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PMO

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Execution, with some elements of Art
PMO Nirvana is a Conversation, not a Schedule

By ⋅ February 22, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

We continue to iterate on our PMO processes – managing too few resources and too many project requests, an environment I have consistently seen in every IT group I have ever worked with. Our latest discussion concerned the concept of FIFO work on projects … … when presented with five things to do, I will [...]

Butting In to the Conversation: PM Communication Tools

By ⋅ February 27, 2008 ⋅ One comment

Dennis McDonald and Lee White are conducting an interesting experiment on their blogs, crossposting a conversation about project management and social media. I’ll add my voice, with both input on the topic and observations on the method. (Topic) The Right Tool for The Job – depends on the Job The first part of the conversation [...]

Rules of Golf – Project Prioritization Process Needs Clear Documentation

By ⋅ February 19, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Different areas of our IT department are using internal blogs, wikis, and collaboration spaces, with varying degrees of participation, readership, and success. Some observations: Blogging is Easy … The blogs and wiki(s) have effectively removed the hassles of capturing and distributing information quickly. One important early decision was to not implement an editorial approval process [...]

Execution
Three Business-Case Arguments for Agile, & The Moose On The Table

By ⋅ January 15, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Another conversation at the start of the new year – this time in our PMO, concerning project prioritization and resource assignments. Many organizations follow a “parallel” model, launching multiple projects at any one time and working concurrently to move things forward. To be fair, this often occurs because we start work on one or two [...]

Five Simple Rules for Project Names, plus Four Sample Lists

By ⋅ January 8, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

A recent post by Jeff Atwood about project names brought back memories of a previous employer, and the project naming convention we set up in our PMO. At this company, the IT group spawned maybe 30 to 50 chunks of work we would call “projects” – at least two calendar weeks in duration (anything smaller [...]

Tactics for Controlling Project Scope

By ⋅ January 5, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

I wrote about ways to “cheat” at project prioritization [aka trying to figure out what to work on next, when there is more demand (projects) than supply (people to work on them)]. One significant tool you have at your disposal is controlling scope – can you do 20% of the work to get 80% of [...]

Execution, with some elements of Art
How to Cheat at the PMO Prioritization Game

By ⋅ December 15, 2007 ⋅ One comment

Many will say their Project Management Office (PMO) has been established to promote “Best Practices for Project Management” – better work product, alignment with business strategic direction, etc. That may be partially true, but let’s inject a little reality here … many PMOs were created to help solve what I call the Dirt Bag problem [...]

Subdivide a huge project list to simplify the prioritization process

By ⋅ October 27, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

A classic problem for many project-oriented organizations (IT, R&D, Engineering, Operations) … how can resource prioritization be simplified, yet repeatable? It’s a fairly involved topic, but a common approach is to group projects into a workable number of “chunks” … we’ll use the term Initiatives. How will this help? Challenge: Clarify the team’s priorities, alignment, [...]

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