There are always two sides to every story. On one hand a Traditional PMO looks at an Agile team and sees a bunch of outlaws with no regard for the rules and no respect for authority. But to an Agile Team, a PMO looks old fashioned enforcing unnecessary process and stifling creativity. The truth is not all Agile teams are delivering well with mature agile disciplines, and not all PMOs have got the memo that there’s a new methodology in town. And this is how we’ve created this Mexican standoff between the PMO and Agile Teams, but I want to show you that there is a way to put those guns down. I have been using Agile in Portfolio Delivery for some time now and created an Agile PMO. I found that too often PMOs have forgotten why they exist and get caught up in the busy day to day activities rather than thinking about how to add value to the greater good of the enterprise. In this talk we’ll look at a day in the life of the Agile PMO and how to create a People’s PMO in place of a police state. I will show you how the PMO can actually help your Agile journey, bringing agile concepts to Portfolio Management, Governance and the Business Metrics conversation. Then we’ll look into the future and see what the PMO function looks in an Agile Enterprise Ecosystem – but fair warning amigos, you won’t find the letters P, M or O in it.

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How to disarm the Mexican standoff:
PMO vs Agile Team
Gendry Morales
Principal Consultant

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a normal sentence
Agile PMO
.
the full
stop

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MY JOURNEY

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Let’s talk about the
standoff

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40% of people said Rigid/Waterfall Framework a
barrier to further Agile adoption.
State of Agile Survey 2016

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Following the process is most important,that’s what we get
audited on.
You must submit comprehensive mandatory
documentation – the more pages the better.
Stakeholders must sign off your documents and committees must
approve your funding before you proceed.
Following the plan, within the prescribedtolerance band, meeting
time/cost is the most important.You will be punished if you want to
change the plan, going through change variationprocesses and additional
committees togain approval
And good luck with this whole Agile thing
Is this the Manifesto for the PMO?

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… now it’s time to grow up

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shake it off… shake it off

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Value of a PMO?
…respondents from high-performing organizations report saving their
organizations an average of US$186,000 per project and improving their
alignment of projects with business objectives a whopping 53%...
State of the PMO 2014
A capability to
optimise strategic
investment across
your Portfolio
Helps teams
better align to
strategy, prioritise
and meet business
objectives.

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Connecting delivery with
Strategy
Prioritisation models and
demand management
Investment Allocation to support
strategic priorities
Providing delivery expertise,
coaching & training
Methods, tools and process
Managing through execution
Reporting and analysis of:
performance, benefits, finance
and risk to name a few
Review and reflection
Governance structures
Decision making
Continual improvement &
learning
PMO

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DO THE RIGHT THING
Collaborative prioritisation and Value Stream design
Lightweight feasibility and analysis
Determine level of investment, capacity based
funding aligned and dynamic budgeting
Flow based demand management, capacity
matching early on to avoid over utilisation

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Enabling emergent practice, balancing need for
consistency and methodology where appropriate
Removing blockers and dependencies
Enabling better teams through coaching, enabling
learning culture, agile games and sharing new
methods through cross pollination of knowledge
DO THE THING RIGHT

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Gemba and engagement over reports
Evidence based measurement and demos over
progess against a plan
Value and benefits velocity, progress against sprint
goals
Use measures to learn and to adapt
MEASURE

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Retro of retros, improving the system.
From stage gate governance to decision making
on the timebox
Empower teams, decentralise decisions
Don’t govern the “how”, provide the vision and
goal and set the minimum constraints
LEARN & ACT

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THE FUTURE

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Combining capability functions. Enabling
PMO
Strategy
Business
Planning
Change
Management
Culture

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A touch of
PMO
A touch of
PMO
A touch of
PMO
A touch of
PMO
Embedded in Product Lines & teams

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Old Fashioned
Project Management Office

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It’s not really a standoff, it’s not a
methodology war, it’s a new
challenge.

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Can you Agile
your PMO?

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GO AHEAD,
MAKE MY DAY

26. Gendry Morales
Thank you!