PPM and PMO Best Practices

Organizations of all sizes face a high cost of project failure and many point the finger of blame at the PMO - half of all PMOs either close within 3 years or are considered to be implementation failures. So how do you avoid being one of them? How can you differentiate your company in the market and, in so doing, make your PMO stand out as a glowing success factor in your organizations continued growth?

The whitepaper explores how you can make sure your PPM and PMO strategies are all in alignment by consistently following best practices. From maintaining visibility into projects and their real-time status, ensuring good governance, to managing resources effectively and providing reasonable time to ‘go live’ the white paper drives home the importance - in all areas – of correct utilization of people. Get that right, deploy best practices across the PMO, and the rest will follow.

Topics included in this paper:

  • The high cost of project failure
  • Best practices in resource management –optimizing the team
  • Best practices in operations and metrics –creating efficient processes
  • Best practices in automation –deploying effective technology
  • Time for technology

Introduction

There is a high cost associated with not getting project strategy and execution right. The 2013 publication, Why Projects Fail presented a number of shocking examples about costly project management implementations:

  • J.C. Penny – $1B
  • New Zealand – Ministry of Education – $30M
  • State of California – $254M
  • Marin County – $33M
  • Boeing Commercial – up to $18B
  • Northern Rock Asset Management – $400M
  • U.S. Air Force – $1B
  • Knight Capital – $400M

While there are a myriad of smaller challenges faced by PPM and PMO initiatives, here are five of the major issues we often see:

  1. Maintaining Visibility at all Levels – from the individual project to the entire portfolio.
  2. Ensuring Governance – with consistent and predictable methods, processes, and reporting.
  3. Effective Resource Management – some organizations have issues with who is the right person(s) for particular projects/tasks as well as how the total personnel capacity and utilization is balanced across the enterprise.
  4. Real Time Status – of projects deliverables.
  5. Reasonable Time to “Go Live” – companies that are in dynamic markets don’t have the luxury of long PMO implementation schedules.

To continue reading this whitepaper, click here.