Offensive—Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative[1] [2].
Do you constantly defend the PMO? As the director, sponsor, or team member, you are familiar with the doubt, underestimation, or bias against the PMO. Those negative impressions make it a convenient scapegoat for lackluster returns on investment and, thus, vulnerable to the chopping block. What would happen if you went on the offensive and treated these risks as opportunities to create milestones and metrics that prove these assumptions false and reveal the PMO’s value? You would write the PMO’s success story!
The previous blog covered the Objective war principle, including the use of mission and vision statements and planning. These documents control the PMO’s purpose, the value-adding strategies, and the tactics to improve project portfolio selection and delivery.
The Offensive principle starts with taking ownership. It’s your ship, and who is better able to navigate it through the rough sea of corporate goals and expectations of stakeholders than you? You and your team have the experience, training, and intuition to make a difference. You live, breathe, eat, and sleep program and project management. Executives and most stakeholders will probably not have your perspective, and rightfully so. They have different roles in the organization.
“That sounds great, but how? What does that look like?” Glad you asked.
Drive and own the narrative—you decide what the PMO should do and communicate it, so you have buy-in.
Be aggressively proactive in identifying risks (threats and opportunities) and ways to avoid or minimize the negative or leverage the opportunities.
Advocate for the PMO to partner with the change management team.
Vet projects for the portfolio without mercy.
The PMO becomes the general marshaling project management forces to meet their assigned objectives. This principle is not a license for ego, bureaucracy, narrow-mindedness, or assuming you know it all. Any influential leader appreciates other perspectives and builds a complementary team whose skills, traits, and experience enhance the whole. The views and capabilities of the team are necessary for an offensive approach to risk and change management. Risk and change create opportunities for the PMO to prepare and solve challenges before they occur, turning potential catastrophic chaos into well-organized chaos.
Risk management (RM)
Is risk management a new project management competency? No. In fact, the industry encourages proactive risk management, focusing on accurately identifying and predicting what might happen and devising mitigation strategies to manage such identified risks. However, many PMOs will approach this with a “one and done” approach. What is required is active risk management.
Conventional RM has been protective, focusing only on negative risk and trying to capture as much as possible at the beginning or front end of the project [3]. This risk management structure is more rigid and often leads to higher project estimates that cover padded schedules and resource uncertainties. Contrary to conventional logic, the more risk increases, the more flexibility is required to manage it.
Though risks are possible situations that could negatively affect a project, they can also have a positive side. Capturing the positives is riskier, so you need a good offense. Look for opportunities in risk and use their uncertainty to improve project portfolio, program, or project delivery [3].
More offensive program and project management can mean moving some decision points from the front end. For example, a decision on equipment or software could wait until later in the project, allowing for possible technological advancements during the project's life. Such a delay adds risk, but this risk could reap big rewards. Some developments happen so rapidly that what might be state-of-the-art at the beginning of the project is practically obsolete by the time you need it. Better technology or better supply options are the potential rewards.
Your teams work on projects in sequence. Similarly, they should identify risks. Risk is not static; it changes throughout the project’s life. Identifying high-level risk factors at the earliest stages is still required, but you do not stop monitoring and managing them until completion.[4].
Prioritizing risks is a strategic or offensive move. The most impactful risk scenarios or recurring threats top the risk list. They require the most attention, dialogue, solutions planning, and action during program or project execution.
Another offensive improvement to manage risk opportunities and threats might include breaking extensive projects into smaller ones with individual contracts, considering the type of contract, as one might be preferable over another for each situation [3].
Another way risk management falls under the Objective principle is that it is the best offense in managing change. Without RM, how do you properly plan and deliver change successfully?
Change management
Organizational change management is the bridge between projects and operations [5]. The behaviors and beliefs of those involved in the change will influence the change outcome. Therefore, change management tries to understand and manage such risks to better the chance of success [6]. However, not even the most effective change management eliminates all risks occurring during or after the initiative because organizational change is too fast and complicated. It will catch those that happen before they can cause too much harm. A successful change achieves its objective while avoiding, reducing, or accepting negative impacts on the organization or stakeholders that could prevent the desired outcome [6].
How often have you thought you and your PMO or project team should have been consulted before change decisions were made? Until recently, PMOs have not been vital players in organizational change management. Most change practitioners and non-project people view project management as busy delivering the tangibles that help drive change, but it is not a direct participant in the change process. This makes no sense; projects and programs deliver change.
Fortunately, this divisive perception is shifting to accepting project management as a business benefits contributor [5]. And the PMO is best positioned to facilitate the integration and interdependence of the organization and project management during and after the change initiative.
The PMO coordinates communications, training, and strategic alignment with the business’s goals and vision. Directing change management depends on its objective scope and the overall change capability of the company. It should at least be a strategic partner in the change process, especially if it directs project portfolio management.
Project Portfolio management
In portfolio management, the Offensive principle is at the forefront. Killing projects after they fail is not PPM. The PMO should proactively manage the portfolio to extract maximum value. PPM is about not letting them see the light of day if there is no good alignment with the company's objectives. It is what adds the most value to the company.
One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never! ~Winston Churchill [7]
The PMO must be courageous in leading and supporting organizational project management. It is up to you, the PMO leader, to sell the value of the PMO to the organization and stakeholders, to keep it focused on its mission, to keep projects aligned to business objectives, and promote and coordinate risk management at every level, from the change leaders down to the project team.
If you have additional thoughts or questions, please comment. We also appreciate shares and likes. Check back soon for our next blog post covering the PMO War Principle of Mass.
References
[1] W. Butler, "Hist 1416 American Military History Butler, W. > Nine Principles of War," 16 February 2022. [Online]. Available: https://bartonline.instructure.com/courses/2269/pages/nine-principles-of-war.
[2] F. K. &. S. Marks, "Leadership and the Principles of War Applied to Business: Two Sides of the Same Coin," 1 1 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.thayerleadership.com/blog/2017/leadership-and-the-principles-of-war-applied-to-business.
[3] A. 7. J. A. Rolstadas, "From Protective to offensive project management," in PMI Global Congress 2008—EMEA, St. Julian's, Malta, Newtown Square, 2008.
[4] "Program risk management," Business Value-Oriented Project Management (BVOPM), 2018-2022. [Online]. Available: https://bvop.org/learn/program-risk-management/#section1. [Accessed 16 October 2022].
[5] A. Jordan, "Organizational Change Management and the PMO," 9 April 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/453621/organizational-change-management-and-the-pmo. [Accessed 20 October 2022].
[6] LaMarsh Global, "Top success factors in effective change management," 7 October 2021. [Online]. Available: https://insights.lamarsh.com/top-success-factors-in-effective-change-management. [Accessed 23 October 2022].
[7] "Winston Churchill Quotes (n.d.)," 30 March 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/winston_churchill_140930.