Plans change, business gets disrupted, goals shift. Welcome to 2020.
I’m not talking about the impact of COVID-19, although, yes, it did all that. I’m talking about how business gets done these days. You don’t approve a project investment expecting that project to be delivered without any adjustments along the way. Changes in response to shifting market conditions, evolving customer demands, challenges in delivery, or any one of a number of other factors will all drive the need to adjust.
You expect the final output of the project to change from what is approved initially because you know it has to be capable of achieving the business outcome that is the reason you are funding the project in the first place. Your project teams understand this need, too. They have evolved from focusing on the triple constraint of ‘on time, on budget and on scope’, to an emphasis on a solution that delivers ‘on benefit’.
The challenge now is ensuring that you’re changing in response to the right stimuli, and not just changing for the sake of change. Yes, your projects are subjected to new threats and opportunities, but there’s also a lot of ‘noise’ out there – things that could drive changes in your projects, but shouldn’t be allowed to impact them because they aren’t significant enough. That’s where an effective business focused Project Management Office or PMO comes in.
A business focused PMO can act as a shock absorber, sitting between business leaders and project managers, helping set the context for which project challenges require action and which can be left alone. It translates shifts in the business environment into the appropriate response from projects – even when that means no response. The business focused PMO can be the difference between uncontrolled, and uncontrollable, change and effective, ensuring efficient adjustments that optimize performance and minimize disruption.
But there’s a problem. Most organizations don’t have a business focused PMO. Instead they have an administrative PMO that spends its time consolidating reports and imposing governance. The mechanics of their project delivery approaches are second to none, but delivering the wrong thing efficiently still results in a failed project.
Your PMO has to be a leader for the business and it has to be strategically focused. Most important of all, it has to be capable of absorbing the shocks from both the frontline of project execution and the changes in your operating environment. It must be able to translate those shocks into effective and focused adjustments that maintain alignment between the work being done and the business need being addressed. Even when that means making no adjustments but having the courage to stay the course. In short, it needs to be business focused.
If your PMO isn’t yet delivering that for you, then you need to help it evolve, starting now. ServiceNow can help. Our upcoming webinar on August 5th, presented by global PMO thought leader Andy Jordan, is focused exactly on this subject.
Register now to learn more and start the journey to greater investment success.
