfortunately, the project, program, and portfolio management processes they build and monitor are geared toward predictability and consistency rather than the speed and flexibility necessary to satisfy digital demand.
More flexible job descriptions and growing ownership of project management activities by business partners and other delivery professionals put traditional hierarchies and established PMO positions to the challenge. As a result, the PMO’s future role in digitization initiatives is established rather than for it since it usually needs to be considered in discussions about digitally driven changes to the IT operating model.
The traditional role of the PMO: Three advantages
Organizations are altering the function of the PMO in response to better support the enterprise’s digital aspirations. To accomplish so, they must examine possible activities critically through the prism of the PMO’s comparative advantages. The majority of PMOs have three main benefits, which are either inherent because of the PMO’s function or location or were developed as a result of experience:
1. A neutral enterprise perspective:
As capital allocation and portfolio priority approaches alter to give the financial flexibility necessary for digital work, the PMO’s objective, enterprise-wide perspective on demand, investment, and resource consumption, is more valuable.
2. The ability to operate via influence:
As organizational boundaries grow more flexible and who “owns” project management becomes less definite, influencing and empowering others, rather than direct ownership, becomes even more crucial.
3. Stakeholder insight:
As digitalization expands throughout the business and accounts for an increasing quantity of work, the number of first-time stakeholders and stakeholder complexity for each work item increases. Therefore, understanding the preferences of these many stakeholders and experiencing synthesizing their feedback becomes critical in producing results from digital work.
The PMO’s new role: Advancing digital ambitions
Leading PMOs are leveraging these advantages to shift the focus of their mission away from governance and delivery activities, embracing a strategy-over-governance and management-over-operations stance. Here are three approaches to altering the PMO’s role in the digital age:
Altering the PMOs role in the Digital age
1. Orchestrating delivery and team workflows
The PMO is well-suited to develop and promote interactions across increasingly different types of work and stakeholders due to its enterprise perspective and stakeholder insight. PMOs can play significant roles in driving the adoption of new delivery practices (e.g., Agile, DevOps) and will need to build systems for team collaboration across methodologies. This move entails identifying and managing interdependencies that might derail existing activity and lowering the effort necessary for interaction across teams, other governance roles, and third parties.
2. Developing and enabling digital talent
PMOs have expanded their roles in creating and fostering digital talent, adjusting career paths, and equipping project management professionals with the skills and techniques required to handle increasingly dynamic digital work. This initiative includes fostering new competencies such as product ownership, cultivating an enlarged network of project management practitioners, and providing targeted assistance for increasing business-managed projects.
3. Supporting digital transformation
Digitization is driving change in the IT operating model, with 52% of IT businesses utilizing or planning to use a new model centered on product lines. The PMO’s role in facilitating this transformation will be essential in the future. For example, the PMO may assist with enterprise-level capital allocation, design, and management of product line investment roadmaps, assess product line success, and manage the organizational transformation required when IT transitions to product lines. Aside from IT, the PMO will be asked to help implement digital business activities.
Final Thoughts
The future PMO will be more strategic and intricate than traditional approaches, emphasizing driving decision-making, execution, and outcomes while becoming more decentralized to interact with each workstream to achieve one common goal efficiently. Finally, PMOs will be more crucial than ever in addressing the challenges that organizations are now confronting. An effective transformation will need PMOs to act as the organization’s voice and face.
As the pace of digitalization increases, the PMO role will be put under increased pressure. As a result, PMOs are looking for methods to cut back on their time and effort on operational and governance tasks. Thus, PMO leaders must leverage their unique assets to change their focus from governance and delivery assistance to strategy and management activities that support digital projects.
Feel free to check out my discussion on this topic with Justin Buckwalter in YouTube
For any questions related to your Project Management career, training, and certifications, you can book an obligation free 15 minutes session with me by visiting https://bit.ly/2SbhTOK
You can subscribe to the vCare Project Management YouTube Channel to catch future videos of our Q&A series and certification success stories: https://bit.ly/2YF0wJl
You can subscribe to and follow my podcasts and interviews with Project Management Experts on YouTube at https://bit.ly/2NDY8wd
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