Cofee Club
The value of a bit of ‘navel gazing’
As usual the centres of excellence club, a periodic event chaired by CITI and hosted by a ‘blue chip’ organisation, proved the value of taking a few moment to step off the treadmill of daily activities and reflect on what we’re doing and why. PMOs were the subject of the most recent centres of excellence club and the debates that emerged were typically thought provoking and valuable. One part of the day stood out for me and is worth dwelling on a bit further.

Participants in one of the work shops were asked to position their view of how their PMO was performing on a four-axis radar plot. The North South axis was essentially concerned with whether the PMOs were predominantly supporting the corporate portfolio (the Northernmost point on the plot) or predominantly supporting the individual projects (the Southernmost point on the plot). Clearly a balanced view of their focus would place them in the middle of this axis.

The East – West axis was formed by a view as to whether their primary function was to support and report to management (the Westernmost point) or primarily to develop and support delivery and good practice amongst the change community/practitioners (Easternmost point). Again a balanced view would have tended towards the centre.

Once the participants had positioned their PMO’s current behaviours they were invited to project the direction and distance in which they felt their PMO ought to develop over the next twelve to twenty-four months. Four informative and telling observations arose from this:

  1. The vast majority of plots lay in the Western hemisphere
  2. The North/South divide was practically evenly distributed
  3. All but one or two organisations envisioned, or at least desired, a significant shift from their current position
  4. No one professed to have conducted a similar piece of analysis on their PMO’s position and strategy prior to this exercise.

Western hemisphere bias. Of the seventeen participating organisations only two positioned themselves in the Eastern hemisphere. So, it seems, about 90% of PMOs regard their function as essentially supporting management rather than driving up delivery performance. Given that supporting management decisions is a risk-avoidance, rather than value-adding, perspective the majority of PMOs would be unable to demonstrate any ROI on the investment in them. Yes, they’d be able to justify themselves in terms of risk avoided for the organisation but they don’t inherently see their role as ‘adding value’. Whilst they occupy this space they’ll always be a ‘grudge’ spend (just like insurance – on which you spend the least you can) for management.

North South distribution. The degree of spread along this axis was quite remarkable (9 in the North, 8 in the South) with a fairly even distribution across the whole axis (i.e. a good spread of extremists at both ends and ‘fence-sitters’ in the middle). The obvious suggestion being that, given we’ve determined a Western hemisphere bias, there is a more or less equal emphasis on the organisation sponsoring PMO’s to safeguard the portfolio (a corporate level control function) or safeguard the individual projects (a project level administrative function). A good supplementary question might be who sponsors and therefore owns the PMOs? If it is a project function then you might anticipate the Southern bias whereas if it is a senior management function the opposite, a Northern bias, might be expected. The suspicion is that the governance and financing of the PMO will almost certainly play a critical part in its North/South bias. This may, of course, not be bad or wrong as long as it is a conscious choice rather than an ‘accident of breeding’!

Directions of travel. Given the current location of the various PMOs, the desired direction indicated an overwhelming stampede in an Eastward direction; clearly indicating an overall desire for PMOs to be about adding value rather than being a risk-avoidance grudge-spend. More interestingly was the extent of development; the length of the arrow indicated the desired extent of movement and in nearly all instances indicated a seismic change. Whilst it is not surprising that there is high ambition and a great appetite for change one suspects that the views were not moderated (given their dramatic nature) by an over-lay of reality; what can really be achieved within an organisation within a year or two?
The final interesting observation emerging from the direction of travel was that those occupying the Northern hemisphere had ambitions to move South whilst the opposite was largely true for those already inhabiting the Southern hemisphere. This diagonal cross-over (the South West dwellers moving to the North East whilst the North West dwellers moved South East) was striking. It clearly mirrors an ambition to provide not only a value adding services but also a balanced range of services for both the organisation and also the individual projects. That, or the grass is seen as greener on the other side!

Value of strategic analysis. One is inevitably moved to question why, when all the PMO people present found this an eye-opening and insightful exercise, don’t we seem to spend more time on taking a strategic view of where we are and where we’d like to get to? Where should we point the ‘finger of blame’, if indeed blame is to be apportioned? Are we collectively responsible for being too busy instigating the tactics to focus on the strategic direction? Does the ambition of the sponsor determine a path from which the PMO finds it hard to vary? Do initial behaviours become ingrained and thereafter the focus is on their refinement rather than moving towards a strategic ambition (evolution not revolution)? Or perhaps strategic analysis and direction setting is the stuff of text books and consultants and doesn’t apply to ‘real’ businesses? Of course it could be any one, any combination or none of these factors; the interesting insight remains. Spending a very modest amount of time (less than forty minutes) deploying a very simple tool leads to some profound insights that enable strategic challenges to be surfaced and ultimately pursued. Why then don’t we do more of this?
Please speak to us if you wish to explore strategic analysis or implementation planning any further – 01980 283600 or Richard Bateman rbateman@citi.co.uk.

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PAshton

Paul ensures our clients, members and associates have electronic access to CITI’s intellectual property and services, which may require him providing technical consultancy on clients’ sites.

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