Presentation /Panel Discussion – OPM“Organizational Project Management”

What is OPM / OPM3 and why are they so important?

John F. Sage,PMP,OPM3 ConsultantSAGE PM, Inc.sagepm@tampabay.rr.com727-612-5922

Panel Members: Gary Cobb, MBA, PMP Tina Dallas, PMP David Mack, PMP

Case # 1 – Projects that never seem to end, restart multiple times or just fail.

Background

• New joint venture, multi million dollar investment• New software application• New data center• ISO Standards implementation• Global marketing initiative• Build new customer base• No Portfolio Management• No Program Management• No standard PM Methodology or PMO• Projects lacked:

• Project charter (No clear objective and identified sponsor)• Scope (Therefore constant scope creep.)• Clearly defined requirements• Identified risks and issues (Therefore no mitigation or management.)• Resource management (availability not known).

Case # 1 – Outcomes and Updates

• Software Application – The new software application being developed internally was 70% completed when a new contractor recommended a totally different approach and platform, so the development group started over from scratch.

• New Data Center – 1st Vendor, no detailed requirements, relative to space, location, HVAC, network design, business continuity needs, backup requirements, etc. Four attempts at configured solution, all were turned down and the vendor released from consideration. 2nd Vendor came up with a configuration solution quickly allowing the organization to proceed with the purchase process. The purchase process was not clearly defined and took two months to execute to a point where there was a purchase order to get the equipment built and shipped. When shipped, the environment was not ready for the installation. The data center has still not been built and stood up.

• ISO Standards implementation - It was discovered that the certification for the ISO standard sought was going to take too long and cost too much, so a path of compliancy was taken instead.

• Global marketing initiative - The marketing team identified several potential new customers but there wasn’t an environment available to demonstrate the marketed solution.

Staff and contractors became very frustrated with the constant turmoil, rework and the lack of direction.

Case # 2 – Organization made significant software purchases without first identifying user needs, integration needs, alignment with strategic goals,

resource availability.

Background• Public sector organization• Department making the purchases produced the most revenue• Department subject matter experts purchased the software• One of the purchased software solutions was the overriding primary application • Vendor Statements of Work were vague and incomplete• One of the purchased software solutions was the overriding primary application, but effort didn’t start on it until several of the other applications were started• No project managers or business analysts• No standard PM Methodology• No Portfolio Management• No Program Management• Projects lacked:

• Project charter (Just SOWs that had not been executed prior to beginning implementation tasks)• Clearly defined project scope (Therefore constant scope creep)• Clearly defined requirements• Identified risks and issues (Therefore no mitigation or management.)• Resource management (availability not known).

Case # 2 – Outcomes / Updates

• Projects to implement the software were attempted by the department multiple times over the last two years. Each time the attempts failed.

• Some of the budgeted money for the projects based on work completed in the SOWs was spent.

• The department eventually came to the Information Technology department and asked them to manage the projects. But the I.T. department had no project managers and had to get approval for another $850,000 for project managers and some additional outside consulting.

• The I.T. department started seven software projects without first understanding that one software application needed to be implemented first or at least in parallel due to the needed integration from the others.

• PM consultants have now established a program for the projects with a common resource pool.

• Once the program and common resource pool were established it was discovered that assigned project resources are seriously over allocated across the program without even knowing what the resource demands are for their regular work.

• The organization has just approved an enterprise wide new program that affects the same resources. The amount of dollars involved for the new project are about twenty times greater than the sum of the projects already in progress from the originating department.

So how can organizations avoid these time consuming and costly mistakes?

Just Do ItWe don’t have time for all of that

planning!

If you don’t have time

to do it right, when will

you have time to do it

over?

Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part!

We don’t have time for all of that project activity, we have work to do!

OPM is the bridge from Vision, Organizational Strategy and Objectives to Achievement of those Objectives

OPM is a framework (a Body of Knowledge including processes, practices, and tools) that:

• Integrates project, program, and portfolio management with management infrastructure of an organization

• Defines interfaces to bind project, program, and portfolio management process structure into general management functional areas of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, controlling, and motivating

• Provide guidance in organizational design leading to multidisciplinary and cross-functional projectized operations

• Helps organizations measure and improve maturity, agility, and effectiveness of the integrated management infrastructure

• Allows organizations to assess the suitability to use this (OPM) framework to their needs.

Maturity Models determine how well an ORGANIZATION supports OPM:

• Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI, Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute)

• Organization Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3, Project Management Institute)

• Project Management (P1M3), Program and Project Management (P2M3) Portfolio, Program and Project Management (P3M3), Prince2 (Subset of the others, high level), Office of Government Commerce (OGC), UK (These UK standards were derived from CMM.)

• Proprietary models (Corporations and consultant groups)

OPM3 – Second Edition – What’s new?

Organizational Enablers – Create the environment that allows project management to flourish.

SIEMENS (Joe Sopka) Over 150 Assessments Conducted

Value of Increasing OPM Maturity

• Business Scalability• Top Line Growth / Bottom Line Improvement – Improved / sustained margins• Employee / Project Management Effectiveness• Reliable Project Performance Predictability – Fewer RED projects.

• Improved and Measurable Project Performance Capability (Schedule Performance Index, Cost Performance Index)• Improved Employee Satisfaction and Retention•Superior Customer Satisfaction => Competitive Edge

• Predictable delivery, costs and quality• Less risk exposure• Better referrals

• Standardized (Defined) processes are foundation enablers for Lean / Six Sigma improvements

Value of Increasing OPM Maturity- contd.

PMI – Researching the Value of Project Management – Janice Thomas, PhD / Mark Mullaly, PMP

• Four year effort involving 65 organizations, many global and many very well known major corporations.

• Initially elected to study five types of organization value:

1. Satisfaction – Do the key stakeholders perceive that the project management initiatives provided value?

2. Aligned Use of Practices – Do practitioners of project management actually apply the practices as they are described by the organization?

3. Process Outcomes – How effective is the project management process with the organization? (Evidence – change requests, budget performance, lessons learned, reliability of delivery, etc.)

4. Business Outcomes – What business outcomes are related to the process improvements that have been made?

5. Return on Investment – For every dollar invested in the project management initiative, what return in terms of cost savings, revenue, tec., can be attributed to it?

Researching the Value of Project Management Some of the Conclusions

• What clearly emerged from this study is that value appears to increase in proportion to the maturity of the project management implementation that is encountered.

• In particular, greater levels of intangible value were reported in organizations that have a higher level of maturity.

• Tangible value was seen at all levels of maturity. Even organizations with very immature implementations or ones that were established for largely cynical motives – were able to attain significant tangible value.

• Sustaining value – Where value is being sustained and is continuing to grow, there is ongoing improvement efforts underway – even in organizations that have been investing in project management for over 20 years.