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Taking the time to understand your organization’s best practices in project management is one of the most powerful demonstrations that your teams mean business.

Last week, we shared some of our thoughts on the power of Organizational Project Management, and how a holistic approach to portfolios, programs, and projects can empower the organization. Indeed, our take on driving project success across the enterprise hinges on just that: team members across the organization must be empowered to act on behalf of projects, no matter what their role, from executives, to managers, to project team members.

But just saying that project people must be able to act is mostly bluster. Even if your intentions are in the right place, being able to deliver results comes from orchestrated activity against a plan. It becomes a journey of exceeding the bar with project successes–provided you understand what that bar looks like.

Thanks to the diligent efforts of the Project Management Institute through the OPM3® ProductSuite, and the input of project managers around the world, we are seeing more of what that bar looks like in the form of Best Practices. Within OPM3, these best practices are a carefully curated set of 557 measures of successful project activity which set forth how the work of projects is done in a generic project setting. But the real magic of utilizing best practices comes through careful focus on your project setting.

In case you missed it, I’ll say it again: the keyword here is focus. Few organizations have the need for self assessment against every single one of the 557 recommended best practices. The beauty of the approach is that you don’t have to be weighed down with needless administration; your challenge is to define the practices that best measure project, program, and portfolio success across your organization, and measure on-going results against them. You, your project managers, your portfolio managers, and your teams know where they can improve, and where they shine, so ask them – whether from the list of 557 or not, if your teams are thinking about it, it is likely a practice worth measuring.

The result of your work will be a model for project improvement that addresses the whole organization. It provides a baseline for standardization, a model for measurement and control, and a path for improvement over time. And because your teams are developing the metrics, you will also be developing the buy-in that you will need for long-term attention and success.

At Cadence, we work with project partners around the world to help them define and implement their own model for standardization, measurement, control, and improvement. It is no secret that project offices all over are being confronted with the crude reality of our global economy, and are being taken to task to defend their place in operations: is the continued investment in a project management office at your organization worth the return in projects completed? Or is it just more administrative overhead, hindering the real work of projects more than driving it?

Don’t worry, you don’t have to answer out loud. But if you find yourself shaking your head in the negative, consider deeply the role of your project office and how you can take the lead in delivering your own best practices, measuring success, and driving improvement from within. Demonstrating such an active role in project education, measurement, and improvement is a quick way to demonstrate your project office is not just valuable, but too valuable to lose.

At Cadence, our practitioners have been helping organizations deliver results on their most critical projects for nearly thirty years. In that time, our field has evolved, though the needs of our clients have remained constant: help us deliver more projects, on time, under budget, at scope.

To answer these fundamental needs in a business environment of increased global complexity requires broadening the way we think about project management in our companies. For those who haven’t yet made the leap, it’s time to bring project management to the whole organization.

What does it mean to bring project management to the whole organization? The answer to that question comes in the comments we get in our own courses, and shared with us at conferences and symposia around the world.

“Management doesn’t get it.”

“Executives tell us what they want, but don’t follow through when we need support on our projects.”

“All they see is bottom line – they don’t understand implementation.”

And, heralded by our own graduates course after course: “I wish my boss was here.”

This sentiment underscores a key premise of whole-organization project management understanding: Everyone involved in projects must understand their roles in project management, from practitioners, to managers, to executives.

Seeing where this call for organizational project management comes from is important: it comes from the people managing projects. It comes from those who are saddled with day-to-day objectives and milestones, delivering results when it counts. What these people are bubbling up through the organization is a drive for greater methodological awareness against accepted standards in the field, and support when and where they need it.

Cadence has long been a partner with the Project Management Institute and all our courses are in direct alignment with the Project Management Body of Knowledge®, the set of standards of practice as defined by professionals in our field. But a standard is just the first step. Where Cadence shines comes in helping companies take these standards and establish and document the processes and practices it will take to adhere to them. That’s the Cadence Methodology, a field-tested approach to delivering results on projects through standards.

The second key premise to an organizational project management approach is ensuring that the people involved in projects execute their roles in the process. This involves a sophisticated and realistic approach to managing the portfolio of projects across the organization, the programs that make up larger strategic initiatives, and the projects that enable the organization to deliver strategic results.

The Cadence Project Management Methodology is steeped in a legacy of successful project results because our focus is – and always has been – on the whole organization. Our initiatives moving forward, including articles and interviews for this newsletter, will help to further refine our approach, illuminating the stories of those who have adopted a strategic approach to organizational project management and the success that comes from such efforts across the enterprise.

We wish you a smooth transition from summer to fall, wherever you are, and thank you for joining us on our journey to help you deliver your best work through projects.

When traditional training channels inside your organization are strained, but you find you need training, it is time to get creative.
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In the mid-1990’s, there came about a well-defined bit of cost-cutting wizardry called the “Center of Excellence.” The COE was well-defined both because of the intent of its function in organizations, and because of its innate irony; you see, a decade and a half ago, the Center of Excellence involved lay-offs.

The COE was fashioned as a method of saving money by centralizing the best of all duplicate resources inside a large organization into one place. This center would then take on the task of managing their piece of the organizational puzzle, while any similar divisions outside the center would be dissolved.

But, like many other accidental discoveries, something wonderful happened. Before long, the COE approach took on more than just a functional use inside the organization — the COE began to live up to its name.

In modern project management, the specific tasks that fall to the Center of Excellence varies quite broadly from organization to organization. However, there are trends and best practices that define the high level function of the COE in the Project or Program Management Office.

First, the Project Management Center of Excellence provides educational and intellectual resources to the project management function of the organization. It is here that the organization houses the body of standards and guides for excellence in the internal project management operation. The PM-COE is the home of organizational methodology for project management.

Second, the PM-COE drives hiring and training against those standards. Global organizations striving for project management excellence are benchmarking their own processes and procedures against results. Ensuring human resources are hired, trained, and prepared to deliver results falls to the PM-COE.

Third, the PM-COE defines strategy in project management for the organization. This is the primary resource for intellectual capital in the broader field inside the company and provides access to the tools and technologies project managers will need to accomplish their jobs today, and in the future.
Finally, the PM-COE really can help grow profits and cut costs. Perhaps it is in the managerial DNA of the COE concept, but when resources and tools are pooled in such a way as a function of the PMO, new opportunities for greater efficiency become naturally apparent.

The PM-COE is a partner to the PMO. While the PMO is focused tactically on managing projects and delivering results, the PM-COE becomes the pit crew, ensuring project managers are trained, equipped, and prepared for work. It becomes a symbiotic relationship, an invaluable partnership that invariably results in better project management.

Even more, however, organizations that have adopted the PM-COE model as a function of the project management office have demonstrated a tacit commitment to not just running projects, but to learning through project management, and defining the project culture clearly through eduction, information, professional development and strategic awareness.

Cadence is a key partner in advanced training and consulting services designed to assist organizations interested in maturing and growing their project management office initiatives. Contact Cadence today for more information.

In the mid-1990’s, there came about a well-defined bit of cost-cutting wizardry called the “Center of Excellence.” The COE was well-defined both because of the intent of its function in organizations, and because of its innate irony; you see, a decade and a half ago, the Center of Excellence involved lay-offs.

The COE was fashioned as a method of saving money by centralizing the best of all duplicate resources inside a large organization into one place. This center would then take on the task of managing their piece of the organizational puzzle, while any similar divisions outside the center would be dissolved.

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Last week we introduced OPM3, the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model, with a brief overview of the tools and infrastructure it provides in organizational project management. This week, we continue our discussion with an exploration of the three elements that provide the foundation of the OPM3 model.

First, an important distinction. Historically, standards in the field of project management have focused heavily on the individual project manager or program manager. This stems from a convention of measuring aptitude: what do you know, and do you know what to do in a project management context. OPM3 on the other hand, represents a first for the Project Management Institute, addressing not only individual project manager competencies, but best practices across the organization for portfolio, program, and project management.

As a project manager, using the word organization may seem daunting. In the context of OPM3, however, the organization could be your entire company as easily as it could be your own functional area. This is the real beauty of the model: it scales impeccably.

The Knowledge Element provides the foundation for OPM3: 557 best practices as defined by thousands of project management professionals at work in the field. The Knowledge Element doesn’t provide any specific guidance on implementation, rather it provides a background on OPM3 components and operation.

The Assessment Element provides access to the OPM3 Self-Assessment, the online tool that allows users to compare traits of their current organization against best practices as defined in the OPM3 model. Through this self-assessment, you will become keenly aware of strengths and weaknesses in your organization, and see just where you stand against the continuum of organizational project management maturity.

Still, the data you cull from the assessment process might not be an appropriate picture for your organization. That’s why, as a function of the assessment process, you are able to define which best practices apply most critically to your project, program, or portfolio environment.

At the highest level, your OPM3 journey could end there: with a snapshot of your current capabilities and a new awareness of where your organization stands on the maturity continuum. However, assuming you are investing in the process for continuous results, the Improvement Element will help you deliver. Here, you will use the data from the assessment process and build a plan for improvements on key best practices for your organization, implement those improvements, and then re-assess to ensure successful implementation. Each change is specifically targeted to advancement along the maturity continuum.

While the self-assessment tool is comprehensive, like any assessment, interpretation of variables can be tricky. That is why specially-educated Cadence project managers are available to help your organization begin the OPM3 assessment process, a powerful tool for ensuring your projects are delivering the right results today.

There are funny cycles in the field of project management.

PERT charts are no longer cool, for example. And we do a bit more planning these days than we did in the 50′s when most of our so-called “complex” projects were still run off a simple Gantt chart. But today’s projects have redefined the nature of the word “complex”. Teams are broader. Budgets are bigger. Deadlines are tighter. Stakes are much, much higher.

A decade ago, the answer was the PMO. The project management office was to be the central repository for project practitioners in medium and large companies. In the best examples, PMOs were user-driven and organic, managed by a savvy suite of experts who knew how to get the most out of the tools they used. And still, project complexity grew.

Today, the PMO has evolved. OPM3 stands to formalize project management operations and help to define a clear path for process improvement.

What is it? OPM3 stands for Organizational Project Management Maturity Model, and it is a model that is owned by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Unlike so many other maturity models in the field, however, OPM3 was crafted by thousands of project management professionals, volunteers, and experts across 35 countries around the world. This is not an ivory tower theoretical application.

In short, it is a big deal.

Perhaps because so many people were involved in its genesis, simply diving into OPM3 can prove a bit unwieldy. Put simply, OPM3 helps organizations understand a broad scope of best practices in the field through a knowledge element; measure organizational performance against those best practices through the assessment element; and build a bridge to meet those best practices through the improvement element.

There are 557 of these best practices, each broken down into a few meaningful capabilities. As such, where OPM3 shines is in dealing with the dramatic increase in complexity in today’s projects. In fact, OPM3 specifically encompasses a whole-organization view of project management, something Cadence has long professed as a key success factor in projects. OPM3 best practices cover project, program, and portfolio management through four key stages of process management: Standardization, Measurement, Control, and Continuous Improvement.

Too often, we see projects that have fallen prey to organizational ill-will. Projects that have fallen through the cracks of management, projects that are spearheaded in spite of misalignment with organizational priorities, and projects with no executive support or leadership. Where OPM3 shines is in helping organizations turn key strategies into projects, and ensure that all projects serve in the achievement of broad strategic vision.

Specially-educated Cadence project managers are available to help your organization begin the OPM3 assessment process, a powerful tool for ensuring your projects are delivering the right results today.

We spend a great deal of time, as project management trainers and practitioners, focusing on the activities that occur at the beginning of a project. Defining scope, developing the scope of work, recruiting and developing resources around the project, scheduling – these activities tend to receive the greatest attention as new project managers tend to require the most refinement in the planning phase of their projects.

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It is time to get clever.

We have been sharing thoughts over the past two weeks on how to secure training resources and create opportunities to develop professional skills in a volatile training market. Today, we review a strategy for bringing project management training to your teams when they need it, and working with your training and development teams closely to implement it.

The Joint Venture
Most the work we do involves project managers working on projects that involve more than a single core team. Project managers are integrating the efforts of extended project teams including internal and external customer teams, contractors, and suppliers. With such a variety of team backgrounds, our partners quickly realize that a crash course in project management planning and discipline will go a long way toward streamlining the project process and ensuring that all team members share the same project management language.
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When traditional training channels inside your organization are strained, but you find you need training, it is time to get creative.

First, make sure you have a clear understanding of your training needs. Project Managers are in affect “Mini CEO’s” for their projects. The skill requirements are broad — from core business skills to finance, management, leadership, communication, and more. While it is important to have a focused competence in project management, don’t forget that the best project managers — like the best in most fields — are the most well-rounded in their search for life-long learning.
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