2. Is…
• A culture
• A facility
• A framework to orchestrate with
• Agile and waterfall
• A way to decide what to do
• A backbone
• A result of business change
• A means to an end
Is not…
• A regime
• The answer
• A straight jacket
• One thing or the other
• The perfect priority calculation
• The heart and soul
• Simply adoption
• An end in itself
Enterprise Project Management –
easy ride or uphill struggle?
3. Once…
• We’re too busy to take on important stuff
• We miss out on work because we didn’t see it
coming
• We’re constantly trying to work out who’s
doing what
• Stuff keeps slipping = 1 too many angry client
• Our quality suffers under time pressure
• We’re spending more time in coordinating
and in meetings than delivering
• It takes 4 weeks to update the exec on project
progress
• Someone with budget can see a case
We can…
• See what we have to stop to prioritise
• See work coming and provision appropriately to
deliver & do more with less expense
• Know who’s doing what and have less fights and
fight less fires
• deliver more certainly = happy clients
• ‘pick up’ then ‘put down’ less = less mistakes
• Plan and manage risk rather than react and deal
with issues
• Have near real time and less effort in achieving
it – less expense to manage
• Remove the pain and measure baseline for
further improvement
Enterprise Project Management –
How will I know?
4. Yes of course…
• Technology solves everything these days
• All I need is a knowledge base anyway
• Project managers don’t need nurse maids
• Real time data doesn’t need admin
• People work together on stuff naturally
• We are pretty mature as an organisation
• We don’t need to onboard people often
• IT can implement it for us
• We don’t need a project “civil service”
No you’re bonkers…
• What about if our needs change?
• Who is gong to fill and maintain it?
• Most don’t – not all…
• Is that hope or expectation?
• While it suits them
• Most organisations underestimate immaturity
• At present – but what if you shrink or grow?
• IT are not P3M SMEs and will focus on IT
• Civil service makes us civilised – don’t forget
that!
Enterprise Project Management –
So that I can ditch the PMO?
You have to be mad to think you don’t need a robust PMO to define, implement, sustain and exploit EPM for
all the benefits EPM brings. PMO and EPM come as a wedded couple.
presently
5. Yes of course…
• IT can implement it for us
• Technology solves everything these days
• People can work it out for themselves
• Its out of the box – right?
• Project management isn’t complex
• Just a place to keep your plans & documents
• I’ll get corp. comms to do some publicity
• Help desk can support it
• We don’t need to make a big change thing
out of this
No you’re bonkers…
• Install maybe?
• It does – but not without people, process etc.
• People can get it wrong too
• Configuration makes tools useful
• Operation of it is!
• That’s fine – but that’s minimal benefit
• Which is fine if you’re just providing a facility
• Help Desk are not P3M SMEs and focus on IT
• No sponsor – no push. No problem – no gain. No
change – no benefit
Enterprise Project Management
It’s simple install, train job done?
You can treat an EPM solution like a technology adoption – but you won’t get it going easily, won’t reduce
delivery risk, save operational cost or deliver more – and won’t make that stick!
Find out more - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZEiPwDhwrk&feature=youtu.be
6. You didn’t…
• Get a senior sponsor to back the initiative
• Realise the organisation was as immature
as it was
• Understand the lack of governance
regime
• Realise people were wedded to their
local behaviours
• Know the plan data quality was so poor
• Estimate the level of change
management support correctly
• Set aside enough time to manage it
Can you recover…?
• Can you get a sponsor now? Who will touch it?
• There has been a lot of noise because it was
‘too hard’….
• Not good to expose sponsor failings in a crisis
scenario – not their fault…
• Left field requirements are never easy to deal
with – costly if not anticipated
• Can the time / support be found to clean it up?
• People have made progress, but some really
struggled and good will is low ebb
• Has it hurt your day job too? Bless.
Enterprise Project Management
Where did I go wrong (maybe)?
Not getting set up to deliver change around EPM can cause lasting pain – from which some people cannot
recover. Do it right first time instead. http://www.chasemanagementservices.co.uk/
7. Of course…
• Best of breed collections can be a pain to
integrate and sustain integrated…
• There are savings to be made in exploiting
platforms wisely
• Prejudice towards / from some providers does
exist no matter what you think
• You can do what you like with an in house
solution
• Our people won’t want something that just out
of the box
• Its no good if you can’t support it – or take it
forwards as you grow
Not at all…
• Reliance on one supplier can be unhealthy and miss
out on benefits
• Cloud based solutions mean that platforms don’t need
to be had at all
• Don’t like Apple? Don’t like Microsoft? It’s part of a
change challenge not a design constraint.
• Doing what you like can cause a sustainment
nightmare. 80% solution for 20% cost best?
• Is this just meaning we have to do our analysis better?
• Cloud based solutions mean that support can be part
of a service not an internal team
Enterprise Project Management
Does the technology matter?
The benefit of the IT may not always be to the immediate customer – sensible compromises may be best all
round. A customer can work sensibly with IT by taking an ‘Intelligent customer’ service -
http://www.chasemanagementservices.co.uk/
8. Of course…
• Our approach to defining and turning business
strategy into challenges is clear
• Our ability to prepare responses and create
proposals works well
• The review / decision boards we have are
facilitated, get to the point, and make decisions
• We effectively track and manage issues, risks,
actions and decision implementation
• We maintain business cases through projects
and programmes, and stop failure
• We have passion, but we are logical about
portfolio decisions
Not at all…
• There is a gap between those with vision and ideas
and those that can make them happen
• Our idea formulation is poorly focused and does not
always get to a decision point quickly enough
• Material is not shared before meetings, people do not
prepare, detail is a distraction from progress
• We have no way of tracking all that stuff, notes are
imperfect and never remember last meeting
• We forget why we are doing things, and assume if
something has started that it has to finish
• We let emotional arguments and relationships carry
too much weight in professional decision making
Enterprise Project Management
Is our governance good enough?
Enterprise Project Management is to support operation – but the key benefit is around enabling
governance. But if you can’t make decisions – EPM is a wasted investment….
http://www.chasemanagementservices.co.uk/
Notas del editor
Many organisations deliver with projects and programmes, and some do that with rhythm and flair. Some line dance, some go freestyle. Here are some words to give you grace in the journey there…
We have email systems, we have intranet – corporate IT that is taken for granted. But we can run projects off wall charts, and Excel – we can get by. But as our organisations grow, or delivery by project and programme becomes more normal – what will make us think to invest in people, process, organisation and technology to make that more ‘mainstream and operational’ than ‘cottage industry’?
Some organisations see a PMO as a painful overhead to contract with any excuse, and IT can offer technology to solve anything right? NO! - man has evolved a bit – surely we don’t want organisations that sort stuff out by fighting? Or do we?
EPM is an investment you take on if there is a problem to solve - risk to avoid, cost to save and benefit to maximise. The connection of those things to the story for the solution you envision is a vital connection to make with good analysis, informed solutioning and careful stakeholder engagement – you’re changing your business – not just providing a facility. So not just install, train, job done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZEiPwDhwrk&feature=youtu.be
Perhaps a manufactured horror story will enable EPM implementation teams to get it right first time, and not get fed to the alligators. Do it right first time instead. http://www.chasemanagementservices.co.uk/
IT may only be one component of an Enterprise Project Management Solution – but as IT – how can I best advise my customer when I don’t know EPM solutions? OR as a Business Customer – how can I ask IT the right questions? Take an ‘Intelligent customer’ service?
Enterprise Project Management enables control within projects and programmes, management of constraints and resources across the portfolio, and assurance. However – if it’s not supporting decision making, half of the value is lost – and if your decision making is dysfunctional – then why bother?
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/P3MGovernance
Please take the survey above to see how many of us have fit for purpose decision making frameworks. I’ll share results to all that contribute, and buy lunch for one contributor at a project management event of your choice (is that a prize?). Can we get 200 responses?