Beyond process and procedures – Great PMO behaviours

Change is a team activity. No one individual, function or department can go it alone. Everyone in the team has their own personality, motivations, values and abilities. The team coming together to deliver on the common goals of the change portfolio is critical for success.

It’s rather obvious that PMO should have the right tools, techniques and processes to support the organisation achieve its strategic goals but having these alone won’t make your PMO great. A great PMO will have the right behaviours to bring value to the delivery of change and your whole organisation.

Behaviour is a key driver in performance for both the individual and the team.

The best delivery processes, templates and tools will be of no value if they’re not utilised by the team. If the PMO isn’t using the right behaviours you risk the delivery teams rejecting the governance, control and value your PMO can bring, taking you back to a chaotic change world of inconsistency in delivery, unreliability in information and disappointment in outcomes. If PMO isn’t actively engaged and supporting delivery, you risk creating a dis-connected, silo-ed cottage industry of administration which won’t help you on your change journey.

It’s not just what they do, it’s how they do it

Great PMO is a powerful partner to your change and a critical part of your delivery function. PMO are the experts in the controlled delivery of change which will help you realise value for the business. Whether operating at Project, Programme or Portfolio levels your PMO will need the right behaviours to be effective, and help you make the most of your changes. Here are some of the most important behaviours for your PMO:

Proactive Delivery Expertise

Great PMO can’t be picked up from a book. It requires real delivery knowledge and experience to know what works and what doesn’t, to know what matters and what’s unnecessary. With the right real-world delivery experience and expertise your PMO will be able to support and enable every part of your change portfolio.

Strong PMO isn’t just PM-lite, it performs a different function and operates in a different way to deliver value. Without experts in PMO, burdensome processes proliferate, the administrative overhead grows and the value of PMO plummets. If the PMO you work with has been created out of a team which has never really ‘done’ delivery, maybe because it has been seen as a ‘stretch’ for a skilled administrator, or an easy route into delivery management for a junior resource, your PMO is on the fast track to administration.

By knowing what’s coming, common challenges, pitfalls and likely issues experienced PMO keep ahead of the curve. The proactive PMO will already have that slide deck created, they’ve already picked up the left-field requests, they’ve already closed the emerging problems before they even get to you. Experienced, proactive PMO experts will maximise the value of their time and yours for the delivery of real change.

Critical Friend & Coach

Great PMO can often be thought of as a ‘critical friend’ – sat on your shoulder questioning things. PMO isn’t about nit-picking or pointing out mistakes, that’s a fast-track route to being ignored and having a disengaged change team and PMO. A PMO being your critical friend means PMO being your trusted adviser, the people who you know you can go to for guidance or even just a sounding board whenever needed to talk through a delivery challenge.

Sometimes, inevitably in the day-to-day of change things can be overlooked. We are all only human, and there are only so many hours in the day. Your PMO should be protecting the delivery from these misses. By looking over the whole change, not just at today’s problems, PMO will be making sure the right, appropriate governance rules and standards are being followed. They will make sure that you don’t trip over any missed steps or actions, just like a great friend.

PMO shouldn’t just be that friend for you, they will also coach, guide and where needed critique the leaders in your teams, helping them to reach the right standards of governance or giving them tools and techniques to be more effective.

Cutting through the noise

We know delivery is difficult, busy, and often frenetic. There are many demands on delivery leads’ time and attention. An effective PMO will help your change teams to focus on what matters by cutting through the noise.

With the hundreds of asks and demands to keep change moving coming across leaders’ desks, it’s easy to get side-tracked. PMO will take away the noise. Often in the background they will be prioritising what matters, and closing all the asks which sap your time. Great PMO will also be looking beyond the every-day. Using their experience, analysis and insight PMO will be scanning the horizon for the next potential challenges, asking the questions no one else is, and worrying about the obstacles no one else thinking about. They will help you to focus on what matters today, and plan ahead for challenges which are not even on the radar yet which really needs some attention.

Great PMO allows you to get through the noise and focus on what really matters and to maximise the value you can bring to delivery.

Adaptable Partner

There is not a one size fits all for PMO. In your organisation PMO might be supporting delivery teams on the ground, management teams or strategic leadership. Your PMO will need to be adaptable to give the right support for the different aspects of your change. At different points in the change lifecycle there will be different needs, challenges and obstacles. PMO will adapt both their style and their support to help you operate with the greatest effect.

Adaptability in PMO isn’t just about processes, but also about how the team is supported, guided and value created. Some team members may need more coaching and support, others may need more freedom because of an unusual situation. Great PMO will adapt to these situations while keeping delivery on course, by knowing what works for real deliveries, and how to tailor required processes for each situation. With an adaptable PMO, your change teams will be able to thrive and not feel PMO is an overhead or burden.

Savy Problem Solver

You should never get a ‘computer says no’ response from a great PMO. You should always be able to call on help from your PMO and that help should maximise value for the delivery teams and your organisations investment in change.

Every challenge the change faces can be part of the PMOs scope. They can get into a problem, fix it, coach the team to build capability, and get out again, onto the next challenge. Powerful PMO isn’t isolated, or waiting for the next reporting round, it is helping you drive delivery every day.

Fountain of Knowledge and Information

Having a strong, engaged PMO who partner with you will mean they are the nexus of change information. With their eyes and ears open every day, constantly capturing information, developing analysis and insights to guide the team and to enable decision makers to make the right calls.

Being the fountain of knowledge is beyond compiling and reading status reports – PMO will be visualising information, surfacing key messages and telling the story behind the data. Working closely with delivery teams they’ll be able to look beyond the report and really understand what’s happening in your change. They’ll be using their experience to spot trends and early signs of problems to serve the change leadership.

Bringing the right technical skills, controls and governance with the right behaviours your PMO will be a powerful change partner. They’ll help you to deliver effectively across Projects, Programmes and your Portfolio maximising the value of your change investment.

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