Policy & Practice February 2015

technology speaks

By Mike Coulson

A Strong PMO Is More Crucial Than Ever Before

B ack in the day, when I was with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (PADPW) and some of my duties included directing the design, development, and implementation (DDI) of large IT systems for the Office of Income Maintenance, the term Project Management Office (PMO) was not a part of my vocabulary. Of course this was before smartphones and was during the advent of basic cell phones. Nevertheless, the idea of a PMO was foreign and projects were managed in a loose manner by those who were responsible for the DDI and, in all cases, at PADPW, the projects were suc- cessful eventually. However, I can’t imagine doing a health and human service IT systems project of any size today without a PMO. Things were different back then. Pretty much everything was a custom build, the systems were siloed by a program area with little or no shared infrastructure, and there were no established benchmarks to progress. In the case of the Office of Income Maintenance, most of the project management came from the program side and not the IT side of the house. There was very little state IT staff in the entire agency at that time. Having experience in project management was not a prerequisite for the job. So what is a PMO? It is defined as “a group or department within a business, agency or enterprise that defines and maintains standards for project man- agement within the organization. The PMO strives to standardize and introduce economies of repetition in the execution of projects. The PMO is the source of documentation, guidance and metrics on the practice of project management and execution.” Other definitions even state categorically that

Š Š Manage the project history and documentation. Š Š Support delivery by providing training, mentoring, quality assur- ance, and reducing bureaucracy. Š Š Promote reusability. PMOs can be supportive, controlling, or directive. They can be project specific or more enterprise focused. In all cases they should keep in mind that their job is to make the project run as efficiently as possible, thus making the task easier for the state or local program people and the systems integrator. It is not a fault-finding “gotcha” role. It has been widely accepted and expected that IT systems projects in the state and local public sector that rely all or in part on federal funding have some sort of organized and formal PMO structure in place. It seems to me that now, more than ever, this will be one of the most critical parts of any project team. Why so? With the intention to make the 90/10 enhanced funding for the Eligibility and Enrollment component of the newly defined MMIS permanent and the extension of the OMB A-87 Cost

the group or department should be full-time staff completely dedicated to the PMO function. So what is the actual value of a PMO? According to the Standish CHAOS Report of 2009, 68 percent of software development projects do not meet time/cost/scope targets. Only 32 percent of projects were completed on time, within budget, and delivered measurable business and stakeholder benefits. 1 A 2012 survey indicated that inadequate project estimating and planning constitutes 30 percent of project failures and, conversely, oper- ating an established PMO is one of the top three reasons that drive successful project delivery. 2 So what does a PMO do and how can it drive success? A well-developed PMO can: Š Š Provide a governance structure that supports decisions made by the right people based on current and accurate information that is provided by a single source—the PMO. Š Š Provide a central point for lessons learned, templates, and leading practices.

Photograph via Shutterstock

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