The PPSOSIG conference in Birmingham yesterday set out to examine the new P3O guidance. P3O is the Portfolio, Programme and Project Office guidance from the OGC and has been the first major development in the area of programme offices for over a decade (many of us remember the launch of PPSO from David Marsh that went on the spawn the ISEB examination called ISEB PPSO)
I’ve been looking forward to attending this conference for two main reasons, firstly I was interested to see how it has been received and perceived by the community and secondly if there were areas in P3O that may fall down when practitioners were faced with its implementation.
For people who might not be aware the PPSOSIG is an independent voluntary group that specialises in Programme and Project Support Offices and conferences in the past are all about the advancement of this discipline in the field of programme and project management. The PPSOSIG is proud of the fact that it doesn’t align itself to any one professional body or accreditation outfit and therefore can feel free to bring different research, opinions, views and a diverse mix of presenters in one conference.
The Spring conference, however, concentrated on one topic, P3O. P3O has been well received by most PMO professionals out there and many have welcomed a guidance that brings together all the thought leadership that existed out there in one place. The guidance has been perceived as a “body of knowledge” as opposed to a instruction manual on how to set up and maintain a PMO. This approach has been welcomed by many, particularly because we all know how organisations differ from one another therefore there was never going to be an instruction manual that fits all the scenarios.
The conference kicked off with Sue Vowler, the lead author of P3O, if you’ve not seen Sue’s presentation yet it’s available here. There will also be an update on the PPSOSIG conference website too (I’ve just got to finish doing it!), there was also a presentation from Craig Kilford on Portfolio Management, Craig wrote the new guidance for OGC and gave the delegates much food for thought, here’s Craig’s presentation if you’ve not yet seen that one (and yes that’s where he wrote it).
Now there were two “noises” from the conference over these two presentations, firstly Sue’s insistence that the word “support” be dropped from the field of Portfolio, Programme and Project Offices. Indeed banning these two words when seen together – “project” and “support” left some of the audience feeling a little prickly. For many people working within this field that’s what they’re called and ultimately that’s what they do, they have a job of supporting projects and that’s what their senior managers want them to do. I think this is going to run and run, in fact one of the delegate’s question was; “if our PMO was to remove the support or administrative support elements of what we do – where do we move it to?” Good question but no real solutions other than trying to convince senior manager’s that it should be moved to another function within the business …. which screams another overhead to me!
The other murmur was around portfolio management, Craig gave a thought provoking presentation and insisted that portfolio management cannot be carried out in an organisation without a portfolio office, so far so good. He also said that portfolio management implementation does depend very much on an organisation’s maturity (and that’s where P3M3 entered stage left) and I think for many delegate’s PMOs (not all mind you!) this is getting into a very different territory altogether. But that’s the point, in order to really advance the practice of PMOs in organisations and really make a difference to the bottom line of the business as opposed to just the project delivery, areas such as portfolio management need to be more than just a pipe dream.
I for one, can’t wait to see what happens next and which organisation’s take this stuff by the scruff of the neck and make it happen for them
Finally, we had the P3O accredited course “P3O Foundation” which for many people familar with PRINCE2 Foundation will know exactly what to expect if you forked out for P3O Foundation. AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM… PMO professionals feel a little short changed with this and asked the question “why should I bother obtaining the Foundation level qualification because what value does it really give me?” There will always be people who take these courses and examinations as proof of their professionalism but the problem with these OGC courses and examinations is that they don’t actually prove anything. Anyone can pick up the P3O manual, read it, sit an exam and pass it. There is no call for assessment, no evidence needed of practical experiences and skills just an ability to pass a multiple choice exam. OGC and APM Group are lazy and need to rethink the whole approach to P3O accreditation instead of sitting back and taking the easy option and making the easy money.
Great bang with the guidance P3O, shame about the fizzle of accreditation
