PMO

PMO Nirvana is a Conversation, not a Schedule

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ 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 [...]

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

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ 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 Jim MacLennan ⋅ 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 [...]

SQL Hack for Reporting Project Phase and Status

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ December 20, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve posted some code, but I did a nice little SQL hack today that I’ve been puzzling over for a while. I freely admit that I may have made this more difficult with the original data model, but the die has been cast. Consider a single SQL table that captures [...]

How to Win at the PMO Prioritization Game

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ December 19, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

Last time I talked about “cheating” at the PMO prioritization game. Ok, it wasn’t cheating, more like a trick to keep your projects small, fast – and easy to fit into a crowded schedule. Totally above board, but some might call it manipulative. Remember the old management hack … how do eat an elephant? If [...]

How to Cheat at the PMO Prioritization Game

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ 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 [...]

PMO Prioritization – Project Descriptions should be Effective, Relevant … and Short!

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ December 9, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

Next year, our PMO will be taking a run at improving “transparency” for project prioritization – a clearer process for getting projects approved and scheduled. Here’s a key building block – what is the most effective way to describe a project? There is a certain amount of art and style in getting this right; most [...]

Subdivide a huge project list to simplify the prioritization process

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ 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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