If you’re building a PMO and have a 3 year plan – drop it now! It probably will not work. If you’ve got portfolio management scheduled for introduction in September look out. If you’re two years into your PMO build and can’t figure out why you have no traction and support is slipping, then I may just have the answer. Or I might not, but here are some thoughts.
As you’ve guessed by the article title I am going to suggest that we steal a technique from the software development industry. While I am not an agile expert by any means, there are some very successful practices that you can employ while building and growing your PMO. For you Agile gurus out there, I am about to butcher the technique so you may want to look away. Here are some of the tenets of an Agile methodology that we can adopt.
Iterations
Agile methodologies have a focus on short cycles that produce demonstrable deliverables. In software the deliverable is working code. In a PMO it would be one report, process, form, method, class, etc. For example, you might have a plan to deliver a project pipeline governance process in 3 months. Under a non-agile approach you would plan out the methodology, the forms, and the activities. After three months of analysis you would demonstrate your new procedures. And then everyone would want changes.
In an Agile methodology, you might plan to develop the pipeline report first. In two weeks you would develop the report and show that to your stakeholders. At that time you would get direct feedback which may cause you to change direction. Because you have done only a small amount of work, you can easily redirect future work with only a small adjustment. As you progress through the project, you can make incremental course corrections creating only what is needed and creating that sooner.
Product Owners
The product owner is like a sponsor on steroids. Where a project manager might report to the project owner once a week and give status updates, the product owner is an integral part of the development team. The product owner is involved in the day to day decisions and activities. Using the example of a 3-month pipeline governance project again, you might visit with your sponsor weekly and give updates on progress against the plan. At the end of three months the sponsor will view the completed product.
Using an Agile approach the product owner is part of the daily decisions that make up the final product(s). When the product owner sees something they want to change, they do it immediately. They add or remove components as they are being built. This ensures that the final product meets the goals and expectations. There are no surprises after 3 months of hard work. The product owner has seen everything as it was being created, and has made adjustments wherever needed. Imaging following your new car down the assembly line and picking out what you wanted all along the way, as opposed to waiting until the car showed up at the dealer.
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