Types of Project Management Office

This is a quick breakdown of the 3 types of Project Management Offices (PMOs).

• Enabling (Supportive) — Provides best practices, templates, and tools “as needed,” and compliance is voluntary.

• Delivery (Controlling) — Adopts framework or methodology, policy, and repeatable procedures, and a certain level of the standards are enforced.

• Compliance (Directive) — Establishes strict standards, measures, and control over projects, and these are highly regulated.

A good place to start is with an enabling/supportive PMO and then progress to a more delivery/controlling model. Generally, a compliance/directive PMO is for more highly regulated organizations.

(Credit Graphic: Andy Blumenthal and concept via CIO Magazine and Gartner)

Some Reflections From The Procedure

So I had a little procedure this week. 

I hate going to the hospital–who doesn’t?

But I figured better to take care of something before it gets worse. 

I think of it like taking the car into the mechanic for a tuneup every once in a while. 

This analogy stuck with me years ago, when the orthopedist told me I needed to get a hip replacement and started to describe it as having a flat tire that needed to be repaired. 

Leading up the the procedure, someone sent me this funny cartoon:

This really hit a nerve too because even the best medicine these days reminds me of the truly horrible medicine not so long ago.  

Ah, have some liquor, bite on this piece of wood, and now we’ll saw your leg off!

I remember my father never even liked to go to the doctor, and he had total faith that G-d was his doctor–I think he actually managed to avoid the doctor for literally something like 30-years.

He also used to joke that many doctors were butchers, and he didn’t want to get caught under their knife. 

So that’s certainly some apprehension going in to this. 

The other thing that was interesting-sad that I saw this week when I went for an MRI was someone taking a homeless person into the radiology center for a scan. 

But when the lady asked for insurance the person didn’t have any, so the lady asks for “proof of homelessness.”

I was flabbergasted at this as the guy was obviously homeless and literally was wearing tattered clothes.

They wouldn’t do the scan until the person escorting him would come back with this proof.  

I felt so bad for him and thought to myself is this what the healthcare system and care for the poverty-striken in this country has come to? 

While I am so truly grateful for the miraculous care that I received this week, I am equally saddened at the care that others don’t get that need it, and pray that we as a “caring society” will do better. 

Anyway, I want to express my gratitude to the doctor, the hospital, my wonderful family who stood by me, and most of all to G-d for seeing me through the procedure this week and for watching over me always. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

>Implementing IT Governance

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IT governance is often implemented with the establishment of an IT Investment Review Board (IRB) and Enterprise Architecture Board (EAB); but to get these to really be effective you have to win the hearts and minds of the stakeholders.

Here are some critical success factors to making IT governance work:

• Management buy-in and commitment—this is sort of a no-brainer, but it’s got to be said; without senior management standing firmly behind IT governance, it won’t take root and IT projects will continue to fly under the radar.
• Prioritizatuion and resourcing—EA, IT Strategic Planning, and IT governance compete with IT operations for resources, management attention, and prioritization. More often than not, many not so savvy CIOs value putting some new technology in the hands of the end-user over creating strategic IT plans, developing transition architectures, and implementing sound IT governance (they do this at risk to their careers and good names!)
• Policy and procedures—IT governance needs a firm policy to mandate compliance to the user community; further the procedures for users to follow need to be clear and simple. IT governance procedures should integrate and streamline the governance processes for authorizing the project, allocating funding, conducting architectural reviews, following the systems development life cycle, managing the acquisition, and controlling the project. End-users should have a clear path to follow to get from initiating the project all the way through to close-out. If the governance mechanism are developed and implemented in silos, the end users have every reason in the world to find ways to work around the governance processes—they are a burden and impede timely project delivery.
  
• Accessibility—Information on IT governance services including the process, user guides, templates, and job aids needs to be readily available to project managers and other end users. If they have to search for it or stick the pieces together, then they have another reason to bypass it all together.
• Enforcement—there are two major ways to enforce the governance. On the front end is the CIO or IRB controlling the IT funding for the enterprise and having the authority to review, approve, prioritize, fund, monitor, and close down IT projects. At the back-end, is procurement; no acquisitions should pass without having demonstrated compliance with the IT governance processes. Moreover, language should be included in contracting to enforce EA alignment and compliance.
• Cultural change-Organizations need to value planning and governance functions. If operations always supersede IT planning and governance, then both business and technical stakeholders will feel that they have a green light to ignore those functions and do what they want to do without regard to overall strategy. Further, if the culture is decentralized and governance is managed in silos (one manager for SDLC, another for EA, yet another for requirements management), then the processes will remain stove-piped, redundant, and not useable by the user community.
• Communication plan—the governance process and procedures need to be clearly communicated to the end users, and it must address the what’s in it for me (WIIFM) question. Users need to understand that their projects will be more successful if they follow the IT plan and governance processes. Those are in place to guide the user through important and necessary project requirements. Further, users are competing for resources with other important IT projects, and user will benefit their projects by making the best business and technical case for them and following the guidelines for implementing them.