Is a Streamlined Project Support Office Right for
Your IT Organization?
by Marina Spence,
PMP, Omada Management Group
The coffee is always on and the computers rarely off. A 60-hour work week is not uncommon, week after week. Daily e-mails numbering in the hundreds and voice mails going unanswered are the norm. How can a Project Support Office (PSO) assist a Project Manager in this environment? Aren't we just talking red tape, bureaucracy and excessive documentation?
Well, it depends. Some Project Offices, Project Management Offices, and Project Support Offices (the names vary) do bloat up and become the Project Police. Their insistence on just one way to do things, which is their way of course, can burden a Project Manager with an unnecessary layer of control and paperwork.
But let's dismiss the control freaks for now and focus instead on the streamlined Project Support Office. This is the PSO that introduces structure – but not too much, that introduces process – without rigidity. This is a PSO staffed by respected and experienced Project Managers with true coaching skills. What could this PSO do for our friend, the stressed-out, overworked and under appreciated Project Manager?
Let's weave the answers into another question: is the streamlined PSO right for your organization? To find out, ask yourself these four questions:
1. Is the talent uneven among the Project Managers in your organization?
Many organizations leave the processes that govern the project management life cycle to the discretion of the Project Manager (even while detailing structured technical processes). In a company full of gifted, talented, gung-ho Project Managers, the lack of consistent standards is not a problem – everyone shines. In the real world, however, the talented are often burdened with their successes. They are given the most complex projects, the most challenging Sponsors, and the tightest delivery dates.
Project Support Offices often introduce standard project management processes into an organization. When processes are applied, they can even-out the project management resource pool. Project management processes help good Project Managers perform even better, while helping mediocre Project Managers improve. By clarifying the processes in a project – and providing the training and coaching to achieve them – the mystery of successful project management disappears. More competent Project Managers mean less weight on the shoulders of the superstars, enabling them to last longer and ultimately contribute more.
2) Are your customers satisfied?
Customers are like the bathroom scales. They give us feedback about how we are doing, whether it's good news or bad. Dissatisfied IT customers grumble and complain about the Systems Department. They think IT makes everything more complicated than it needs to be, and endure IT meetings with blank faces, thinly veiled hostility or practiced patience. It's a strained relationship. IT has not kept its delivery promises. Or, worse yet, IT has delivered – a mess.
A streamlined Project Support Office can help Project Managers build partnerships with their Customers in a variety of ways, including:
- Facilitating Lessons Learned sessions, where stakeholders analyze problems in a neutral, non-blaming atmosphere
- Providing training in customer responsiveness (for IT), the basics of systems development (for business), and in project communication
- Improving Project Managers' communications, negotiations, presentation and meeting management skills through training and coaching
3) Is product quality satisfactory?
Customers become justifiably unhappy when they don’t receive what they expect, or if the product does not function according to standards. If the products you deliver are consistently defect-ridden, then something is wrong with the cooks, the kitchen or both.
Project Support Offices can introduce and promote quality processes within an organization, such as peer reviews and walk-throughs, inspections and project reviews. The PSO can also join forces with the Quality Assurance or Software Quality Assurance areas for an even greater effect on quality.4) Are Project Managers advancing in their knowledge of the profession?
How many Project Managers in your organization know what EVA stands for, or the difference between the critical path and a critical task? How often do your colleagues take project management courses or read professional literature? How many Project Management Professionals (PMP's) manage projects in your company?
More important, how many Project Managers are excited about their jobs, their teams and the opportunity to learn what project management affords?If Project Managers in your organization are not leading the charge toward their own professional advancement and constant regeneration, they may not be leading their projects any better.
A Project Support Office can increase project management learning by:
- Introducing project management training
- Offering lunch-time presentations on selected project management topics
- Being enthusiastic ambassadors of the profession!
Back to our overworked Project Manager friend in that stressed-out IT shop. Could a streamlined Project Support Office improve the situation? Probably. Consistently working long hours is symptomatic of something – and figuring out that "something" is one of the things a successful PSO must do in the beginning.