Alas, I am old enough to remember when there was some confusion about programs, portfolios, and multi-project management, a fog which has at least partly cleared thanks to the Project Management Institute’s continuing work on standardizing the terminology and developing standards for the various roles related to “management by projects” (or the organizational elevation of project management). However, it is interesting to see the welter of definitions for a program that are out there, for example in the PM Glossary compiled by Max Wideman. One gets the impression that a program is whatever an individual company says it is; and the program manager role description is a moving target. When we developed the role descriptions in our book, we looked at hundreds of actual job descriptions. Here’s part of what we included on the Program Manager:

Role Overview

In large organizations with many project managers, project managers may be awarded “grades” based on their span of control. This position manages complex, strategic projects that span organizational boundaries, so Program Managers should have experience managing multiple high-risk projects, including projects involving external vendors and multiple business areas. This grade is a logical training ground for Manager of Project Managers, Manager of Project Support, Strategic Project Office Director, and CPO positions for the program manager with business acumen. When groups of related projects are organized into programs, this position may manage multiple project managers whose projects provide specific deliverables; all which must be collectively managed to provide the desired programmatic results.

Whew. As I read that I am reminded of the Cat in the Hat, who boasted he could “fan with my tail while I hop on a ball/ and that is not all! …” But seriously, as we have seen the PMO grow in stature and span of influence, those with program management skills have increasingly been in demand. They have the skills, honed in the coordination of many conflicting priorities, issues, and personalities, to assist a PMO Director in pursuing multiple objectives, each with its project or fleet of projects. It’s a natural training ground for the Portfolio Manager … and may even be the Portfolio Manager in all but name.

Here’s a great article about the Program Manager role by one of our PMO of the Year judges.

And, speaking of the PMO of the Year; check back here on March 2 for an announcement of this year’s application process, and links to the contest materials.

I wrote that last post on my personal computer where I don’t have all the work-related bookmarks stored, so I wanted to come back and add a few links to good articles and information about how successful companies are using collaborative tools to manage people and projects.

From AMR Research, this article grandly titled The Future of Work examines some of the tools out there - and be sure to click on the link where he muses on the difference between MS Office apps and the tools he really needs! (As a recent adopter of Office 07, I can feel his pain.)

On the nuts and bolts end of the spectrum, check out Using Twitter to Track Tasks and Time in Project Server 2007.

I’ll be posting more links on this topic from time to time. Meanwhile: How are you using Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, or a blog to improve your professional cred or keep up with tasks and / or colleagues? And if not … when?

I’m still digesting that Accenture research on what companies that emerged strongly from the 1990-91 downturn did differently during the bad times. As I said in my previous post, this is one of those business news articles that is all about portfolio management, without ever mentioning it.

I suspect that is because a lot of companies - and many management researchers - don’t know there is a name, a history, a set of standards and best practices - for what they are trying to do.

A key finding, for me, was that the most successful companies had a keen insight into their business. Now, this might sound elementary, but 15 years in business journalism have taught me that business is not as rational as you might think. Companies frequently have no idea what is going on within and across departments; duplication of effort is therefore the norm rather than a fluke; and lacking any systematic measurement system, they also have trouble knowing what is working and what isn’t.

That’s why implementing project portfolio management (PPM) usually results in some AHA! experiences. “You mean … we were doing THAT? … three times?” and the resulting cost savings.

So, PPM is one of those project management tricks that both saves money … and allows companies to invest in some “blue horizon” projects that will carry them forward. A tuck here, and let out a seam there, and you can take the “stitch in time” that lays the ground for growth.

But, there’s another aspect of PPM that’s also in line with the research linked to in my earlier post. With apologies for the resolution on this graphic, check out the Portfolio Scorecard model we proposed in our book, Seven Steps to Strategy Execution:

Balancing with realism means taking resources into consideration

Now, usually, you’d see the profitable projects (”bread and butter” projects is one nickname for these) and the necessary ones in two blocks of that square. But, in fact, they fall into the same category. You are going to do these things … no matter what. Either they are required, or they make money (rarely both) and so they are IN.

What’s missing from the balance equation in many models is the upper left quadrant: Do we have the capacity to do this? The people, the skills, the cash … the software, the space, the ideas: the resources that, without which any list of projects is just a wish list.

Everyone is writing about how business can thrive in spite of the downturn … including me. We’re working on a new white paper on the ways that project management discipline can help companies contain costs and become more efficient. (You’ll be able to read it here on or before August 13). But something about the whole idea made me antsy, because merely cutting and thinning and pruning isn’t enough. You’ve got to add the sunshine and fertilizer, too.

And, in fact, research into the ways strong companies have survived previous economic upsets, shows that, indeed “You can’t shrink your way to greatness.”

I was reminded that great Tom Peters quote from Circle of Innovation many times this spring as I watched the unemployment figures rise.

So I went looking for other evidence that greater success - or at the very least, a more sustainable form of success - is created when companies both prune judiciously and invest creatively in their own future.

And I found it.

It’s pretty extensive research, so explore the link yourself, but just to give a precis, companies that flourished coming out of a recession in the early 90s:

• They cut the RIGHT costs .. and did not engage in self-defeating cost-cutting.
• They leveraged their IT systems to gain insight into the business
• They collaborated with stakeholders … instead of pursuing projects/products dreamed up in a vacuum
• They killed or refused the RIGHT projects and opportunities … also based on insight into their own finances, markets, capacity, and so on.
• Rather than merely shrinking - via cost and headcount cuts - they invested in innovative products and processes.

This is one of those articles that never mentions project, program, or portfolio management. You wouldn’t find it if you searched under those terms. Yet, take another look at that list … are we not talking project and portfolio management here?

More rants on why PM/PPM can not just save, but grow, your business … coming soon.

Just as I completed my last post, a colleague sent me an article with the very timely title “Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Things that Never Happen” - which was my argument for why PMOs often succeed themselves out of business.

The article, from 2001, focuses on quality management initiatives, but it isn’t hard to read between the lines and see how project management initiatives are subject to the same forces. That process improvements often improve themselves out of existence, leaving the organization less well off than hoped, the authors term “the improvement paradox.”

And yet, when the authors note that the failure of organizations to profit over time from process improvements isn’t traceable to just one factor, but to “the interaction of tools, equipment, workers and managers,” the project management cheerleader in me can’t help but note that the integration of all these factors would be simpler in a company with a solid PM culture … the kind of culture you build through having a mature enterprise PMO in place.

Okay, now for the news: You may have noticed that the link to our PMO research report no longer goes to the CBP bookstore. That’s because my sidekick of nearly 15 years, Jim Pennypacker, has gone off to start his own publishing firm and all the Center for Business Practices content has been moved under the PM Solutions flag. Our books are still available through Amazon.com; research summaries are posted here. Please reset your bookmarks for our research content to these urls, and join me in wishing all the best to Jim in his new venture.

Eavesdropping on the attendees at the CBP Summit here in sunny Cambridge, Mass yielded the following gems:

“Project management is like a ‘black art’ to the executives … no one understands how it works. They kind of want it but are scared of it at the same time.”

“This merger is a little different, because they are keeping the team intact…”

“I worked in the space program, but never built a rocket; worked in the computer industry but never designed a chip … project management is transferable. It’s like Jack Welch said: he never made a lightbulb at GE but he was a great CEO.”

“If I were naming PMI today, I think I’d name it something different. The People Management Institute. The Process Management Institute. The Performance Management Institute. The focus on the project makes us blind to the larger issues.”

“We’re looking for predictable outcomes … instead of the ‘project black hole’.”

“My company is back in the 80s. How do you fast-forward through project management into strategic management-by-projects?”

… It’s exciting - but also daunting - to hear the recipients of the PMO of the Year awards describe what they’ve done - and the speed with which some of the improvements were implemented. Stay tuned for some brief interviews with the Award winner and the finalists later today and tomorrow.

Meanwhile, if you have an answer for that last question: we are all ears.

No, this post isn’t about the Rockies … except in the sense that projects face a rocky road when confronting with resource management challenges … which is, according to our research, the most common challenge in project management.

No, the divide I’m posting about is the one between projects and the executive level … the divide between decision makers and reality. That divide is legend, but it’s also apparently very real: in our latest study on Resource Management Challenges (to be released soon at www.cbponline.com) respondents indicated that executives commonly believe that there are enough resources to accomplish projects–when the reality is quite the opposite.

Resource Management literature is filled with descriptions of “best practices” and software vendors rave about the resource management capability of their sophisticated tools. Yet study after study shows that resource management issues continue to be the number one challenge to organizations that practice project management. What are the root causes of these resource challenges and what can be done about them? And how do best-in-class organizations manage their resources differently from the rest of us? The Center for Business Practices recently conducted a survey in order to understand the issues surrounding resource management challenges and to see if we could find some possible answers to those questions, and here are some of the findings:

• Resource management maturity is low in organizations
• There is a direct connection between the level of resource management maturity and the performance of organizations
• There are significant challenges particularly in resource planning and estimating

What’s particularly puzzling is that organizations fail to practice many of the resource management standards noted by the Project Management Institute. In fact, organizations don’t seem to even practice some basics consistently — like creating staffing management plans for their projects. But high-performing organizations are significantly more likely to practice these standards than low-performing organizations. Those standards in particular include:

• Resource career plans used to effectively utilize and train employees
• Information about potentially available resources used for estimating resource types
• Staff assignments are effectively negotiated with functional managers
• Scope of work and resource data is used in estimating activity durations
• The organization has a centralized pool of resources
• Resources required is used to determine the duration of activities
• Project performance reports provide information on resource performance
• Resource leveling is used to keep resource usage constant
• Resource reallocation from non-critical to critical activities is used

It isn’t hard to imagine how bad resource management can cause otherwise good strategic planning and portfolio management to implode. High-performing organizations (as identified by our study) address strategy, the portfolio, AND resource issues wholistically by centering project personnel in a strong, effective PMO. They have a resource-sharing culture as well as a project management culture.

So, to us it looks like the enterprise PMO is the pass across the Great Divide: a place where strategy management, portfolio management and resource management meet and synchronize.

You can read more about my PMI paper on this subject at: Resource Optimization: The Most Significant Challenge to Project Management Effectiveness

I’m presenting it at 2:30 today. Or, stop by the booth and chat with me about it if you are in Denver this week.

Every organization wants to effectively execute strategies, but many struggle to implement a process for doing so. This struggle is one reason that the Balanced Scorecard has had such a wide following and impact on business. Simply put, the BSC emphasizes the linkage of measurement to strategy. For the first time, the details of the project portfolio (what the Balanced Scorecard creators call “strategic initiatives”) become important to a company’s strategic thinkers. Companies that have implemented this model have seen measurable bottom line successes, according to research by Scorecard creators Kaplan and Norton.

Such alignment resolves thorny project management problems. Many studies have cited the lack of executive support as a key contributor to project failure. Project managers complain that their projects do not receive the resources they need. Projects completed “successfully” by project management standards (on time, on budget, to spec) have been considered failures because they did not address a business need.  All these issues are alleviated in a company that ties strategic planning to portfolio selection and project execution. In our 2007 book, Seven Steps to Strategy Execution, we call this an “execution environment”: one where strategic vision waterfalls down through the organization, linking corporate direction to goals, objectives and performance measures at every level—providing each team member with the “zest” of understanding how their work contributes to the organization. Meanwhile, excellent project management provides the data that executives need to make adjustments to the overall strategic plan.

If you’re in Denver at the PMI Global Congress North America in Denver, Colorado, come talk with me in more detail about these ideas! My presentation based on our Seven Steps book is on Monday, October 20, 2008 from 12:45 pm – 2:00 pm.

Meanwhile, here’s a question for you: Isn’t “the strategic plan” just another way of saying “the project portfolio”? And, if not … why not?