The Heart of the Value Delivery Machine — The PMO

My introduction to running a Program Management Office [PMO] came as an unexpected surprise. I was part of a leadership team deploying a large transformational effort. Multiple months in we had a leadership team shuffle and I rotated in to lead the PMO. I had to learn on the job what a PMO does and does not do well. Since then I have built, run, and even decommissioned a number of PMOs, learning a thing or two in the process.

The PMO reputation has risen and fallen, only to rise again over the past few decades. I have worked in companies that would not even use the term “PMO” because the concept had garnered an incredible level of animosity. I think that the reason that some have developed such a negative view of PMOs comes from a combination of unrealistic expectations and the PMO lead’s focus on control vs. value. We will spend most of this article unpacking the expectations and focus.

If you are a PMO aficionado the framework that I will share here in this article will be familiar. The value that I hope to offer is several-fold. First, if you read my ‘Creating a Value Delivery Machine’ you know that my passion lies in delivering value to organizations. To that end I will tie the PMO activities into the value delivery spine and demonstrate the PMO’s critical contribution to delivering that value. Secondly I hope to provide my practical experience in what does and does not work. Finally, as we explore the PMO framework we will do so using the value lens.

PMO Efforts are Interim

When an organization is preparing to make or in the process of making a leap forward, either to radically improve performance or transform the organization into a new operating / business model, the shift demands a complex, diverse, and sometimes conflicting set of activities. The organization is now under construction. These efforts require planning, coordination, and tracking to ensure success.

The PMO, if structured correctly, can enable the success of those interim efforts to shift the organization from where it is to where it needs to be.

These interim efforts have inputs in the form of, “We have an operational gap to fill and we want to do these things to fill the gap.” They also have outputs in the form of launched and landed capabilities. From the value delivery spine perspective the PMO supports the solution delivery effort by ingesting the proposed solutions and then ensuring solutions are successfully landed as new capability.

PMO Value

PMOs are not necessary to deliver projects or complete project work. Organizations almost always have projects in motion to address the myriad issues that arise in the course of pursuing their objectives. They all have, on a much smaller scale, sponsorship and capability requirements, project leadership, and a multi-tiered constituency to please. In fact, programs and projects are regularly developed and successfully delivered without a PMO. PMOs show their value when the stakes are high to organizationally existential, the change is substantial, and the work to achieve the intended commitments is complex, multifaceted, and requires strong organizational alignment.

PMO efforts are overhead to the organization. The PMO, in and of itself, does not necessarily develop the projects and programs that move the organization to its new state. That is the job of the program / project lead and team to meet the success criteria in agreement with the program / project sponsor. Rather, PMOs hit different programmatic beats in maximizing delivered value.

Organizational leaders are primarily outcome oriented. What are the results and value-additions? Their interest in the process of delivering that outcome is to ensure we are operating within our values and compliant with programmatic requirements. Many PMO leads, alternatively, focus on the process framework. While structuring this article I did a quick search for popular descriptions of the PMO mission. The first that popped up in the search was this definition:

“In essence, the PMO’s role in project governance is about setting up a framework that guides projects from start to finish.”

This is a typical ‘process’ description, which is accurate but unsatisfyingly incomplete. It is like a car description that reads, “This automobile has four wheels, seats, a windshield and steering wheel. When you press the gas, it accelerates.” This generic description fits most roadworthy vehicles but provides none of the information — road performance, safety performance, number of passengers, loading constraints — that might persuade you to purchase it. You want to know if the car will meet your needs.

In this case, the ‘needs’ we are seeking to meet include successfully delivering a portfolio of solutions that provide the needed operational capabilities that provide that giant leap forward supporting our new direction. A “framework that guides projects from start to finish” is necessary, but not enough. The PMO represents a key activity within the value delivery spine. In pursuit of value maximization, no efforts along the value delivery spine should be undertaken unless they better secure successful outcomes.

To that end, I prefer an outcome oriented PMO description.

The PMO ensures that the highest-value efforts in support of our strategic commitments are delivered and fully adopted.

This description puts a strong stake in the ground for PMO responsibilities. It also requires many things beyond setting up that process framework mentioned above. A truly effective PMO addresses four key activities:

• Establishing effective governance. Ensuring defined success criteria for program outcomes and phase exits. Monitoring progress of the programs, escalating emerging issues as early as they are identified. Effective governance ties a direct line from our strategic north star commitments to the solutions we deliver to the organization.
• Maximizing the value of the portfolio. Assessing the value of each program against organization priorities [strategic commitments] and conditions for satisfaction. Ensuring that the highest value programs are the focus of the efforts and resourcing those programs to ensure that success.
• Ensuring program development success. Establishing program delivery best practices, assigning veteran programs leads to key efforts, and ensuring the efforts are effectively, efficiently and surgically resourced and supported. [This is where that ‘framework’ mentioned above comes into play.]
• Ensuring readiness and adoption to targets. Driving the classical change management practices including a change management and communications strategy and plan that ready the organization and ensure user competency when engaging the new solution.

All four activities are required to ensure successful delivery of new capability. We will spend the rest of this article discussing these efforts and the handoffs from these efforts as we achieve the ‘new normal.’

Establish Effective Governance

Governance, at first blush, can seem boring. It is focused on the standards and practices for the effort in front of us. But, when you consider why we are embedding these standards and practices, governance becomes far more compelling. Governance provides a framework for:

• Tying efforts on the ground to our strategic north stars and leadership decision making.
• Aligning all stakeholders to the specific, grounded expectations for the quality of the delivered capabilities.

In other words, governance ensures aligned clarity on the conditions for satisfaction, and guidance for what to do if we are not meeting them.

Within the governance framework, clear expectations for outcomes, decision making, roles and responsibilities, and communications flow.

The PMO is the face of the efforts to deliver solutions and complete the heavy lift to move the organization into the new model. Governance efforts consist of a number of component efforts.

Component Efforts

Within the governance framework that we have established above we accomplish a number of key structuring activities.

Roles & Responsibilities

We need to establish a framework for how we interact and who does what. The table below provides a typical structure for roles and responsibilities.

This table lays out the key PMO related roles and responsibilities that support the high value PMO efforts as specifically designed to ensure success.

Note: * RACI is a responsibility assignment tool that defines effort engagement as responsible [R], accountable [A], consultive [C], and informed [I]. The accountable [A] person owns the effort and has decision-making authority. The responsible[R] person executes the effort. The consultative [C] person provides input but has no decision making authority. The informed [I] person simply is provided updates.

Decision Making

As a program runner I see my steering team as my board of directors and major stockholders. Each of the steering team members are either:

• program sponsors [executive program owners],
• have invested resources [with expectations that they will receive benefit from the effort], or
• are compliance gate owners [internal policy or external regulation executive owners].

They have invested in my proposed programs and, in return, they expect me to deliver to our agreed conditions. Should any of those conditions — scope of delivery, quality of capabilities, launch schedule — be at risk, then I owe my board of directors a conversation with a proposed go-forward plan.

Additionally, this leadership team brings a broader context of organizational performance, functional initiatives and issues, and other large organizational efforts. While the program portfolio may consume my attention, the steering team will represent other organizational priorities, within which the PMO manages a slice.

We will discuss ‘update cadence’ below. Suffice it to say that we need to develop a cadence for feeding the steering team focused updates that support their decision making. To aid in decision making we want to establish clear conditions for both the solution delivery outcome and the process performance for delivering those results. The two following sections establish the required performance criteria outcomes and delivery process respectively.

Conditions for Satisfaction / Criteria for Success

For our outcome expectations we need to develop Conditions for Satisfaction [CoS] / Criteria for Success [CfS]. The terms are interchangeable. Moving forward we will use the CoS acronym to refer to this concept. Conceptually, CoSs apply to Os and KRs. However, since the Os establish a long-term, multi-year priority, in practical terms we establish the CoSs along with performance targets as we generate the current term KRs.

In the ‘Creating a Value Delivery Machine’ series we indicated that high value efforts require being tied to organization strategy via our north star commitments. The most popular method for developing those north stars is the Objectives & Key Results [OKRs]. In this structure, the objectives [Os] represent our big multi-year organizational priorities. The key results [KRs] represent the specific, current commitment we have toward these priorities. CoS defines with specificity the conditions required to satisfy a particular priority.

To establish CoSs we need to look at impacts to various high-priority aspects of our operations. Those might look like:

• Revenue contribution
• Margin contribution
• Customer engagement / channels
• Customer satisfaction [CSAT]
• Product / Service development velocity
• Operational efficiency [cost per $ of revenue]
• Employee satisfaction [survey rating]
• Regulatory compliance [legal costs & fine reductions]

Program contributions to each of these conditions of satisfaction give an actual value measured against the KR CoS target. These conditions allow us to evaluate all efforts within our portfolio to determine the value of the effort to the organization. As we progress through the development of capabilities, and things inevitably change, we use the CoSs as touchstones to reevaluate the expected outcome. This reevaluation, of course, becomes critical input to steering team decision making.

Phase Exit Criteria

For process performance expectations we need to assess our performance in developing the new capability. The most popular way to establish process expectations is to set up the effort milestones or phases. In the ‘Creating a Value Delivery Machine’ series we used discovery, planning, developing, and launch-to-land as our key phases.

Discovery Phase — This phase is an assessment and analysis period in which we pull together relevant data and analyze performance, trends,etc. In this phase we propose and assess solutions with internal and potentially external experts. We also begin to pull together key program functions such as the steering team and PMO. This phase ends when due diligence is complete and a solution, along with planning resourcing, is approved.

Planning Phase — We complete a detailed plan for designing, launching and landing the capability including milestones, anticipated resources needs, captured issues and risks to address, and defined workstreams and their output. This phase ends with an approved plan and resourcing / investment commitments for the final phases.

Developing Phase — This phase is where the real work gets done in building out the required capability. It is a high stakes phase in which the largest spending / investment occurs. It is the phase in which poor assumptions get exposed, unanticipated problems emerge, and compromises need to be made. All of this makes for rich steering team reporting. This phase ends with the launch of the new capabilities.

Launch-to-Land Phase — Once capabilities are launched, the efforts are focused on dealing with readiness issues and meeting adoption targets. This phase ends when adoption targets are fully met.

Performance monitoring within this milestone framework is typically done via a phase exit checklist. Performance is reported to the steering team as either fully met or with exception requests.

Performance Monitoring and Reporting

We now have an expectation framework in place that will provide a meaningful way to evaluate all efforts and monitor progress performance. Next we need to structure the monitoring framework that provides a standard cadence of updates to the steering team providing performance to date. The frequency and method for updates will vary with the initiative urgency, organizational priority, and developmental challenges. Regardless, the updates should have a common look and feel for easy digestion and, if the effort is complex enough, a dashboard to help with ‘instant’ comprehension of the state of the effort and rapid navigation to areas of interest [usually the problem areas].

Monitoring & Reporting — Enterprise programs establish a regular cadence of reviews in which focused discussions assess program health and deal with emerging issues. Whether written or presented, one of two stories is told:

• Everything is great and here’s the evidence.
• Houston, we have a problem. This is the problem, proposed options and the recommended course of action.

The monitoring effort should include progress toward the end state commitments and progress toward phase completion. For example, if it becomes clear that we cannot meet a phase exit criterion by the scheduled date, we should report that as part of our update.

Regulatory & Policy Compliance

Finally, the effort must maintain compliance with internal policies, such as HR, legal, etc., and external regulations. International organizations typically must track and comply with an ever-changing, broad tapestry of regional, national, state / province, and even municipal regulations. It is best to engage regulatory and policy experts in the early [discovery and planning] phases and have compliance requirements in your Developing Phase exit checklist.

Escalations

Regularly, problems arise that require immediate attention and decision making. To facilitate urgent redress, we need to establish an escalation framework.

Escalation framework — An escalation framework provides a path for urgently raising and resolving issues. They are custom to every program. However, they typically have a common escalation tiering.

• Workstream leads handle issues that can be resolved by the workstream team. [A program / project may have multiple, interactive workstreams that all contribute to achieving various aspects of the program / project commitments.]
• The program lead resolves issues that can be corrected within the program.
• Program sponsors [executive leaders] resolve issues for which they control resources and impacts, or which they can collaboratively remediate through their peers.
• The Steering Team Chair, often the CEO, CFO, or CIO, resolves intractable issues that cannot be rectified elsewise.

Capability Value Delivered

If the outcome and program-process performance expectation are assessed with discipline, and monitoring / reporting mechanisms are well structured, the delivered value will be a rich and healthy decision support mechanism. The steering team will feel well equipped to:

• Make effective decisions that fully support the effort.
• Have confidence in the work at hand in achieving most or all of the north star commitments.

Handoffs

As we discussed early in this article, these large and complex efforts are interim. While the structure we are building may remain in place for an extended period, perhaps years, the programs that flow through the structure have a beginning and an end. With that in mind, the PMO has inputs and outputs. For the governance aspect, those handoffs are high level and strategic.

Incoming — Defined gaps in the current business model or new business model that require new or different capabilities that we currently have.

Outgoing — Capabilities that meet the organization’s strategic needs and are owned by appropriate cross-organizational or functional operations organizations. This means that part of the launch-to-land efforts include handing off capability usage, performance monitoring, support, and maintenance to those organizations. This handoff opens the chapter on the ‘new normal’. While there is typically a long tail of improvement requests flowing through the PMO, ultimately the receiving operations organization will manage triage for those efforts.

Challenges

Program management rarely has a day of smooth sailing. We are building new capabilities to meet novel [at least to us], often vague needs based on typically incomplete analyses. We are regularly building cutting-edge practices and bleeding-edge technology. What could go wrong?

Additionally, the commitments to which we are building often present us with conflicting demands. Finally, the leadership team will have conflicting points of view for the best way to solve any particular problem. In other words, program management will navigate challenges and dissonance by its nature. It’s the job of the PMO and the program leads to identify, raise, and manage those issues and disconnects as soon as they are identified.

Maximize the Value of the Portfolio

In setting up the program valuation via the CoS we discussed above, we are most of the way to establishing our portfolio. To complete this effort we need to evaluate our programs against the CoS priorities. Additionally, we need to consider what type of effort we are managing so we understand the impact to current operations.

To complete this work we need to categorize our efforts and then evaluate each solution for its contribution to our performance targets. With this effort we will have clarity for what is active in our portfolio and the value anticipated from our investments. We can then develop solutions we are confident will meet these commitments.

Component Efforts

Portfolio management categorizes our efforts and then provides an expected valuation for each solution. This endeavor prioritizes our work ahead, against our organization’s priorities, and gives us clear options should one or more of our programs experience distress.

Portfolio Categories

Typically, enterprises establish three investment types — keeping the lights on, incremental improvements, new investments.

Keeping the lights on — This investment simply maintains our capabilities and the availability and performance levels that they currently are in. Regulatory compliance investments, replacing unsupported technology, and replacing positions that have experienced attrition are all investments that maintain the status quo. These investments are a must — otherwise our capabilities will be degraded. If we can, and it supports organizational direction, rather than replace capability ‘in kind’, we would prefer to replace current capabilities with better capabilities. Then we cover both keeping the lights on and provide incremental value. Regardless, “keeping the lights on” programs are ‘must do’ efforts. They are by nature a high priority.

Incremental improvements — Incremental improvements typically either improve current capabilities with, say, better reporting, improved product / service delivery, or reduced cost for the same performance. Incremental improvements are important, and often necessary, but will not radically improve the organization’s performance position.

New investments — New investments are the riskiest because they are the least familiar. However, they are investments that yield the largest performance leap. Some examples of new investments may include setting up a new sales channel, adding new products / services, automating a manual process, and so on.

Once we have set up the valued programs within the investment categories we now have a way to fully evaluate how we make and shift our resources as design / build efforts yield unforeseen issues and risks.

Portfolio Valuation

Program contributions to each of these conditions of satisfaction give an actual value. However, you may need to prioritize between these conditions. To accomplish this prioritization we can ‘weight’ the conditions. Below is an example for valuing one of our solutions.

The above table calls for some definitions.

Projected Impact — The actual projected key performance indicator [KPI] value of the solution based on that projected contribution based on that particular contribution’s performance metrics.

Standard Value — Based on a total value of 0 to 10, the relative standardized value translates the KPIs into something that can be calculated into extended values for portfolio valuation. We use the standardized value to calculate the extended value. For example, if the total targeted revenue increase is $140M, the $50M projected contribution is 40% of that target or 4 of 10.

Weighting — Weighting, in this case, spreads 10 points across all success factors, establishing the relative priority of that particular contribution. For this example, weighting indicates that contribution margin is the highest priority, with revenue contribution, customer engagement, and customer satisfaction being high priorities as well. Programs contributing to these priorities are going to be weighted higher than other types of programs.

Extended Value — The extended value is the calculated value of the standard value and the weighting to provide the relative value against priorities for that effort.

Where do we invest? We want to invest in all improvement programs if we can afford to do so. However, if we have limited resources, as we always do, we invest in the highest value programs. We start with our highest picks, which may cross multiple categories. Should we experience distress within our selected programs, we will have a number of programs sitting below the line, shovel ready for development.

Value Delivered

The key value delivered via portfolio management is to ensure that we are putting our efforts into the highest value outcomes, and, should we need to, have ready substitutes for distressed efforts. This effort ensures we are maximizing the value of our value delivery machine.

Handoffs

The inputs and outputs portfolio management are straightforward. However, everything in between is fraught.

Incoming — Obviously, the priorities and value targets are critical to setting up the portfolio. So are all the ASSUMPTIONS developed to assess solution value. The portfolio analysis requires a ranging effort that includes experts in finance and impacted functions to evaluate the solutions. Also, developing the weighting will be highly sensitive with heavy scrutiny on the weighting methodology. The output from the priority weighting will drive the organization’s efforts.

Outgoing — The obvious output from this effort are the portfolio priorities. These priorities are the foundation on which future decision making and ultimately solution performance rests.

Challenges

I started this handoff section with the word ‘fraught’ for good reason. Portfolio management is an organization intensive forecasting effort that results in winners and losers. The methodology will be scrutinized. Leadership must be aligned on the methodology because of the winners/losers outcome. Additionally, because this effort is a forecast, it rests on numerous assumptions. Those assumptions must be captured and tested for veracity. A wrong assumption means a mis-valuation.

Ensure Program Development Success

So far, we have determined which efforts to pursue and have established oversight with specific performance expectations, to guide and support leadership decision making. Now it’s time to dive into program-driven work.

As I mentioned in the ‘Creating a Value Delivery Machine’ series, I have not experienced much value from tracking program efforts to the nth degree. That sort of effort is also extremely expensive. My experience is that oversight tracking beyond workstream milestones is pointless. So I lean towards a more federated model that establishes the milestones and outcome criteria established above but allows the program leads to develop their own approach to delivering the effort. That said, the PMO has tools to support the program efforts.

Component Efforts

I have found that two key efforts best support individual programs — creating a center of excellence and providing effective program managers.

Center of Excellence

Center of excellence sounds fancy and expensive. But that does not have to be the case. In essence, the center of excellence effort provides guidance on:

• Required practices such as the assessment and reporting practices discussed above.
• Recommended practices for managing programs [via waterfall, agile, or hybrid methodologies] along with their assumptions, risks and dependencies.

Often centers of excellence offer a library of templates, mentorship, and/or office hours for program management questions.

Program Management Management

PMOs support program work with one of three models.

Assign program managers from the PMO stable. This model assumes that the organization’s program managers directly report to the PMO lead. Their world is the world of program management within the program portfolio. The upside to this model is strong alignment of the program leads team as a group and to the cause of the ‘big change’ delivering the solutions will provide. There are a couple of downsides to this model. First, just like everything else in the PMO, these program managers are expensive overhead. During an economic downturn or decommit from some or all of the change effort, the stable becomes a target for layoff. A more subtle downside is that, by nature, these folks are dedicated to an effort that tends to suck the oxygen out of local efforts to improve functions that do not align with the ‘big change’. Over time, frustrations emerge from functional leaders that all of our program management capacity is fully engaged. One way to stay ahead of that frustration is to support those efforts through the center of excellence; and, as various key efforts begin to wind down, assign the program leads to high value functional efforts.

Guide program managers assigned from the functions. This model draws program managers out of the functions and assigns them to the portfolio work at hand until it winds down. Then the program managers return to their function. The upside to this approach is that the permanent PMO overhead is limited. The downside is that there will be constant pressure to return the program managers to their native function. Negotiating for those resources may require compromising on program goals to get agreement from their functional leaders. Their commitment to the portfolio delivery will have a functional bias that might skew the program focus. While this is manageable through the center of excellence efforts, it will be a continuous point of review. Additionally, many companies do not have program managers within the functions so there may be no program management to pull.

The hybrid model. This model is a bit of both of the first two models, maintaining a core stable within the PMO, while augmenting as needed. You get all the advantages and disadvantages of both.

Value Delivered

These program managers are the workhorses of program delivery. Execution will not effectively happen without them. Whether in a central organization or pulled from functions these are the folks that plan and guide the solution delivery.

Handoffs

The program managers have a substantial conversion responsibility weaving straw into gold.

Incoming — The program manager captures and manages all solution requirements and dependencies. Additionally, the program manager pulls in the necessary solution developers and area experts to support the solution build. Finally, the program manager ensures that work phasing and progress reporting complies with the PMO framework.

Outgoing — The output from these efforts is the launched solution to a ready-to-receive organization, and having met the adoption targets. [More about the ready-to-receive organization and adoption targets in the next section.]

Challenges

If plans were perfect with all concerns accounted for the program manager could put their feet up on the desk and watch the parade go by. Fortunately and unfortunately, this is never the case. The program manager deals with every deviation from plan including broken assumptions, problematic dependencies, team attrition, changing solution needs, and wavering support. In other words, anything that puts solution delivery at risk lands at the feet of the program manager.

Ensure Readiness, Hand-off, and Adoption to Targets

Beyond program management, we have one additional big effort to push new solutions out successfully, and that effort is change management. I covered all of the pieces and parts of change management in my article, ‘Guiding Organizations through Change’.

Here I will cover the key components of change management required to ensure that the organization is ready for the change, and work with the organization to meet adoption targets.

Component Efforts

Change Management is the term coined for the formal efforts to prepare the organization and decrease the challenges to adoptions. There are four work streams or components addressed in change management — cultural adjustments, communications, business readiness, and training.

Cultural Adjustments

I previously published a three-article series on culture called, ‘The Power of Culture.’ What follows is the briefest of summaries for culture. Not every new solution will require culture change. This is especially true for tweaks to improve current operations. However, sizable changes typically support major changes to direction and the necessary business model changes to support that new direction. This often requires some adjustments to organizational culture such as what we are rewarded for, and what we value, and how we work together.

Communications

Communications covers a broad spectrum of efforts that span 1:1 conversations, alignment reviews, team meetings, organizational update sessions, website structure, email blasts, newsletter publications, and so on. The goal is never simply informational. These communications bring the audiences along through the engagement cycle so they are adequately engaged, to the degree that they need to be, for each phase of development and delivery.

Business Readiness

Business readiness is the effort of identifying and addressing the local gaps that the new solution creates. This effort requires the engagement of experts and heavy users that are intimately familiar with the operating requirements for their specific area. Additionally, the operations organizations that support and maintain the solution must be engaged and prepared for new solution delivery.

Training

Training covers all aids used to fill the knowledge and understanding gap from general concepts for why we are deploying the new solution to, “How do I accomplish xyz?” Training is a multimedia affair covered with support prompts [for software applications], guides, FAQs, videos, instructor-led training, etc. designed to grow new solution awareness and usage competency. The training equation has to balance pushing guidance as close to the point of need as possible while ensuring we have optimized the cost of delivery of that training.

Capability Delivered

While the program management aspect focuses on designing, building and launching the solution, change management focuses on organizational capability [to use the solution] and creating a well-lit path to solution adoption. If you have ever been part of an effort that delivered a solution only to have it ignored and eventually discarded, change management bridges that last mile. It ensures that the solution value is delivered to the organization.

Handoffs

To deliver this value the change management effort requires assessing some objective information such as operational gaps and supporting infrastructure needs. It also has to assess a lot of subjective information to understand the emotional capacity and interest-state of the organization and turn it into objective change support collateral.

Incoming — We need to assess and fill the local operational gaps and support processes to support post-launch solution performance. Additionally, we need to assess, through direct conversations and surveys, where the organization is, in terms of solution understanding, interest, and ability to competently engage the solution. For the latter part, we will need a phased understanding of the organization’s hopes and dreams so we can effectively set expectations.

Outgoing — The output includes local readiness fixes, support team readiness to effectively triage and address issues, and training collateral.

Challenges

Change management requires turning human vagaries into concrete deliverables. Additionally, the effort to build the solution is so substantial and costly that program leadership often gives short shrift to the change management efforts. If the gaps are not fully identified and filled, and / or the organization is not effectively moved through the engagement phases, we will experience post-launch stumbles and poor adoption of the solution.

Takeaways

The PMO is a critical structure within the value delivery spine that drives a number of key activities necessary for successful solution delivery. The value provided by the PMO is:

The PMO ensures that the highest-value efforts, supporting our strategic commitments, are delivered and fully adopted.

The PMO structures and drives four key activities:

• Optimizes effective governance. Ensuring defined criteria for success for the program outcomes and phase exits. Monitoring progress of the programs, escalating emerging issues as early as they are identified. Effective governance ties a direct line from our strategic north star commitments to the solutions we deliver to the organization.
• Maximizes the value of the portfolio. Assessing the value of each program against organization priorities [strategic commitments] and conditions for satisfaction. Ensuring that the highest value programs are the focus of the efforts and resource those programs to ensure that success.
• Ensures program development success. Establishing program delivery best practices, assigning veteran program leads to key efforts, and ensuring the efforts are effectively, efficiently and surgically resources and supported. [This is where that ‘framework’ mentioned above comes into play.]
• Ensures readiness and adoption to targets. Driving the classical change management practices including a change management and communications strategy and plan that ready the organization and ensure user competency when engaging the new solution.

Solution development is an interim activity designed to bridge the gap between current capability and capability needed to meet strategic commitments. It translates proposed solutions into achieved capability. The efforts owned by the PMO have an endpoint and a hand-off. The hand-off shifts the solution to the ultimate owner and support infrastructure. That outcome meets the following criteria.

• The solution is launched to a completely ready organization
• Adoption targets are met or exceeded
• The ultimate owner accepts ownership of the completed solution
• The support teams are equipped to triage and address new issues
• A ‘new normal’ is achieved

While a specific program may complete, the PMO remains in place to manage in-progress and new programs as they emerge and develop.

Find more articles from Sarah at: www.operations-architect.com.