 |
 |
 |
|
04.13.09 How to Avoid Being Seen as 'Project Management Overhead'  By Curt FinchWe are currently facing a challenging economic climate which is forcing many companies to cut costs in order to survive. There are different ways of doing this, and unfortunately, a popular one is slashing employees, projects and even entire departments. Consequently, almost everyone in the business world is now looking for a way to justify their work to upper management and other stakeholders in order to be spared. Many executives do not fully understand the value of the PMO in their organization, endangering the survival of the PMO when the time comes to cut back. In fact, Josh Nankivel of PMStudent.com recently polled project managers about how the economic climate is affecting them, and he found that 27% had experienced project cutbacks, 14% had experienced PM layoffs, 11% had experienced financial scrutiny of projects, and 10% had experienced project staff reductions. The answer to this problem is threefold: PMO managers first need to focus resources on the right projects, then ensure that these projects are successfully executed, and finally, effectively communicate the value of these projects to upper management. Step 1: Refining the Focus The PMO's primary responsibility is to manage and execute projects that are central to the organizational goals and objectives. This requires an understanding of both the business strategy and the projects that fall beneath it. Beyond that, it is important to know which projects are short-term, mid-term or long-term. During a recession, many long-term projects are abandoned. On the other hand, if you work solely on short-term projects, you will not be needed once they are completed. For this reason, it is best for PMOs to focus their efforts on a combination of short- and mid-term projects that align with company strategy.
Step 2: Executing Projects On Time and On Budget Prioritizing projects is important; successfully completing them is imperative. No organization has any use for a PMO that does not achieve its goals and get things done. There are several key components to accomplishing this. First, project managers need visibility into resource allocation in order to avoid over- or under-booking project team members. This will also ensure that no projects are taken on that your resources cannot accommodate. In addition, team members need to track their time by task in order to provide actuals, helping project managers to understand true project costs and estimate future projects with accuracy. When project managers can understand what resources are working on and measure actuals against forecasted timelines, they have a better handle on project problems, allowing them to address them faster and with more success. Step 3: Communicating Results to Management Once you have the positive project results, you need to ensure that top executives at your company are aware of them. Fortunately, some solutions for managing resources and projects also have dashboards and reports to make this information quite clear. This gives you an opportunity to tell the executives, "These are all the projects we are working on to help achieve our organizational objectives, and here is data that proves that we are executing them successfully." How can they possibly argue with accurate, up-to-date project data? Continue reading this article. About the Author: Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx (http://pr.journyx.com), a provider of Web-based software located in Austin, Texas, that tracks time and project accounting solutions to guide customers to per-person, per-project profitability. Journyx has thousands of customers worldwide and is the first and only company to establish Per Person/Per Project Profitability (P5), a proprietary process that enables customers to gather and analyze information to discover profit opportunities. In 1997, Curt created the world's first Internet-based timesheet application - the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt is an avid speaker and author, and recently published "All Your Money Won't Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource." Curt authors a project management blog at www.project-management-blog.com. |
|
| ||
 |
|
-- ManagerNewz is an iEntry, Inc. publication -- iEntry, Inc. 2549 Richmond Rd. Lexington KY, 40509 2009 iEntry, Inc. All Rights Reserved Privacy Policy Legal archives | advertising info | news headlines | free newsletters | comments/feedback | submit article |
