One of the key professional responsibilities of a project manager is contributing to the project management knowledge base. What does this mean?

In a nutshell, don’t keep your knowledge and experience locked in your brain. Share it!! 

• Share knowledge
• Research
• Build the capabilities of colleagues (i.e., teach, mentor, provide opportunities for your colleagues and your team members to build experience and knowledge)
• Advance the profession (engage in activities that will improve the overall PM profession; engage in activities that will promote the profession)
• Step up, at your own organization, to champion the value of project management. That is, playing a key role in the growth of PM within your organization
• Always record “lessons learned” at the end of a project or project phase; contribute to your organization’s organization process assets (OPAs). These 2 activities contribute to PM knowledge base and will help your colleagues during future projects
• Participate in PM forums, conferences and PMI chapter meetings
• Write articles

PMI expects PMPs to stay engaged with the profession.

High-level View of Project, Program, and Portfolio Management

In part 1 of this series, we defined the P3MO as an acronym for “Project, Program, and Portfolio Management Office.” It’s based on the concept of a PMO (project management office)  elevated to cover project portfolio management as well as project and program management. In part 2 we will discuss the relationship between the three components of the P3MO: project management, program management and portfolio management.

Project management ensures the successful completion of initiatives and their associated deliverables within the time, scope and cost parameters agreed to by the end-users of the product, service or result. The project manager manages stakeholder expectations and communication between all team members and stakeholders.

P3MO Relationship Venn - Click on image to enlarge

Program management provides overall leadership and vision to the project management process. The program manager is responsible for delivering value to the community of stakeholders.

Portfolio management aligns the portfolio of projects and other work with the objectives of the organization and ensures that the work delivers value to the business.

The relationship between projects, programs and portfolios

Portfolios are made up of projects, programs and other work. (Other work includes on-going operations, ad-hoc activities and other “business as usual” work.)

The diagram, above, represents a typical portfolio structure.

Where needed, sub-portfolios are possible, in which case they would each be consolidated up into the parent portfolio for the purposes of portfolio optimization, strategic alignment and financial control.

Projects that share a common benefit or serve a common business unit or market may be collected into a program. For example, projects supporting an enterprise-wide directive from the board of directors, such as the acquisition of a new operating company, could be managed as a program. Other examples would be a group of projects serving a single market or geographic region; or the collection of projects supporting the roll out of a new product or service.

A good rule of thumb would be, if managing 2 or more projects together would result in benefits and control not available from managing them individually, then these projects should be managed as a program, with one individual (either the function head or an assigned program manager) accountable for its success.

While the nature of initiatives (projects and programs) is time-based with a defined start and end, the portfolio is on going, its mix of initiatives fluid and changing over time.

Coming up in December and January . . .

Part 3 – Realizing value from the P3MO

Part 4 – Implementing P3MO best practices

Part 5 – The three “pillars” of project success

My experience at PMI’s 2009 North America Congress was excellent and, as always, well worth the trip. I met and exchanged ideas with some of the top practitioners, researchers, consultants and authors in the project management industry.

There is no doubt about it. The benefits realized from a sound and well-organized project management methodology based on globally recognized project management standards have been well established. These benefits cannot be overstated. Organizations that make full use of the power of a project-focused environment gain a competitive advantage over those organizations that do not leverage this power. They also gain a competitive advantage over those organizations that publish an “official” project management standard but make little or no attempt to implement it or to make it a part of organizational policy. *

One of the hot project management topics at the Congress was the P3MO (project, program, portfolio management office). Another was that of “value driven project management”, the topic of Harold Kerzner’s closing session speech and the topic of his new book, co-authored with Frank P. Saladis.  An integrated project portfolio management environment (i.e., a P3MO) with a focus on driving business value represents the state-of-the-profession thinking right now. I can personally confirm that this approach is beginning to emerge out in the field. At my most recent client, a global life insurance company doing business on three continents, my colleagues and I recommended exactly this approach and delivered guidelines for achieving this. **

So what, exactly is a “P3MO.”  At first, my colleagues and I were hesitant about using this acronym. It sounds too much like “CP30″ from Star Wars and could be a candidate for a lot of jokes around the water cooler.

As it turns out, just as C3PO represented state-of-the-art “droid” technology, the P3MO, very much, represents  state-of-the-art project portfolio management (PPM).

P3MO is an acronym for “Project, Program, and Portfolio Management Office.” It’s based on the concept of a PMO (project management office), however it is elevated to cover project portfolio management as well as project and program management.

PMO’s are designed to support project managers, including, but not limited to:
• Establishing and maintaining project management guidelines, standards, policies and methodologies
• Monitoring compliance with project management standards and policies
• Managing shared resources across projects
• Guiding and coaching project managers and project team members
• Coordinating communications across projects, including communications with stakeholders and with the business

All PMO’s maintain the following objectives:
• Reduce Delivery Time
• Reduce Project Cost
• Reduce Delivery Risk
• Improve System Quality
• Improve Customer Satisfaction
• Manage Customer Expectations
• Define Standards and Methodologies

The P3MO takes the PMO function to the program and portfolio management level. It shares the objectives of a PMO with the following additional objectives:
• Integrating related projects into programs
• Identifying and delivering the stakeholder and business benefits of programs
• Working with executive management to identify and approve programs and align these programs with the goals and objectives of the business
• Integrating approved programs into one or more business project portfolios
• Providing guidance to the Steering Committee (or other governance body) and assisting them with optimizing portfolios to ensure continued alignment of initiatives and other work with business objectives; modifying the program/project “mix” as business objectives change
• Providing guidance, direction, training and coaching to project managers and program managers
• Maintaining communications with executive management

PMO’s can be categorized into three types:
1) Supporting PMO. Focuses on supporting projects through training, mentoring, administration and reporting. This type of PMO acts in a consultative capacity.
2) Controlling PMO. In addition to providing supportive functions, this type of PMO has a stronger influence on project delivery by offering controlling services, including implementation of standards and policy, and ensuring compliance with those standards and policies. They also conduct project reviews, audits, assessments and project governance.
3) Directive PMO. This type of PMO actually manages projects directly. In a Directive PMO, there is a pool of project managers who report to the PMO Director as their supervisor. This collects all of the project work within an organization to one department.

Part 2 -The relationship between the three components of enterprise project portfolio management.

Part 3 – Realizing value from the P3MO

Part 4 – Implementing P3MO best practices

Part 5 – The three “pillars” of project success

** My thanks to Mario Arlt, Vice President of Client Engagements at ESI International and to Oscar de Lucio of UMT Consulting for their captivating and enlightening presentations at the 2009 PMI Congress in Orlando.