Overview
Purpose of Paper
This paper is a declaration of the Project Management Institute (PMI) Pittsburgh Chapter’s accomplishment in the creation and support of a Project Management Office (PMO) Roundtable and, for those local chapters wishing to realize similar benefits, a description of how the PMO Roundtable was organized and now operates.
Challenges and Issues—A Solution is Needed
Within the PMI Pittsburgh Chapter, a number of people were simultaneously struggling with concepts relating to PMOs. Their companies were in various stages of PMO development, from justifying the existence of a PMO, to deciding how to properly structure, implement, staff, and utilize the PMO. As in most cases, experiential project management information was available, but not readily accessible. Experiential information can be expensive and require large amounts of time when purchased from consulting companies—and learning by making mistakes is often risky and costly. The founding members of the PMO Roundtable had a common need: understanding what made a PMO successful, how others had accomplished a successful PMO implementation, and in the case of failures, why they occurred. This need prompted the creation of a Roundtable support group sponsored by the PMI Pittsburgh Chapter. Over the past year and a half, the Roundtable has evolved in structure and form to successfully meet the original goals. This concept can be used by the global project management community to discuss and to solve any problems that involve sharing information.
Introduction
George Santayana, the Harvard philosopher, wrote,“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Project Management is a profession with a rich history and knowledge base waiting to be tapped for future benefits. As emphasized in PMI policies, the expansion of the body of knowledge of project management needs to be dynamic and deliberate for the project management profession. PMI also identifies communication and the exchange of information as critical components in any project management effort. To support this exchange of information, channels need to be developed to facilitate the flow of information—without the hindrances of organizational politics and protocol. Who better to serve as the channel conduit, than resourceful PMI members?
The PMI Pittsburgh Chapter has implemented a communication model that facilitates process improvement within a narrowly focused area of project management—the creation, implementation, and maintenance of PMOs. Three major elements to the model are:
• Knowledge Seekers: Individuals who need or want greater understanding of a particular area of the project management discipline.
• Experience Repositories: People and other resources such as documents and publications that contain information related to the area of project management under consideration. This includes individuals and resources from other organizations (whether in the same or different industries), who represent similar and different industries and represent various degrees of maturity in utilizing the elements of project management.
• The PMO Roundtable: A working group that bridges the gap between the first two elements.
This paper discusses:
• The challenges and issues faced by organizations and the need for a solution.
• A solution—a Roundtable support group, in this case, sponsored by the PMI Pittsburgh Chapter.
• Benefits of the Roundtable support group initiative.
Background
Common interests, common problems, and common solutions—this triumvirate is the foundation on which the PMO Roundtable was formed. During local chapter PMI meetings and networking conversations, it was recognized that many people were interested in either starting a PMO or growing a PMO within their company. While the companies were at different stages of PMO development, many of the issues and hurdles they faced were common and troublesome. Solutions were not clear. An idea evolved that if interested people were brought together in an informal, yet well-paced meeting format, a fluid exchange of ideas would occur. This would provide an ideal environment for brainstorming, and a comfort level of working with others who face the same challenges.
Exhibit 1
Founders and Participants
PMO Roundtable participants are all geographically from the Pittsburgh region and represent the following companies:
• e.Jiva Inc. (an iGate Capital company)
• FedEx Ground, Inc. (formerly RPS)
• Marconi Communications (formerly FORE Systems, Inc.)
• Mellon Financial Corporation
• Pittsburgh Project Management Center (a division of Consult USA)
• Project Controls, Inc.
• University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)
These companies range from local, regional operations to global corporations. The competency and maturity of PMO development varies greatly among the companies, and also within them.
In this case, the group of PMO Roundtable members is primarily focused on Information Technology (IT) project management. This is most likely a consequence of the relative immaturity of this particular field and a lack of well-defined structures, processes, and procedures designed specifically for the execution of project management in the IT industry.
Although the PMO Roundtable is currently composed mainly of IT professionals, many of the members also bring vast project management experience from other industries including aerospace/defense, engineering and construction, finance, environmental, manufacturing, and transportation—which is an acknowledgment of the pervasive and more-seasoned use of project management techniques over the past several decades.
This breadth and depth of knowledge is available to the members of the PMO Roundtable and, through their efforts, to the greater membership of the local PMI chapter. In this manner, everyone builds from the histories of their collective experiences to be first to the future.
The Roundtable Solution
The PMO Roundtable was created for Knowledge Seekers— people with a common interest in PMOs and support organizations.
Access to multiple Knowledge and Experience Repositories—in the form of consultants, libraries, educational forums, and documents or templates to be used as benchmarks—requires time and money, and can be a cumbersome information-gathering process.
The PMO Roundtable works around these barriers to provide an informal, unrestricted environment in which nonproprietary business information can be shared, synthesized, and disseminated to the benefit of the participants. Participants can then introduce the discussed successful practices and examples into their own organizations.
Casual Format
The Roundtable meeting format is casual, voluntary, and welcome PMI members and nonmembers alike who are willing to participate and contribute. Since the Roundtable is a voluntary effort, the participants must perceive that they are receiving a high return on investment for their time. To help achieve this, as a complement to the focused discussion of specific topics, opportunities for leeway within the focal boundaries are permitted.
Facilitation of Roundtable Meetings
A casual format requires expert facilitation. A member with experience in training and facilitation has managed most Roundtable meetings to date. Key facilitation techniques that were used include: guided participation (ensuring that everyone participates, but that no one person dominates the discussion); use of open-ended questions and strategic silences to encourage further responses; directing responses to members’ areas of expertise (this technique requires knowledge of each person’s background); acting as a referee during lively discussions; and ensuring effective time management.
Closing Protocol
A tradition that has continued from nearly the first meeting of the Roundtable group is the closing protocol. Approximately the last 10 minutes of a session are spent with each Roundtable attendee offering three pieces of information: (1) something acknowledged as a success in their PMO in the past month, (2) something recognized as a failure in the past month (a lesson learned), and (3) a question or topic for consideration at a future Roundtable meeting. These items are documented and saved for each meeting.
This 10-minute protocol in discussing each other’s experiences allows a wonderful sharing of individual circumstances and acts as psychological therapy. Congratulations and kudos are offered, as well as empathy and suggestions relating to lessons learned.
History and Future of the PMO Roundtable
A core group of invited members created the PMO Roundtable in 1999. During the first year, membership was by invitation only. Initially, the group’s focus was to control input and strictly define the forum characteristics, so that it could best serve as a conduit for knowledge and information transfer, as well as be a “seed-bed” for new ideas (brainstorming). By 2000, a defined meeting format had evolved which could sustain alternate viewpoints and benefit from less stringent input. Many sessions were spent discussing the transfer of knowledge from the older, more mature and seasoned PMOs, to the more futuristic IT venues. Now, in 2001, the future goal is to move forward to focus on benefits and deliverables that can be shared with the entire PMI Chapter community. To achieve this goal, various forms of communication, such as this paper, and presentations to the local chapter, will be used.
PMO Roundtable Details
Membership
Membership—who should be invited, who should join, the size of the group and similar questions—were important topics in early meetings.
A major concern revolved around the idea that a larger group would be much harder to facilitate, thus limiting the value to all participants (typical participation has involved anywhere between two and eight members at any given meeting). After several meetings, this concern was lessened as the group grew comfortable with the casual format and agreed that a larger size group could be easily accommodated. Additionally, it was decided that in the event the larger group became too unwieldy, it would be easy to split into separate, smaller groups.
Another concern was that meetings would skew in the direction of a single field. For a time, the Roundtable was overly oriented toward the IT field. To correct the imbalance, the Roundtable group took strong action to encourage participants from other areas of interest—especially from the construction and engineering industries. For example, the PMO Roundtable organized and hosted one Chapter meeting, which featured a keynote presentation that directly compared the practices and maturity of construction and engineering project management with IT project management. This was the most highly attended Chapter meeting of the year. The inclusion of professionals from seemingly unrelated industries added valuable perspectives and insights to the discussion.
Topics
A factor that has been effective for the PMO Roundtable is the use of pre-planned topics. It is important that the proposed topics be easy to facilitate and not require any additional effort to be able to participate in the discussion. For example, no outside research should be required; no homework or preparation time should be necessary. Over time, the Roundtable group has developed a revolving cycle of three topics. Easy to track and broad in nature, the three topics are:
• Personnel issues
• Process issues
• Tools and techniques.
Unless an individual proposes a specific question of interest outside of these topic areas, it is convenient to revert to this pre-chosen triad of subjects. Pre-meeting notices and announcements remind the members of the planned topic, and members can raise questions or comments related to the topics via email to other members prior to the meeting. This communication provides everyone the opportunity to think about responses and, if they choose, prepare further for the discussion by sharing pertinent readings, news articles, and other related presentation materials. The email network provides an opportunity for members who cannot attend to offer their perspective to be shared and discussed at the meeting. Answers and responses can be returned via email. The main benefit of this arrangement is that it encourages preparation—but does not require it. Members participate at the level their taste and time constraints permit.
Although an initial topic is chosen and preplanned for each session, important value is also gained when members can relate to each other on specific items of importance to themselves. Any member can pose a question to the group, regardless of whether the question relates to the assigned topic or not. The Roundtable group then discusses it and offers personal insights and examples. Through this, the member with the question may gain resolution to a problem, understand critical aspects of the suggested solutions, validate thoughts and alternatives, and ultimately, learn from the experience of others in the group. Veering away temporarily from the planned topic requires expert facilitation to keep the discussion lively and pertinent and to revert back to the pre-planned topic at an appropriate time.
Timing
Through consensus, a group should determine how often meetings should occur and the length of the meetings. After experimenting with different meeting times, The Pittsburgh Roundtable group settled on meeting the last Monday of each month (except during summer). This time period does not conflict with the regular PMI Chapter meetings held the middle of each month, and this timeframe also takes into account the idea that meeting too often could become a burden and diminish overall participation. Holding the Roundtable meetings in conjunction with, or during the same week, as the regular Chapter meetings, tended to be too demanding on members’ schedules. Participants seemed to be forced to choose one meeting over the other.
In contrast to the monthly chapter meetings, which typically are held from 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM, participants in the Roundtable have chosen to keep these sessions short and focused. Adhering to a strict two-hour time frame tends to focus the participants on the topic at hand and provides great amounts of insight—in the shortest period of time—to create the greatest value for the invested time. Also, socializing and networking are offered after the Roundtable session.
Sponsorship
The Roundtable group originally evolved from the focused and specific needs of a few of the Chapter members. Realizing the value and benefit that such a group could bring to the participating Chapter members, the Chapter was approached for sponsorship. For the past two years, the Pittsburgh Chapter of the PMI organization has provided support for the PMO Roundtable in the form of funding for a meeting room and a meal for each attendee. Singular expenses in support of the goals of the PMO Roundtable (for example, a projector for Chapter presentations) have generally been covered, after review and approval of the local chapter’s Board of Directors.
Publicity
Currently the Roundtable group is publicized in several venues, including:
• The Chapter Website
• The Chapter monthly newsletter
• Announcements at Chapter meetings.
Consideration is being given to several potential new venues: announcing the meetings and topics in the business and professional sections of local newspapers, posting notices in the journals of related organizations (engineering societies, IT journals, etc.), and mentioning sessions to outside audiences.
The greatest success to date in publicizing the group’s activities is through word of mouth and the favorable comments of the participants. Participants are encouraged at every meeting to think of individuals to invite, especially those who might add new insight and perspective, and who, in turn, would gain value in their participation in group meetings.
PMO Roundtable Benefits
Benefits derived from establishing and implementing a PMO Roundtable fall into four basic categories:
• Benefits to the international PMI organization.
• Benefits to the PMI Chapter in Pittsburgh.
• Benefits to the organizations of the PMO Roundtable participants.
• Benefits to the individual PMO Roundtable participants.
Each category is aligned to the stated policies and vision of PMI, as mentioned in the PMI Ends Policies below:
1.1.1.1 The expansion of the body of knowledge of project management is dynamic and deliberate for the project management profession.
1.1.1.2 The expansion of the body of knowledge of project management addresses industry, general, national and global considerations for the project management profession.
1.4.1 Enhanced professionalism and opportunities for networking and professional development are available for project management practitioners through a variety of means, including components (e.g., Chapters) that address appropriate geographical, industry, discipline and interest areas.
1.4.2 PMI provides an environment that fosters contributions to the profession by PMI members and nonmembers willing to participate and contribute.
Benefits to the International PMI Organization
The PMO Roundtable benefits PMI through advancement and implementation of PMI policies regarding the dynamic, deliberate, and specific expansion of the body of knowledge in project management and its policy for providing an environment that fosters contributions to the profession by members and nonmembers.
An immediate benefit to PMI of the Pittsburgh Chapter-sponsored PMO Roundtable is this paper, which is intended to inform the greater PMI audience of the value of a PMO Roundtable and to discuss experiences in successfully implementing such a group.
Benefits to the PMI Chapter in Pittsburgh
The PMO Roundtable benefits the Pittsburgh Chapter (and other chapters who initiate similar programs) through the implementation of a specific program that is aligned with PMI’s policy regarding enhanced professionalism and professional development through component programs. This Roundtable program may enhance the Pittsburgh Chapter’s eligibility to receive PMI Component Awards such as Chapter of the Year, Sustained Superior Performance, and Professional Development Programs, since it meets the PMI criteria to “further and advance the Ends Policies of PMI.”
The most significant benefit to the PMI Pittsburgh Chapter was realized in October, 2000 when the PMO Roundtable presented an outstanding panel discussion for the Pittsburgh monthly chapter dinner meeting titled “The Project Office: Are there differences between Engineering & Construction (E&C) and Information Technologies (IT)?”
This presentation was a valuable educational event and it also dramatically boosted interest and attendance at the chapter meetings. Over the last few years, attendees at meetings and the topics of chapter dinner presentations had been leaning increasingly toward IT projects, while attendance by heavy industry representatives was declining. With this panel discussion, the PMO Roundtable set out to educate the IT members while attracting heavy industry members back to the chapter meetings. This strategy worked! The October panel discussion saw the highest attendance for a chapter dinner meeting during the year 2000. More that 60 individuals attended—almost a 50% increase above the average monthly meeting attendance. And, it brought the return of more of those familiar faces of the heavy industry members.
Benefits to the Organizations of the PMO Roundtable Participants
Organizations and their representatives benefit from participating in the PMO Roundtable by having a forum to discuss problems, present solutions, and bring back to their organizations expanded knowledge and experience in the area of development and maintenance of a project office. An additional benefit to organizations is to be associated with a deliberate expansion of the body of knowledge of project management and be recognized for this in the industry.
Most of the PMI Pittsburgh Chapter participants state that the PMO Roundtable has provided their organization the capability to ramp up to speed more swiftly in the development and maintenance of their project offices. These participants note that the Pittsburgh PMO Roundtable has provided the forum they require to survey and validate their project office strategies and assumptions. Some participants refer to the PMO Roundtable as “project management therapy.” What is shared via the PMO Roundtable is taken back to organizations for further review, evaluation, and application—truly a win/win situation.
Benefits to the PMO Roundtable Participants
Roundtable participants benefit by having a Chapter-sponsored forum dedicated to PMI Chapter members, and nonmembers, who are interested in the development and maintenance of their project office processes, information systems, and training of personnel.
Through networking, individual PMO Roundtable participants are provided an exceptional opportunity to enhance their project office knowledge and skill sets. No other local venue—including the monthly Pittsburgh Chapter dinner meeting—provides the opportunity to network with individuals/organizations with such a specialized focus on the project office. Individuals having exposure to the PMI Pittsburgh PMO Roundtable note that it has broadened their knowledge and awareness of practical project management processes, information systems, and training.
The PMO Roundtable also provides participants the opportunity to practice and apply their communications skills. By leading or taking part in the discussion of topics at PMI Pittsburgh PMO Roundtable meetings, participants are provided an opportunity to polish their communication tools and techniques in a focused venue that shares the same lexicon.
Participants who have achieved PMP certification can gain Professional Development Units (PDUs) by participating at PMO Roundtable meetings. Each meeting is worth one PDU; participation is validated by attendance records and documented via the meeting minutes.
Furthermore, the PMO Roundtable can provide business as well as career opportunities to individual participants. Those seeking project management training, consulting, and/or support are linked to a local network of individuals/organizations that provide such services or recommend referrals. This is a staple of most PMI Pittsburgh PMO Roundtable meetings.
Individual participants seeking more challenging or rewarding project management positions can find opportunities via the PMO Roundtable. Since its inception a little more than a year ago, the PMI Pittsburgh PMO Roundtable has seen six participants find new positions by way of networking within the group. Some may consider this as a risk versus a benefit to those organizations that sponsor their individuals’ participation in the PMO Roundtable. Overall, the best perspective on this issue is to solicit the opinion of the organizations that have gained professionals via the PMI Pittsburgh PMO Roundtable.
Summary
The PMO Roundtable has demonstrated to be one of most successful programs to be implemented in the PMI Pittsburgh Chapter over the past several years, and it promises to be even more successful in the future. A key success factor is that the PMO Roundtable is aligned to the policies and vision of PMI, including:
• It is a “deliberate” attempt to expand A Guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide).
• It addresses a “global” consideration in that the PMO is beyond industry, general, and national considerations.
• Through the Chapters (i.e., components), it provides specific means to “enhance our members’ professionalism and development,”
• It establishes a specific way to “foster contributions to the profession” by PMI members and nonmembers.
From the PMI Pittsburgh Chapter’s experience, a chapter sanctioned PMO Roundtable must possess professionals who are capable of looking back to where they have been in order to be first to the future.