One of the PMO tasks is to provide an overview of project status. But seeing how project managers act, I really don’t trust the data underneath, which makes all my reporting untrustworthy!
Even worse: I don’t even trust the projects to know their full scope; hence, their estimates, schedule and control are untrustworthy too. It seems we have a common challenge.”
Of course this is generalized a lot, but it had a grain of truth. Some project managers are unconsciously incompetent in their daily work.
The blindfolded project manager
Visualize yourself riding a bike blindfolded. What would that require? You’ll probably ask people around you constantly to report about cars, pedestrians crossing the road; distance to the curb, other bikers and the road’s course.
Now take away the blind and consider how many reports you could do without. You won’t have to get informed about the road’s curse, other bikers, pedestrians or cars and you’ll even not bother about the distance to the curb. You’ve that by intuition. You’re in total control without much effort.
I have met a lot of project managers, project owners and steering committee members, who demand reports and measurements about irrelevant things - sometimes without even knowing why the project was initiated in the first place.
This blog focuses on how a Project Management Office (PMO) can provide project managers tools to “see” instead of running blindfolded and constantly “acquiring reports from others”. It is also about providing better project information for the PMO and the financial department.
What is to see? What is control?
Project Management is about many things exciting to the project manager: Team development, pushing technology, understand customer needs, proper communication, handling politics and building something unique. But it is also being an accountant: Setting the right scope, estimate efforts, determine optimal flow and developing a sound schedule. Most important though, being able to adapt changes and control usage and progress.
What part is most interesting and what part is often boring?
Most people like the freedom and challenge in the first part. Less people are attracted to the accountant work, digging into economy, planning and control. Got it?
If project managers are able to plan and control their project properly they’ll gain confidence in their project to a level where they no longer need reports about everything. They easily see it for themselves.
In this blog I will write about our steps getting better to spot problems, be more predictable and mature so we can focus more on the fun part and make the boring part simple routine.