The situation
A company’s IT management wanted to understand the work of its project and programme managers, and find ways to make them more effective. Its project management office (PMO) oversaw close to 40 project and programme managers running over 200 projects, a total of 46,000 person-days of effort.
There were warning signs: monthly planning accuracy (Planned Percent Complete) was 80%, and project management cost 29% of total project effort, against a market norm of 15%.
The approach
We ran workshops with a representative group of project and programme managers and the PMO manager to:
- Map how projects were actually delivered.
- Review current project performance and challenges.
- Capture improvement opportunities and set priorities.
- Compare what the PMO did with what it was designed to do.
The delivery process was documented, but it was not shared or followed consistently across the projects.
The measured result
- Unclear roles and responsibilities, and inefficiency of more than 25% in how the process ran.
- Planned against actual effort was not actively managed, and work was shared out informally among project managers.
The recommendations the PMO took forward:
- Clear roles and responsibilities for everyone in project delivery.
- Project managers estimate their own work with standard templates.
- A reasonable expectation for project management effort, against a benchmark of 15% to 20%.
- Stalled or on-hold projects shown accurately in resource planning and time recording.
- Monthly and quarterly planning reviews between project managers and technology teams, supported by reference dashboards.