Pmo in an agile world

August 3, 2011

The PMO In An Agile World:
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
by Margo Visitacion
for Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Making Leaders Successful Every Day

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

August 3, 2011
The PMO In An Agile World: Can’t We All Just
Get Along?
by Margo Visitacion
with Mary Gerush and Adam Knoll

EX ECU TI V E S U M MARY
Much has been written about the benefits of Agile development, and it has been proven that Agile
development teams consistently deliver higher-quality applications faster than those that follow
traditional practices. However, one role has been conspicuously absent in these discussions: the role
of the project management office (PMO). Development teams often see PMOs as bureaucratic teams
that create barriers as opposed to providing support. But PMOs play an important role managing
expectations for a broader audience. PMOs and application development professionals need to establish
closer ties, and in order to do so, they need to rethink communication strategies and build stronger trust.

TABL E O F CO NTE N TS N OTES & RE S OU RCE S
2 Developers, Project Managers, And The PMO — Forrester worked in partnership with the Project
Disconnected And Discontented Management Institute (PMI) to survey 693
The Problems Are Quite Clear project management professionals to gather
information used in this report.
2 Forrester Identiﬁes The Problems And How To
Fix Them
Related Research Documents
Problem No. 1: PMOs Focus Too Narrowly — “The State Of The PMO In 2011”
And Too Traditionally August 3, 2011
The Fix: Broaden Your PMO’s Horizons
“Are You Ready To Transform Your PMO?”
Problem No. 2: Lack Of Trust April 8, 2011
The Fix: PMOs Have To Take The First Step To
“It’s Time To Take Agile To The Next Level”
Build Trust
March 25, 2011
Problem No. 3: PMOs Are Too Busy To Be
Strategic
The Fix: Get Out Of The Weeds And Build Bench
Strength
WHAT IT MEANS
8 The PMO And Agile Teams Can Get Along —
But Both Sides Have To Give
9 Supplemental Material

© 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester Wave, RoleView, Technographics, TechRankings, and Total Economic
Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Reproduction or sharing of this
content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. To purchase reprints of this document, please email clientsupport@
forrester.com. For additional reproduction and usage information, see Forrester’s Citation Policy located at www.forrester.com. Information is
based on best available resources. Opinions reﬂect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

2 The PMO In An Agile World: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

DEVELOPERS, PROJECT MANAGERS, AND THE PMO  DISCONNECTED AND
DISCONTENTED
The development team, project managers, and the PMO share the goals of delivering projects and
applications, but their methods often seem at cross-purposes. Developers want as little process
as possible, while PMOs appear to thrive on it. Developers consider PMOs to be bureaucratic
impediments to their creativity, while PMOs see developers as undisciplined. Project managers,
attempting to satisfy both the development team and the PMO, get caught in the crosshairs. Being at
opposite ends of the spectrum creates conflict, and teams are doing little to remove the contention.
All teams deliver value in the right context, and neither institution is going to go away anytime soon,
which begs the question: “How do we all get along?”

The Problems Are Quite Clear
While developers, project managers, and the PMO have common goals, their methods and
audiences differ. We see that:

· Developers seek to meet the needs of their project stakeholders and customers. Developers
see the day-to-day ebb and flow of a project and have intimate knowledge of status changes.
They’re aware of how scope or technical changes may affect delivery dates, and they know how
to work through them.

· PMOs must satisfy multiple sets of stakeholders. Executives and multiple project stakeholders
look to the PMO for information. While some PMOs have hands-on project managers, many
are not involved in daily project management but need to be able to compare and report
progress on multiple projects. They look to standards in reporting to provide confidence in their
project portfolio’s status.

· Project managers get stuck in the middle. They must manage dates, progress, and expectations.
Good project managers seek to remove the barriers that affect their teams, but if they are
dealing with unrealistic expectations, they find this impossible to manage. The customers and
sponsors want what they want when they want it, and organizations incent project managers to
meet their needs, regardless of the politics above or the chaos below.

FORRESTER IDENTIFIES THE PROBLEMS AND HOW TO FIX THEM
Collaboration between PMOs, developers, and project managers can improve the current state,
but organizations need to understand the core problems before they can outline how to fix them.
Forrester and the Project Management Institute (PMI) recently hosted a survey on the state of the
PMO. Its findings indicate that if organizations address a few of today’s PMOs’ key challenges, they
can build a more collaborative and productive delivery organization.1

August 3, 2011 © 2011, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

The PMO In An Agile World: Can’t We All Just Get Along? 3

Problem No. 1: PMOs Focus Too Narrowly — And Too Traditionally
According to the survey, PMOs support a limited set of methodologies. Not surprisingly, traditional
project management outweighs other practices, which highlights a disquieting disconnect between
what application development professionals need to be successful and what PMO leaders strive to
deliver (see Figure 1). Today’s PMOs:

· Continue to favor the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). Seventy-six
percent of survey respondents whose PMO focuses on methodology development indicated that
their PMO supports the PMBOK as a primary methodology. While the PMBOK is a framework
of practices adaptable to a variety of situations and needs, its use most frequently indicates
traditional planning practices, especially in immature PMOs.2

· Question or don’t fully understand Agile practices. Only one-third of respondents currently
support Agile, Scrum, or Lean practices. If the PMO fails to support these modern practices,
though project managers may manage to the critical path, they may fail to control scope
through continuous evaluation of what needs to be in scope for the team to deliver a successful
outcome.

Figure 1 Today’s PMOs Fail To Adequately Support Modern Methods

“What is the focus of your PMO?”
(“Methodology development”)

PMBOK 76%

Waterfall 40%

Scrum/Agile/Lean 33%

Base: 482 PMO professionals who have a PMO with a focus on methodology development
(multiple responses accepted)

Source: Forrester/PMI April 2011 Global Project Management Office Online Survey
58511 Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

The Fix: Broaden Your PMO’s Horizons
Today, PMOs must look beyond traditional and critical-path-based practices to recognize and
incorporate changes to development practices. PMOs must look at more than just project planning;
they must also integrate development and test activities to manage the continual change inherent in
Agile and Lean practices. The PMO should:

© 2011, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited August 3, 2011


· Update industry practices. There’s no reason to be behind the times. In 2011, the PMI will
introduce an Agile project management professional (PMP) certification.3 To work toward
updating the PMBOK, it has also formed an Agile council to examine how Agile best practices
align with the PMBOK framework. The updated framework will provide management and
reporting methods that support more-iterative development practices while still providing
information the PMO needs to manage consistent, standard practices.

· Solicit development input. Both the PMO and development teams want to succeed.
Development organizations may balk at what they perceive as needless administrative overhead,
but there are ways to create information that meets both sides’ needs. Organizations should
consider adopting application development management tools or Agile project management
tools to enable developers to work in their familiar environment while still delivering necessary
data for PMO status reporting.

Problem No. 2: Lack Of Trust
According to the survey, the biggest challenges PMOs cite in working with project managers relate
to trust and honesty (see Figure 2). Based on survey responses:

· Fifty-eight percent of respondents think they don’t get realistic information from their
PMs. Project managers (PMs) don’t want to deliver a negative status report. So when they lack
the authority to control scope or get appropriate support from project stakeholders, they often
sugar-coat project status so the reports don’t show the project’s real situation.

· Forty-eight percent of respondents cite PMs who struggle to manage realistic delivery cycles.
Poor communication strategies and the inability to manage sponsor expectations contribute to
unrealistic delivery cycles. Project managers may not feel like they can say no, or they may lack
mature estimation practices that would help them build a realistic release plan.

· Forty percent of respondents report that PMs don’t leverage PMO advisory support. A key
PMO responsibility is providing support to project managers to help them rescue troubled
projects. Unfortunately, if project managers don’t report status honestly or reach out to the PMO,
there is little the PMO can do to support them. Conversely, if the PMO doesn’t extend itself to
offer help to PMs, it is viewed as an administrative function that brings no real support or value.



Figure 2 PMOs And Project Managers Must Learn To Trust Each Other

“What are the challenges faced by your PMO when working with project managers?”
(PMO located in the IT/IS group)

Getting realistic status information 58%
from project managers

Managing through realistic delivery cycles 48%

Providing adequate advisory support for troubled 40%
projects
Communicating the strategic intent and expected 38%
beneﬁts of projects
Providing adequate tooling support for project 35%
teams

Other 12%

Base: 217 PMO professionals who have their PMO located in the IT/IS group


The Fix: PMOs Have To Take The First Step To Build Trust
To fix the trust issue, the PMO must set the tone and try to bring project managers into the fold.
PMOs must hold themselves up as a support center and a center of excellence that helps — not
censures — project managers. To solve the trust issues that abound today, PMOs must:

· Create a safe environment for project managers. PMO team members see project status reports,
and they know which projects are in trouble. When they see projects go from green to yellow,
PMO methodology managers or internal consultants can — and should — find out why a project
is behind schedule or over budget. They can offer support and provide project checkpoints to
help navigate rough project waters. Often valid reasons diffuse concerns, but if there are real
problems, the PMO should support project managers and help them reset sponsor expectations.

· Access project management expertise via communities of practice (CoPs). CoPs are not
only a way to share best practices; PMOs can also leverage them to fix problems with current
practices.4 When that happens, everybody wins. Project managers feel like they have a stake in
the game, and they are more likely to contribute because they realize the benefits. PMOs can use
the exercise to build more-pragmatic, more-useful best practices and processes.

· Get executive support for transparency. Building trust is a two-way street; PMOs can bring
collaboration and safe environments to the table, but project managers also have to sign on



and agree to honest reporting. Executives must provide top-down support for transparency.
Executives cannot panic and point fingers when they see yellow or red traffic signals on their
dashboards. Instead, everyone involved should look for the information behind the indicators.
That is where the true value lies.

Problem No. 3: PMOs Are Too Busy To Be Strategic
PMOs work best when they provide strategic support, offering advisory assistance, education, and
training and working to keep constraints to a minimum. Unfortunately, most PMOs don’t have
this luxury (see Figure 3). The average PMO size is about seven full-time employees (FTEs), and
managing projects takes critical time away from more-strategic activities, such as supporting project
teams and building support systems for project managers.5 Our survey shows that most PMOs don’t
focus where they should:

· Seventy-five percent of surveyed PMOs do hands-on project management. This, combined
with a strong emphasis on traditional practices, indicates that today’s PMOs are out of step
with the teams they are supporting. According to the Forrester/Dr. Dobb’s Global Developer
Technographics® Survey, Q3 2009, 35% of organizations are leveraging Agile development and
another 21% are using iterative processes, but many PMOs don’t support those methodologies.6
Even though about 70% of the PMOs in our survey focus on methodology development, if their
staff members are fighting fires in day-to-day project management, they probably lack the vision
and time needed to strategically augment the methodologies they support.

· Fewer than half of the PMOs in our survey focus on practices that increase competency.
Splitting focus between tactical and strategic processes means that neither side is getting
sufficient attention. Today, PMOs are focusing on getting the job done, not committing resources
to extend current frameworks and training that can help teams work together more effectively.

· Resource management practices vary. If PMOs don’t have insight into demand or have a hand
in how resources are allocated to projects, they cannot prevent key resources from being pulled
off of projects. In addition, if PMOs don’t have insight into actual effort versus estimated effort,
trust between PMOs and project managers becomes more difficult to build and sustain.

· Only half of surveyed PMOs think they are the conduit for project-related information.
PMOs can’t improve the situation without sufficient communication about and visibility into
current status. Without sufficient communication, teams cannot build the trust needed to
collaborate and build the appropriate practices to support both Agile and traditional practices.



Figure 3 PMOs Don’t Focus Enough On Strategic Practices

“What is the focus of your PMO?”
(PMO located in the IT/IS group)

Project management 75%

Project governance 75%

Methodology development 72%

Reporting 68%

Portfolio management 60%

Program management 58%
Project management information resource
for organization 56%

Project management maturity 43%

Practitioner competency development 40%

Training 39%

Resource forecasting 38%

Resource allocation 31%

Service management 13%
Placing greater emphasis on
strategic support removes
Maintenance management 9%
barriers and creates trust.
Other 7%

Base: 217 PMO professionals who have their PMO located in the IT/IS group


The Fix: Get Out Of The Weeds And Build Bench Strength
PMOs must shift their focus from tactical execution practices to a strategic level that emphasizes
outlining what project teams do and developing practices to support them. PMO team members
performing hands-on project management is not a bad thing, because it provides them with a view
through the eyes of the project managers they support. It can be harmful, however, if the PMO lacks
sufficient staff to manage projects, support project governance, and improve practices. PMOs should:



· Shift focus to building proficient skills. PMOs must place greater attention on practices that
build project management ability. They must integrate the practices development teams use into
the governance practices necessary for successful project delivery. This may mean less hands-on
project management — especially if the PMO runs lean.

· Step back and let development leaders do what they need to do. If you have a small PMO and
you are responsible for managing projects in addition to traditional PMO activities, something
has to give — especially when development projects depend on lean project management. Talk
to development leads to set common ground for communicating status and to determine the
necessary measures to communicate resource needs. Then step back and take your hands off.

· Change communication techniques. PMOs should take a page out of the Lean playbook
and use different ways of communicating information that everyone can live with. Kanban
dashboards can work at both a portfolio and a project level because they emphasize the flow of
projects, providing clear, concise information about what’s coming, what’s in progress, and what
is being deployed.7

W H AT I T M E A N S

THE PMO AND AGILE TEAMS CAN GET ALONG  BUT BOTH SIDES HAVE TO GIVE
Agile teams and PMOs may appear to be moving at different speeds, but they can work together
effectively if both sides look at the bigger picture. Agile is here to stay. PMOs are learning that they
need to adapt to remain relevant, and Agile teams are learning that they need to see the bigger
picture. PMOs, project managers, and developers can change the playing field by:

· Learning new communication strategies. Both sides must adapt to different methods.
PMOs and project managers need to establish strategies that foster trust and open
communication. This means that PMOs need to take a step back to consider the content
behind statuses and garner executive support to require transparency in reporting.
· Recognizing that they can’t be jacks of all trades — specialization is important. PMOs
mired in the muck of project management cannot provide sufficient governance and training
support, and PMOs cannot handle hands-on project management without sufficient staffing.
In today’s world, not every project is — or should be — managed by formal project managers.
Building tools to support nontraditional project managers helps reduce the crunch.
· Using the best-practice information out there. Industry best practices are changing to
adapt to broader delivery practices. PMOs must stay up to date in order to fold in practices
that support all types of development and delivery practices.



SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Methodology
Forrester conducted its Forrester/PMI April 2011 Global Project Management Office Online Survey
as a web survey hosted by the Project Management Institute; PMI released the survey to the PMI
Program Management Office Community of Practice, and 693 PMO leaders responded. The leaders
answered questions about their organizations, methods, and challenges. The survey was fielded from
April 2011 to May 2011. Respondent incentives included a summary of the survey results.

Exact sample sizes are provided in this report on a question-by-question basis. Panels are not
guaranteed to be representative of the population. Unless otherwise noted, statistical data is
intended to be used for descriptive and not inferential purposes.

ENDNOTES
1
Forrester Research and the Project Management Institute (PMI) recently hosted a survey regarding the
state of the project management office (PMO) in 2011. The survey garnered 693 respondents, and the
results show that today’s PMOs are tasked with significant challenges but also possess great opportunities to
become a strategic part of a business’ delivery process. See the August 3, 2011, “The State Of The PMO In
2011” report.
2
PMBOK and Agile practices actually align quite well, and using both together can help organizations build
a flexible process that has the necessary controls to manage stakeholder expectations. See the January 22,
2009, “The PMBOK And Agile: Friends Or Foes?” report.
3
The PMI plans to introduce the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certification in the third
quarter of 2011. Source: Project Management Institute (http://www.pmi.org).
4
Transformational PMOs often deploy CoPs to use their expertise and leverage peer collaboration to solve
specific project management problems. See the April 8, 2011, “Are You Ready To Transform Your PMO?”
report.
5
PM Solutions’ latest survey about PMOs shows that the average staffing size of PMOs is seven FTEs. Source:
“The State of the PMO 2010: A PM Solutions Research Report,” Project Management Solutions (http://www.
pmsolutions.com/collateral/research/State%20of%20the%20PMO%202010%20Research%20Report.pdf).
6
Agile development is rapidly becoming a significant force in development methodology. See the January 20,
2010, “Agile Development: Mainstream Adoption Has Changed Agility” report.
7
Kanban provides organizations with ways of optimizing how projects progress through various phases from
inception to deployment. See the March 25, 2011, “Why Kanban Matters” report.


Making Leaders Successful Every Day

Headquarters Research and Sales Offices
Forrester Research, Inc. Forrester has research centers and sales offices in more than 27 cities
400 Technology Square internationally, including Amsterdam; Cambridge, Mass.; Dallas; Dubai;
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA Foster City, Calif.; Frankfurt; London; Madrid; Sydney; Tel Aviv; and Toronto.
Tel: +1 617.613.6000
Fax: +1 617.613.5000 For a complete list of worldwide locations
visit www.forrester.com/about.
Email: forrester@forrester.com
Nasdaq symbol: FORR
www.forrester.com

For information on hard-copy or electronic reprints, please contact Client Support
at +1 866.367.7378, +1 617.613.5730, or clientsupport@forrester.com.
We offer quantity discounts and special pricing for academic and nonprofit institutions.

Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR)
is an independent research company
that provides pragmatic and forward-
thinking advice to global leaders in
business and technology. Forrester
works with professionals in 19 key roles
at major companies providing
proprietary research, customer insight,
consulting, events, and peer-to-peer
executive programs. For more than 27
years, Forrester has been making IT,
marketing, and technology industry
leaders successful every day. For more
information, visit www.forrester.com.

58511

Pmo in an agile world

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Dernier

Dernier (20)

En vedette

En vedette (20)

Pmo in an agile world