Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The Five "P's" of PMO

The definition of PMO, the acrnoym, has been difficult to pin down to date. There are many interpretations, both, in the service delivery community and the business operations organizations who express an interest in having one.

Since each organization is very different based on their Objectives and the people they hire, and the most pressing need at any one of these organizations can be decidely different from any of the others, the actual delivered PMO can be an extremely unique organization and set of procedures and metrics.

I believe that one of the most important things we can do, first, in any engagement is help the customer understand some of the differences between:

  1. Program Management
  2. Project Management
  3. Process Management
  4. Portfolio Management, and
  5. People Management

These are my "Five 'Ps" for a PMO and they help me to understand where the highest priority need is and how to focus our efforts on getting a valuable PMO in place early from which we can build additional capabilities (other "P's") when necessary.

bgbg

Third Time Pays for All!

How many of you have tried to start your own company and it didn't work the first time? This one is my 2nd attempt and so far it's working but I am sure I could use some fine tuning and pretty soon.

One thing I have noticed is that in my first attempt I had a partner who had significantly different skills than I did AND we seemed to mesh pretty nicely until it just went sour. I know I have skill gaps and I am being reminded, EVERY DAY, that I am a really BAD ACCOUNTANT!

On the other hand, I do pretty well at building and maintaining relationships with some people.

Have you ever thought of building a collaboration of small companies, each of whom would provide organizational services to the others in the group? I think they call this a 'consortium' and although I have heard of one or two of these, they have never impressed me as substantially beneficial. However, I have only been trying this on my own for less than two years now. These organizations could get to look better and better as time goes by.

bgbg