What is the role of a PMO in a modern organization, and why do people think that it's only administrative?
Galen Low is joined by Olivia Montgomery—Senior Analyst at Capterra—to discover how the often-misunderstood role of PMOs is revolutionizing the business world.
What is the role of a PMO in a modern organization, and why do people think that it's only administrative?
Galen Low is joined by Olivia Montgomery—Senior Analyst at Capterra—to discover how the often-misunderstood role of PMOs is revolutionizing the business world.
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in. My name is Galen Low with the Digital Project Manager. We are a community of digital professionals on a mission to help each other get skilled, get confident, and get connected so that we can amplify the value of project management in a digital world. If you wanna hear more about that, head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership. Okay, today, we're diving back into a topic that has been known to start fistfights— what is the role of a PMO in a modern organization, and why do people think that it's only administrative? So we started covering this a few episodes ago with Joe Pusz (also known as PMO Joe), but this time, I wanted to dig into the stats from a new report that just landed from Capterra that is rather boldly titled "Having a PMO Makes It Twice as Likely You'll Deliver Fully Successful Projects". And joining me today is the author of that report and also one of my favorite industry voices to have on the show, Miss Olivia Montgomery. Olivia, thank you for coming back and hanging out.
Olivia Montgomery:Hi Galen, hi everyone! Thank you so much. I am very excited to be here and yeah, just to contribute and what Joe said, it was fantastic. I'm happy to like contribute and build off that, so thank you.
Galen Low:Boom. And you've been having a big year. We were just talking about it in the green room rather. And I was saying, I knew Olivia before she was famous. You've been out doing the circuit. You've been at PMI events. Tell me what's the most exciting thing that's happened to you in the past few months.
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah, it's been a really big year. I am very proud to share that I had a session at the PMI Global Summit last year in Atlanta. Pretty awesome. It was leveraging EQ when you're making decisions and also growing your influence. So really focusing on just emotional intelligence and what that means for project managers and how they can grow and develop that and how it actually helps and impacts your work. Not just projects, but also like project management reputation, which is all what we're trying to be doing. So it was fantastic to go out there and watch great keynotes, learned a ton, networked, got more ideas of, what I should be researching, better questions to be asking and happy to just like, keep going with that momentum. So yeah, thanks for asking.
Galen Low:I love that word project management reputation. We're going to get back into that, I think. And I guess maybe before I get ahead of myself. Like, folks who've been listening to this show for a while, like, you probably know Olivia. But, we've seen our listenership grow lately, yeah, humblebrag. So I wondered if maybe you could just tell our listeners a bit about your background, and maybe just why you chose to sink your teeth into a topic like PMOs.
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah, absolutely. So I currently am an associate principal analyst focused on project management at Capterra. I've been with Capterra over 5 years now, and my focus is to do the research, talk to PMs, talk to leaders, business leaders, and understand what their challenges are, what's working, what's not working. Take all of that and come up with insights and recommendations and try to help move our profession forward, help everybody grow and get better at what we do. And previous to this, before my like analyst role, I did lead an IT PMO. I was very fortunate. I had a fantastic team. We helped the company go from private to public and led that team and happy to say that PMO is still going strong, which is nice. So, yeah, that kind of leads into why I wanted to research this specifically. I like to, every couple of years, get into the effectiveness of PMOs. We hear people be like, oh, the death of the PMO, or PMOs are done, like, and I just always want to know, like, okay, is that actually what people are thinking? Is that actually what's happening? And the only way to know is to get in and do, surveys and interviews and study this with people who are doing the job. So I wanted to know exactly, like, are they effective? Are they working? So we made sure to include in our research, PMs that have a formal PMO, ones that have an informal PMO at their job and PMs that don't have any PMO. That way we're able to, show like, this is more effective than this, less effective. And as you can see from the title, the formal PMOs blew the informal and no PMO out of the water as far as effectiveness. So that made writing this report even easier. I was like, Oh, it was so odd, like the data is just so clear. So that's why I'm just excited to share and it's something I think a lot of project managers know that we've experienced it. We've probably worked with PMOs that really helped elevate our projects and our processes. And, but we don't always have like the hard data to back that up. And I think the more that we can be providing that kind of, yes, it feels good and we know it's good, but also here's the hard data, the more effective we can become and being more effective.
Galen Low:I love that because I was thinking that in my head. I'm like, is this you validating a hunch using data? Because, to your point, we talk to people and they're like, PMOs are outdated, they're boring. And yet there is a sort of like, we know, if that actually being organized and having centralized project management offices is something that can really help productivity, efficiency, alignment, many things. And yes, I know we're off on this foot where I'm like, I'm already biased in this conversation, I guess. I will try and be less biased, but it seems to me that as someone who, has run a PMO before and in your role now, you talk to a lot of people and you still saw the value of it. And to your point, we almost need that data to build that reputation around a PMO.
Olivia Montgomery:Exactly. And also to find out why they're more effective and where the negative attitude, negative narrative around them comes from. And we get into that in the report. I'm sure we'll talk about that later, but it is definitely a bit of like the, maybe the old school guard, maybe people who use command and control management styles, and that was how they formed their PMOs. And then, sure, that doesn't really feel great. That makes the PMO, the administrative, like, task driver. And that's probably, the evidence shows that that's not the effectiveness of them. So it is more like, yeah, you said PMO is rebranding themselves, but I think they are genuinely changing what they do, what their objectives and goals are, what they look like. I think there's a lot more options and flexibility and adaptability that companies can take on. So that it's not this, like, old school, very regimented, task oriented PMO. It's a new kind of PMO with different kinds of strengths and weaknesses. And it should be that, hopefully, they can also, like, re-engage, C-suites and businesses that are resistant, because they only think of like, the old PMOs. No, they actually have different strengths, and we're really, like, focusing on that and excited to show, yeah, I like, a new way of working.
Galen Low:And actually, let's dig into that. Because I think, for me, it's the word PMO that people take issue with, less than the concept. And it is, it's imbued with all of these things and these assumptions that we're making, like it's the police, like it's, like, and not knocking police, but like the fact that it is a sort of rules based governing body that's going to align and standardize the way things are done for the benefit of the greater good and for a lot of people that sounds boring. But like sometimes it's literally just the word like it's not even, it doesn't allow us to think beyond its own reputation and the archetypal or stereotypical PMO. So I wonder if we can just reverse it a little bit and like, can you just explain to our listeners what your definition of a PMO is actually and also maybe just like what types of organizations might need one or will benefit from one or are just struggling because they don't have one.
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah, absolutely. So, definitely good to like, yeah, get an established definition. So the definition of PMO that I work with is, it is a centralized group of people. Maybe it could be one person. It could be multiple people. It can be really look very different, but it is a centralized high level oversight and guidance that project managers need. They often will set the methodologies that should be used. They can standardize and provide tools and templates, stuff that we do know. We don't want those key functions going away, because as we see, as we talk more, those tools and techniques and standardization are the key to why they're quite so effective. So, not to diminish that, the centralized oversight and standardization, because that's really the strength. But it is also, like you said, it is centralized, but it is that central oversight that gives the PMO the strength to coordinate efforts, resources, across the company, goals, objectives, everybody kind of competing. Where a project manager is typically like leading down, they're leading their project, so it's like to their reports. And then a little bit leading up, but you don't often have time as a project manager to like, really get into the strategy of the company and take a very high level oversight of what's going on. That can get really difficult for things like project sequencing, having a PMO or a centralized hub that is focused on effectiveness and quality. They can help with and perform the project sequencing that alone can alleviate a lot of issues that companies have. If they're trying to run too many projects that maybe overlap, they don't have enough resources, that centralized oversight can help manage and give clarity to what needs to be done to achieve those goals.
Galen Low:I really like that. And I like the sort of bi-directional nature of it. And like, one thing that kind of, it stood out to me is your framing of, and maybe this is obvious to some, but your framing of it as something to support project managers. Whereas, I've been in some work contexts where it is very much like the thing that is restricting you, it's like the ceiling, it's this box you have to operate within. And it's not always easy to see the benefits of like, why would we have a PMO, why don't we just all run our projects and, and carry on in our merry way with our own different styles, like, I've got my own brand of project management and I get it done and there's this pride around it. But then also every project manager I've spoken with, in my history of speaking with project managers has been like, Oh my gosh, sometimes it's hard to see the bigger picture or the strategic objectives change and the goals change. And we're not sure why, and we're just operating in these little, run your project, on time, on budget and mind the scope, but not being given that upper support and that layer to see into like the other aspects of the business, like the strategy and also like the rationale of why something might change. And then be able to pivot and get behind it if that's the case. I really do like that. And I also really like the sort of other direction, which is like, listen, like in order to achieve some of these strategic objectives, like it does require alignment. It does require everyone to be bought in, actually. And I think that is, it's funny because the way I'm thinking of it is that like, you've got this PMO, that's a word that is imbued with meaning sometimes negative connotations. But fundamentally, it also represents some of the things that are the shortfalls of just being like, Okay, not everyone needs to get it. We don't need buy in from anybody. We need to move fast. We are trailblazing. People just have to come along for the ride, which honestly just isn't that effective.
Olivia Montgomery:Exactly. And I think we're seeing even more of that. I think companies are struggling with growth objectives, are inundated with changing technology. I think not an hour goes by I don't hear about AI. And the economics currently are you know, globally, it's still difficult. So with that, a lot of companies do want to be just like, moving forward. They're like, you can have even one executive tell three different product managers, or three different departments or three different people he runs into, like, Hey, we need AI project. And then they all go and do it. If you don't have a PMO, they all go and run. And then they're like, maybe they're using the same resources. Maybe they're trying to accomplish the same thing. They've probably missed requirements. Like, that's just a recipe for disaster. Where if you have a PMO, that way it's a point of escalation to not only make sure you're not overlapping efforts, but you're best utilizing the resources that you have. If your company is ready for an AI project, whatever that is, I use it, as an example here, then you do want one power team working on that. You don't want three fractured projects running. That's just a recipe for disaster. And that is also clearly reflected in the research showing that the teams that don't have the businesses without a PMO at all suffer from extensive delays of over a month or longer. Where the teams, the businesses with PMOs, we found in the research, they're in the single digits, the ones that are seeing month long delays. So that alone is like, well, you aren't like, the odds to be in the single digits, you're gonna miss, expectations and timelines. Or not. And yeah, again, like I said, I think knowing that you want your power teams, your strongest resources assigned to the right tasks, assigned to the right projects, and they know what the goals are and how their work leads up to the objectives that the business has. It does take so much coordination and so much discussion that you need, yeah, that like project manager who's executing and leading the team, but they need help. They need support. Yeah, you can't have executives just running around being like, AI project, AI project, AI project, and then that's just not going to be effective.
Galen Low:It's funny because like, as we're talking about it, like, it seems so absurd. And yet, I've heard that story so many times of like, Oh, actually, we were running three of the same project. It's like I'm kind of like, I'm the last person who should make a sports metaphor. But, in some ways, you have this sort of team mentality, right? Where it's like, not everybody can be going, trying to score a goal, like chasing the puck, going after the wall. Like we need to coordinate, orchestrate, prioritize, and just like, that's how we're going to maximize impact. I do want to get into the results of your report in a bit, because I think there's some really interesting insights. But one thing you had mentioned, you had mentioned this sort of like, growth stage. And I know that the other thing is like, some folks are like, yeah, PMO is like enterprise PMO. You have like, you don't even know what projects are going on, so you need a PMO, because you're just that big. But, for the folks who are like, not that big, the people running businesses and working within businesses that aren't very large, like, is there just like a maturity point where it's like a PMO should start to make sense when dot, dot, dot?
Olivia Montgomery:Yes. Absolutely. So I agree. Enterprise PMO is less of a hard sell, I guess because you eventually have to have it. You know, if the company's head is spinning with everything, they do use a PMO. They're a little more accepting, I guess, of a PMO, right? Or centralized oversight. Smaller companies can also reap the same benefits of having the standardized, centralized, thoughtful view of products that are getting run, should be getting run and the business goals and objectives. So, a pretty clear indicator that a business could use a PMO of any size, any industry is that you're consistently missing deadlines and expectations. The research shows us that that's the top area that PMOs are most effective in. That, like I mentioned earlier, that the businesses without a PMO are seeing expensive delays, and the ones without are seeing much shorter delays, fewer number of delays, and they're much shorter. They can often resolve them within a week, as compared to like over a month for the companies without PMOs. So if you know that your company is, your products are missing deadlines, maybe when you talk to your stakeholders, they're not sure what their role is. They're not sure that they have the information that they need. Maybe decisions are getting made slowly. Maybe decisions aren't getting made. Those are key things to be looking out for that you're probably ripe for a PMO to come in and help explicitly with that. So yeah, I would look, regardless of how many projects you run, of course, as a company grows in complexity and number of projects, the higher level orchestration of PMO helps definitely provides. But I would definitely suggest that even smaller companies and smaller teams, if you're missing deadlines, if your stakeholders are, slow to make decisions or not feeling confident in making decisions, those are signs that you could benefit from a PMO. Even if it's a very small one.
Galen Low:I love that perspective because I think a lot of it usually goes towards, well, if you're running 15 or more projects, you need a PMO. But actually it's more like, having that mature revelation and perspective on your business to say, like I've seen businesses where they're like that keeps happening. We need to replace our PMs. They are bad PMs. We just need to get new ones that are better. But stepping back and being like, no, this is a systemic problem. It's a systemic problem, not because of the people leading these projects, but because we haven't done enough to support them to succeed. And now it's worth this investment to be able to say, okay, well, and to your point, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to hire an army of people to run a PMO. You can have one or a couple of people who are just, championing consistency really, and providing that support strategically so that resources are used in a useful, productive, and appropriate way. And that can describe many businesses. So I really do like that.
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah. Absolutely.
Galen Low:Let's dive into this report because one of the things that I loved was that, I'm coming into this from a perspective of, a lot of folks that I talk to think of PMOs as like, as we've been talking about - boring, administrative cost centers, maybe a waste of money, no fun. They're just like they're pushing paper. And yet when I was looking at the report, I was like, wait a minute, the top function of a PMO in terms of the responses was not administrative tasks or even governance or even project sequencing. So, I was wondering, can you just walk us through the top 3 functions of a PMO based on your findings?
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I was very excited about this too. So the top results, nearly half of the PMs that we surveyed. And again, remember, these are ones that, this particular set that I'm going to talk about are the ones that have a PMO. In the study, we did include project managers that don't have a PMO. Obviously, they weren't reporting on what the top functions of their PMO because they didn't have one, right? So the top functions reported by nearly 50% of those with a PMO are driving business growth through projects, and that is very interesting to see and exciting to see. And I think it's reflective of that higher level view that a PMO, or at least the person 1 or 2 people who are running the PMO, they are able to be involved in the strategic planning meetings that executives are in to understand what their goals and objectives and pain points and challenges and their expectations are. If you have empowered your PMO lead enough, they can be, they're invited to those conversations. So they're sitting there gathering those requirements and expectations from senior leadership. And then they're able to go back to their project teams and, go through and be like, okay, is everything we're doing, as our scope, in line with what they're wanting, are our timelines in line with what they see as progress? A project manager leading project, especially multiple projects, just doesn't have the time to, like, as you said earlier, pick your head up and be like, oh, okay, like, is the next project I'm getting assigned driving business growth? If you don't know senior leadership's expectations and goals, you don't know. So you do need somebody who's a little outside of the day to day leading of a project that has the time to be that orchestration and kind of bridge between business operations, IT and project managers who are executing the projects. It also shows that companies are still using projects to drive growth, which is great. They're not just going for free for alls. So that is supportive of itself and shouldn't be overlooked either. The second top function that was reported is aligning projects with business objectives, very closely tied to driving business growth via projects, but there is nuance there. And again, it's that time with the senior stakeholders and your C-suite and your department leads that your head of the PMO can take that time to build relationships, build trust, and fully understand their expectations. And educate and communicate how project managers and project methodologies and the execution of them can support their goals and exactly like how that's going to, set clear expectations that way too. Then the 3rd top function we've got is a solving escalated problems. So we also talked about this a little bit is that if you don't have a PMO and your project manager and you're stressed and you're like, Oh, I just found out that my business sponsor doesn't actually agree with the scope of my project. I've been running it for six months and I just learned this today. What do I do? Like, where does that PM go? If you don't have a project management office, if you don't have somebody, that perhaps if they're an IT PM, like in my own case, I saw when I started before that we formalized the PMO. The PMs were under the IT department and we were having to go to the CTO for these kinds of things. That's just not an effective use of the CTO's time. Probably not an effective use of their strengths. So having a PMO gives them, product managers, a point of escalation, especially when they need a little bit more backup. PMs often don't have the authority that we would like to have or we need even to lead teams. So you need a point of escalation to be like, Hey, I wasn't given the right team members for my project and I need them. This is why the PMO can go and be the authority to help support the PM and get them what they need. And I also think that that's where we're seeing the ability of the PMO to reduce the amount of rework that's required, the missing of the timelines, I think that's where we're seeing it. That yes, they are better and helpful at the pre-planning portion, but even when you get it running, you're in the middle of your project, if you run into something sticky or confusing or contentious, having the PMO as your point of escalation just helps everybody kind of problem solve together and work together with a little bit of less of like a power dynamic struggle. And like I said, I think that that might be the key contributor to why PMOs are so effective at keeping stakeholders informed and why they miss fewer deadlines than businesses that don't have one.
Galen Low:Honestly, it's a pretty compelling case to just like not have to put out every fire as a CTO or a CEO or a COO. Like, that sounds like it, is on track to pay for itself. Again, I'm coming at this with a bit of bias. I know, I know, but you know, it does create this insulative layer. And to your point, I think a lot of these things get lost in translation. We are escalating problems as project managers from a project management perspective. And then I need to be translated into impact for somebody who's not necessarily as project oriented and all of those three things, right? We're talking about driving business growth, like as a catalyst, we're talking about alignment with business objectives, and we're talking about like escalations. And all of those things are doing that translation because somebody is at the table interpreting and deciphering some of these goals and objectives and putting them into context and then providing the context and then being able to resolve things because, they might know the priority of what some of the team resources are working on, can reallocate, can still hit the deadline without it even crossing the desk of anyone above them. And in a world where, time is money, like that sounds pretty nice.
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah, exactly. And it's definitely a great time that if it's a key decision that does need the CTO's attention, then when you have the PMO running and there's a bit of trust in the process, then when you go to the CTO needing their help, they're going to be more receptive because they're going to understand that you've done your due diligence. You've tried to address the problem or the bottleneck, whatever is at hand without them, they know and they trust that you've done that. So when you do reach, out to them, hopefully they're more receptive because they're like, okay. They're being very thoughtful with the use of my time. I can then, go for it. Like I'm more respectful of their request.
Galen Low:Yeah. Love that. It's not like, Oh gosh, here we go again kind of response to these escalations. I'm looking at this chart and I will put it a link in the show notes so everyone else listening can have a look as well. But it's clear that, yeah, there is still PMOs serving predominant functions around administrative tasks and product sequencing and things like that. And I'm like, okay, well, like, we're talking about a kind of monolithic word, right? PMO. And we're like, PMOs are this, and everyone kind of has a picture in their head, but it's not necessarily true. You're talking to me about PMOs that can be much more effective, that are driving business growth, that like, are tied into business objectives. But like, what are the defining characteristics or ingredients that make a PMO more strategic, versus more administrative or even just finding that balance of both. Like, what is it that makes a PMO a little bit different than your average PMO?
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah, that's a great question. So a project manager without the centralized help, the oversight, the high level help of a PMO isn't going to have the time, the bandwidth, or maybe even like the skill set necessarily to not only lead their project projects and a lot of times, but also have the time available to go and build and educate the relationship with the senior stakeholders. So with your C-suite and the heads of your departments. So if you're not running a PMO in your company, the research shows you're probably missing deadlines. You're probably having uninformed stakeholders. So the C-suite already knows that, and they probably have a bad taste of how projects are currently being run. So you have to know that the PM isn't going to be the person who can lead your PMO. They need the time, their time freed up because the head of the PMO needs to be a strategic partner with the C-suite. Not an execution focused, like most PM roles are. They need that time to be a strategic partner, build that relationship, have conversations, problem solve with higher ups. And it takes an incredible amount of time, like I said. So, yeah, you have to balance the being seen as a strategic partner because you have the time and you've built the relationships.
Galen Low:Let me cut in on that. So one thing I find actually really interesting about all that is that I think you probably stumbled upon the crux of the pushback that you'd get on investing in this role. And I think again, it comes down to semantics, right? You have this notion of bringing on a project management person who is not going to manage projects. And I think there is this cognitive disconnect for a lot of people because I think that is how we see project management. And we, as in like the sort of modern knowledge worker enterprise, or it's like, Oh, project managers, executional, like not necessarily strategic. Great if they're strategic, but really they're about managing projects. It says it right on the box. And I see all these organizations that kind of fall into this trap as well, where, they promote directors and VPs of project. And yet those individuals are still managing five projects because they're like, well, how else are you delivering value? And I think there's this sort of mistranslation of actually the value is having someone with a project lens and a project sensibility to translate strategic objectives, build trust and build relationships so that there's cohesion throughout the organization from a very high level and then like use their skillset to deliver transformation. And it's like, that is the value more than it is, bringing on someone who has project in their title, but won't manage a project. And I think it's kind of like, Ooh, that sounds like a waste of money. Even playing the like devil's advocate, we talked to we started this all with this notion of like project management reputation. And I said, we'd come back to it. And so here's me coming back to it, which is that it's almost like PMO reputation. It's like, you're probably selling it through as, listen, we're going to be more on time. We're going to have less wastage. We're going to have less refactor. It's going to save you time as an executive. Not every problem is going to escalate to you. We're going to get it done. But actually, the role in some ways is an evangelist as someone who is also championing the brand of a PMO to prove it out, to prove that the definition of PMO is not the old definition that everyone's thinking of. That is like, okay, kind of like static, no fun, administrative. All those things are important too. They haven't gone away. But in some ways, like everyone leading a PMO, like their role is to rebrand almost like this notion of centralized, coordinated, orchestrated, prioritized project management as a program or a portfolio to drive business objectives and being at the table to like share results up and cast the vision down. And it should be like, that should pay off in spades, but it is a difficult proposition, please. I need a, yeah, I'm going to spend X X number of dollars a year on a cheerleader for projects. It's what it sounds like on paper, but what I like is that in the report, at least, it's trending towards this sensibility that a PMO is actually a strategic partner, both executional and conceptually that is going to help the business along. And that's where the ROI is.
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah. And I also would say that as your PMO lead you've been tasked with it. If you can build your PMO to suit your company, I would say like, don't come at it with like, okay, I already know what the PMO needs to look like. What's everything's going to be. And I'm going to go socialize and get approval for that. And then that's the more like marketing your PMO. I would suggest if, when and if possible, that you work with the senior leaders to understand what they want, what they don't want. So one specific thing is that I think a PMO can be a very good source of allowing, giving definition and structure to multiple types of projects. We don't want a PMO that is a one-size-fit-all, everything is black and white. Every project's going to be run this XYZ way. That's a tough sell, and I'm not sure that's an effective process. So your PMO needs to be tailored for what exactly you need and what you have. So, and you form that together with your senior leadership to help try and like, from the birth of the PMO, they have support. They're feeling heard. Like I said, you often hear from them that like PMOs are just too much process. It's too slow. And you'll see some companies, if they have a very, very, high growth appetite, they can even spin up incubator teams that aren't under the purview of any project manager. And they've just been tasked with this. They're usually like gung ho, execution heavy teams. And they've just been told like, hey, go and do this. Don't fill out a project plan. Don't fill out a RACI chart. We're not doing, we don't want to see any of that. Just do it. That can be really, really tough to fight against, and I recommend not fighting against it, embrace it. Know why these incubator teams are created, know why the company likes them. Get to know the person who thought of it. Get to know the person who's at the table being like, my incubator team's on it, we'll add it to you next week. Get to know that person, and see if together you can come up with a project type that specifically suits them, that's just very, very light in what is needed. So you want to be able to be a support and a partner with them. You don't want to be in conflict because they will just continue to bypass you. So that's one thing of like, so I, instead of thinking of like marketing a PMO, develop it together and then there's a little less marketing and it should be more effective because no two companies is going to need the same type of project tracks, you can have like complex track. A growth project track, a light oversight, whatever it is that you need to do, whatever jargon your company likes, build the PMO with the DNA of your company, your culture, and what senior leadership wants to see, just with a bit of like an eye for elevation, standardization, and consistency.
Galen Low:I love that and I like the sort of tracks and categorization method because I think even as you were saying that I was like, oh, yeah, PMO doesn't mean one-size-fits-all standardization. Like consistency is almost the better word and then being able to band them to be like, okay, well, like not the same process for every project. Like, actually, as I say it out loud, I'm like, that's actually silly. That's where my head went when I thought, PMO, standardization, here's how you do a project, everything needs a project charter, we need this kind of status report, all the rank status have to be unified to roll up into our executive dashboard. No fun, no flexibility, but like, as you've been saying, like, that's not always the case. That's not the only way to do it. And in fact, we started talking about supporting project managers as the PMO, but actually even supporting others across the organization to get done what they need to get done, even if it is like, yeah, that incubator team model. It's like, yeah, here, you only need these guardrails and then let's go.
Olivia Montgomery:Because they probably don't want a project manager. And if you force them, like I said, they're just going to go and bypass you.
Galen Low:Yep. Exactly. Like, it's gonna happen anyways, right? It's like, may as well be there to be a part of it, to be able to influence it. And I think one argument I hear often is that, these incubator teams seem to work, they get it done without all the bells and whistles. So like, shouldn't we all have just, everything should be an incubator team, no process, fail fast. But then you can coming back to your report, you see the consequence of that, especially at scale, which is that if everyone's an incubator team, running, a bit renegade, I guess. Like that's what creates that confusion, that ambiguity, the misalignment with objectives, the like multiple projects with the same goals, or, the misuse of resources. And to, get nowhere fast, really, all those things are still like they are possible in that model. So it's like weighing the objective versus the method, being a bit flexible with it, being a partner in it, but still enabling that organization to get to where it needs to get to.
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah, you need to know what do you need from an incubator T is a way to look at it too. If you're in a company that they're running and they're doing well, you're not going to change that. So maybe what do you need from them? Like, do you want their data tracked in your project management tools so that the PMO or, if you're informal PMO is able to have historical data on what they're doing as well. Yeah, maybe they don't need to do status reports, but maybe at minimum, you need a project plan so that you're able to know exactly the defined scope. The resources are named and identified and it, the project is aligned with a business objective. Maybe you need that minimum and then you want their, maybe you want their data in the project management tool. Maybe you don't want the data. That's something that needs to be a discussion all around. Like, what do you need from them? One pitfall that can happen with being so flexible and accommodating is that the flexibility and accommodation often focuses on the execution part of a project, not the planning phases and the closing phases. And definitely not the like, after a project has been run six months a year later, we have questions or an issue and we need some documentation of who made this decision. Why was this decision made? So it's often too much for ink beer teams can have too much focus on the execution, less on the planning and the post, which is okay. That's their purpose. That's why they're effective. And so that's where you want to be really cognizant and flexible to not slow them down too much, but you still need to let them know that there's a couple basic things that you're going to need. Like I said, it's going to be different for everybody. Maybe it's project plan up front, project closed documents at the end, just because, an incubator team normally isn't going to be even aware of audits that happen six months later, questions that, happen. Every project manager has def if you've been at a company long enough, somebody's come back and been like, why was this decision made? And you're like, that was like two years ago, and hopefully you have the documentation and you can pull it up and discuss it. You don't want to lose all of that because you're being so accommodating for incubator teams. But usually discussing with those, the leaders of those teams, they understand that too, that they just want to not be overburdened in the execution phase, but they do normally understand that, yes, we also need some documentation on this. Also letting them know the risks of like, if a key team member on your incubator team quits, how are you going to be able to, like, get the next person, up to speed on what's going on if there's not some kind of structure there already? So working together with the person or people who champion that approach and just try and get agreement on like, the minimum that you require from them and you'll stay out of their way is a good approach. Sometimes also you can have, like, the, like a light project track, like I said, but also like a moderate one, and then make clear that once a project scope hits a certain threshold for complexity and/or cost that it's going to have to go a different track that has a bit more standardization and protocols and policies in place. That's where having a PMO and building it with senior leadership, you can lean on them to support that request. You can even, if you have a steering committee or guidance committee, who approves the project's budgets and they're approving currently project sequencing, try to get them to be like, okay, we've got these project tracks. But this particular project has been identified as reaching crossing a threshold for complexity and dollar amount and let them be the point of escalation to be like, Hey, yeah, this just isn't an incubator team project. You're going to have to go with a little bit more structure to it.
Galen Low:I like the sort of notion of starting small and starting with a core and having criteria of how we, tier or band these types of projects. But fundamentally, my big takeaway is if you are running a PMO, or if you have someone running a PMO in your organization, like don't let them be the wet blanket that sort of stifles innovation speed and, all of the growth that the organization wants to achieve. Actually be a partner within that as like the risk manager in a way, right? At this level, we're going to need this, this, and this. Let me help you fill in the blanks. But let me not get in the way of your executional incubation kind of approach because that is what's great about it. Let me support that.
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah. And you can also document the ambiguity, if you need to, especially if the business culture tends to be very process heavy. But then you do have this one kind of like crazy incubator team and they are getting a lot of success, but you know that C-suite, the company culture does want a lot of documentation policies and processes. Yeah, coming to agreement of like, okay, we're going to document this ambiguity is known and agreed upon and have that being accepted risk for that project. That can give them the space and the, leniency that they need without getting in their way, but also, have it documented and clear that these are the specific points that, maybe it's not a timeline. Often incubator teams aren't good at setting timelines, and they're not good at meeting timelines, they're just going. And that's okay, maybe that's okay, and that's part of what you very clearly identify, is like, the timeline is ambiguous, and everyone agrees on that. And we can only do that on this track of project. That could be one thing of like, well, if your senior leadership is like, well, we need deadlines. We need to know like the expectations of like, the sounds like now this needs to be on the next slightly more mature project track. This isn't an incubator team project anymore. So being as flexible and adaptable and really keeping in mind what is actually important to its customer satisfaction. As a project manager, it's, you got to make your customers happy. That's got to be your teams and who you report to and who you're, whatever that is, whether you're client facing or it's just an internal project manager. Customer service is top thing. So try not to be bogged down in like, okay, every project has to have a RACI chart. Maybe not, especially one that maybe is just a pilot or just a proof of concept and the deliverable isn't going to actually go be implemented into, if it's an IT project, it'll be only in a dev environment, not in production, and like the equivalent of any other industry that you're in. So really try to think back about, think of from their point of view. And also using your knowledge, like I said, PMs know they're the ones that six months later, when, executive have a question about a project, they go to the project manager. So you also need to know how to support your future self. Always be thinking about, yes, customer satisfaction, but also your future self, you don't want to get left holding the bag for anything.
Galen Low:Love that. Last question for you.
Olivia Montgomery:Last already?
Galen Low:Yeah, I know, right? I could chat with you for days. And we will have you back, absolutely. But I'm just curious because, you go out and you do this research and you talk to a lot of people. I'm wondering, what was the most surprising thing that came out of your research that you were just like, not expecting to find?
Olivia Montgomery:Yeah, so, a lot, actually. I wasn't convinced that PMOs were going to come back so effective. Like, I knew they were going to be effective, but I also thought maybe it would only be in certain industries. Like possibly the government respondents would come back and they're like, yep, PMOs are great, but they're like marketing teams are like, it's not so much for us. So I was surprised that pretty much across industries that we surveyed, if they had a PMO, they were five times more likely to have informed stakeholders compared to the companies that didn't have a PMO. Five times. It blew me away. Like, I quadruple checked. I had so many people like, and I was like, Really? So that was absolutely an incredible thing. Because an informed stakeholder, stakeholder management is one of the key critical things that project managers are always trying to elevate and develop. And it takes so much time, and it changes all the time. Leaders come and go, so you have new stakeholders that you have to build a new relationship with. And it can be, it's a lot of work, a lot of time. So if you have a PMO that can help you with that, make you five times more likely to have informed PMO stakeholders, that sounds pretty great. I was like, I know we need to be very clear that that's the, one of the biggest wins. So the informed stakeholders are people who are also going to make decisions better and faster. They're going to be more responsive and more understanding to your needs in addressing bottlenecks, ambiguity, when you go to gather requirements and refine requirements, when you go to get, your business sponsor approval of what your deliverable is, and you're getting their feedback on it. The more informed they are, the more informed their information is and their feedback is. So, it helps along every step of the way, and I think that's, again, where we saw that having a PMO makes you twice as likely to not have the delays that businesses without a formal PMO suffer from. That can often be why is that they're informed in what their role and their responsibility is, if you've shown consistency in the process, so they know even simple things like that, the dashboard looks the same, their reporting dashboard looks the same, regardless of what project they're looking at. Things like that, that consistency really can help build and foster informed stakeholders. And like I said, at five times the rate, it's just like crazy. I also really loved the top functions. We spoke about it earlier and I'm happy that we did because that was something I was very happy to see. I was definitely worried that the top function would come back as, policing the templates that you have. I was afraid of that, and so I'm very, very happy to see that that's not the case. I think we're going to continue to see task management, task execution, policing of templates even go lower and lower and lower on that poll. And we're going to see more importance of the strategic role that project managers, projects, and a PMO serve as we do see more advancements in our software tools. We're seeing more and more advanced AI enabled algorithms in our tools, allowing for better resource planning, better risk modeling. All of that will definitely help in managing not only a single project, but your entire portfolio of projects. And then that will leave more time as our software tools become better and better, and we can assign them more of those administrative tasks. That's going to free up even more time for the human focus, leading the people, socializing the project, understanding the business objectives. It takes so much time to understand that, cause they changed a lot too. So I'm excited to see that we're already starting to see that they're seeing more strategically and it's just going to continue to build and administrative and policing functions are just going to keep going down that list.
Galen Low:And what I love about all of this is that the Threat of Steals, like throughout the whole thing has been actually just communication between people, right? Like clarity and just like the conversations, the coordination, the alignment, the just talking to one another and making sure we're on the same page. Like, as technology climbs through all of the, you know,"administrative" stuff, the skill becomes lifting the lid on the thing that's actually holding us back, which is just like being on the same page and getting something done that aligns with our expectations. And it sounds silly in this day and age, but actually I think it is the limiter. And I think we're going to start to appreciate that going forward in our sort of professional lives, personal lives, just in general, humans for the win.
Olivia Montgomery:A small group of, like, software engineers, like, focusing specifically more on, like, an IT PMO, because, like, again, that's, like, wheelhouse. There's a group of software engineers starting to talk about how Agile really has fostered just, like, a micromanaging, micromanaging of tasks. Like, you've got to fill out your JIRA ticket every day, and it's got to be up to date, and every day we're going to talk and meet about the JIRA ticket. That agile is yeah, enabled micromanaging. And so that narrows your focus and narrows your time that you have to be a strategic partner. So hopefully that's where a PMO can help bring a little more strategic focus. I'm not a software engineer, so I'm not sure. I don't exactly know if we're going to see a move away from micromanagement. Not today, and not tomorrow. But we still need someone with a strategic eye, so that people aren't just like, filling out their tickets every day, and doing their stand ups every day, talking about tasks that aren't driving the business objective, especially, growth. If that's the point. So, we need more focus on the people side, not just like, what are you doing today? What task are you doing today? Like, how is your work contributing to the project? And maybe a little less time on daily standups and giving that time more for strategic thinking and relationship building.
Galen Low:But stop being mechanical. That's what the robots are for.
Olivia Montgomery:Exactly. And they're getting better and better at it. So I think it'll be easier to let them do some of it. It's still slow. It's not happening today. It's not happening tomorrow. But it is, they are getting better at it, which means now is the time to get better at your people leadership skills.
Galen Low:Boom. Olivia, thanks so much for hanging out with me today. I always appreciate having you on the show. I will link the report in the show notes for everyone listening to go and have a look at. It's an easy read. I would recommend it. It's got a lot of good data in there. It's just build a case and better understand, what could potentially happen when you have a high functioning, a well oiled PMO that is progressive thinking about business objectives and, focus on growing the business by collaborating with other people.
Olivia Montgomery:Exactly. Thank you so much, Galen. I'm really happy to be able to share what the research is finding. I'm happy that it was positive and it's exciting. Hopefully, this spurs new ideas for people who are listening, too. And yeah, I'm just happy and grateful to be able to contribute to the PM community, which it's my favorite.
Galen Low:Alright folks, there you have it. As always, if you'd like to join the conversation with over a thousand like minded project management champions, come join our collective. Head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership to learn more. And if you like what you heard today, please subscribe and stay in touch on thedigitalprojectmanager.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.