Realizing the value of Agile in an Offshore PMO Setup

Realizing the value of Agile in an
Offshore PMO Setup

Document type: Insights
Date:18th September, 2012
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed here are mine and does not reflect the Firm’s outlook in any
case

Gurpreet Singh

Contents

▪ PMO – A Few Insights

▪ What is a PMO?

▪ PMO & PMO Types

▪ PMO Types – Comparative View

▪ The Need of OffShore PMO

▪ Why OffShore PMO Model?

▪ What does the OffShore PMO do?

▪ Stumble blocks for OffShore PMO

▪ Agile & OffShore PMO

Realizing the value of Offshore PMO |

PMO – A Few Insights

Most large-scale transformation programs do not succeed, mainly driven by inadequate
governance and poor planning

Large Programs Success Rates Why Projects / Programs Fail

Others
Successful Poor
Technical Problems Organization
11%
16% 4% and Project
Problems with Suppliers Management
4%
36%
Practices
Insufficient Project
10%
53% Personnel Resources

31%
15%

20%
Cancelled
Ineffective Project
Under Perform Planning

Poorly Defined or
Missing Project
Objectives

Source: Standish Group International, Survey from 2500 personnel attending project management training

What is a PMO?

An organizational body …
assigned various responsibilities related to the centralized and
coordinated management of those projects under it’s domain.

There in no such thing as a
“universal solution”

To be effective, a PMO must be tailored to your
organisation‘s project types, management/staff
capabilities, and organisation culture


PMO & PMO Types

Project Management Office- Project Management Offices are typically setup for large
projects where they help the project managers in collecting timesheets, collating status
reports and financial data, tracking deliverables, coordinating issues and risks etc.

Program Management Office - Program Management Offices are generally setup at
Program level where there are several projects running under a program. Program
Management Offices support program managers, project managers and project teams.

Portfolio Management Office - Portfolio Management Offices are generally setup at
Department/Business unit level to ensure the Department/Business unit projects are
aligned to overall enterprise business objectives.


PMO Types – Comparative View

* PROJECTS PROGRAMS PORTFOLIOS

Scope Projects have defined Programs have a large Portfolios have a
objectives. Scope is scope and provide more business scope that
progressively elaborated significant benefits. changes with the
throughout the project life strategic goals of the
cycle. organization.

Change The PMO expects change The PMO must expect The PMO continually
and implement processes change from both inside monitors changes in the
to keep change managed and outside the program broad environment.
and controlled. and be prepared to
manage it.

Planning He progressively He develops the overall He creates and
elaborates high-level program plan and create maintains necessary
information into detailed high-level plans to guide processes and
plans throughout the detailed planning at the communication relative
project life cycle. component level. to the aggregate
portfolio.


The Need of OffShore PMO
1. Many PMOs operating at department level, program, and project level are started
with a bottom up approach to tackle issues at the program, and project level.
Therefore these types of PMOs often lack strategic alignment.

2. Traditional PMOs in large organizations or PMOs dispersed geographically in a
global organization often work in silos.

3. Traditional PMOs are many times not involved in overall Demand Management
at the organizational level. Therefore it’s often difficult to forecast the demand
pipeline for a multiyear horizon.

4. Traditional PMOs, because of their department level, program and project level
operations are many at times unable to present the big picture while reporting to
the enterprise leadership. Enterprise leadership wants to see consolidated
reports for the enterprise wide programs in a way that they do not get lost in
details and yet are able to take critical decisions based on the reports.
Under such conditions, the organization will require a centralized group/function to standardize
PMO operations across the organization.

5. Projects running with traditional PMOs may not have visibility at the top executive
level and therefore lack leadership buy-in. A business function in the form of
Offshore PMO can not only provide this information to the leadership in real time but also
provides leadership buy-in for enterprise wide projects.


Why OffShore PMO Model?

The organizations especially that have global presence or having multiple
business units are moving towards such structure that will allow them to overcome the
challenges listed in the last slide.

Therefore these organizations are creating a business function that is referred to as
OffShore PM.


What does the OffShore PMO do?

- OffShore PM is a centralized business function which operates at strategic level with the
enterprise executives and provides enterprise wide support on governance, project portfolio
management best practices, mentoring, tools and standardized processes.

- He ensures strategic alignment between business objectives and projects executed. He does
not eliminate the need for Project, Program or Department level PMOs. Organizations having
an OffShore and traditional PMOs get the right things done the right way.

- Act as a unifying point for the offshore team for the single program, as otherwise these will
become fragmented entities with no synergy.

- Act as a central contact point for contract related issues, non-disclosure agreements for
employees, employee travel, data protection agreements, employee re-assignments across
projects, performance appraisals etc.,

Also, the Offshore PMO carries a helicopter view of the activities of PMO, e.g.:



a) Resource Allocation

The helicopter view!



b) Creating Templates & documentation




c) Choice of Project Managers




d) Prioritization & streamlining processes

No PMO situation:
This leads to seizures, delays,
insufficient resources,
collisions, …
--------------------------------------------------------

PMO lays down the roadmap, sets up the Preffered way,
leads to better Turn around time, could prevent teams
from overloading and reassures a smooth execution of
the projects



Stumble blocks for OffShore PMO

a) Cultural Differences

b) Time zone differences

c) Language Barriers

d) Standardization across the departments
within the organization


Agile & OffShore PMO

So what should we do to minimize these stumble blocks?

Agile – the new methodology which has revolutionized the IT Industry is
very effective in solving “offshore” problems

>> Lets have a look at Agile manifesto:


Scrum – The vanilla flavor of Agile
The Scrum Team is comprised of three Scrum Roles


Scrum – The vanilla flavor of Agile
How Scrum works?



So where does the OffShore PMO fit into Scrum?



• Features laid out on index
cards as per overall release
Plan

• Card colors identify agile
Teams

• Labels identify dependent
Teams

• Rows track feature streams

• Columns track sprints/
timeline

Project Alignment Wall ->> Agile Kanban – Visual interpretation of Lean



Agile Kanban – Visual interpretation of Lean


Web Based Tools / Techniques

a) Mingle / Scrummy/ Atlassian / Online Kanban walls

b) JIRA / SVN / Github for Subversion of files

c) Webex / Video conference calls

d) Onsite visits

These tools /technique solves the problems caused due to geographic /timezone issues


Bibliography

http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com

http://www.cutter.com

http://www.slideshare.net

http://www.scrumshortcuts.com

http://www.wikipedia.org

http://jeffsutherland.com

http://www.readperiodicals.com

http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/

http://www.leadinganswers.typepad.com


Thank you


Realizing the value of Agile in an Offshore PMO Setup

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