Um, so, uh, so thanks everybody for joining.
Uh, we'll get going in just a second.
Um, and, uh, uh, I, I guess we'll let everybody, uh,
on the call introduce themselves, uh, both the audience
and, um, and the, the crew on screen here.
Um, if you've been to any of our webinars
before, you'll, you'll know that we like them to be rowdy.
We like people to participate, to jump onto the chat,
to give feedback, to ask questions, to agree
or disagree with the speakers.
Um, it makes it much more interesting for us
and hopefully makes it more interesting for you as well.
If, if you are, um, uh, if you are engaged and, and,
and, uh, joining in.
So do not be shy, right?
The reason I get everybody to, to introduce yourselves is
so you, you get the chat window open
and it's there ready for, for when you jump on there.
Um, uh, so my name's Stuart Easton from Transparent Choice.
We've, we've got David Dunning
and Dan deas, uh, who will introduce themselves in a second.
Um, uh,
but what we're, what we're gonna do today is,
is have something a little bit special, um,
looking at sort of business integrated governance.
So you've probably seen in the invitation,
and so on the little acronym, BIG,
business Integrated Governance.
Um, this is a concept that, that David's kind of championed
and whipped into life through an effort
of sheer will force, uh, willpower.
I have to say, David, he is been ruthlessly whipping a whole
bunch of us to, to get us to contribute and to help build.
And, um, just last week, last week, was it last week, week
before we, we actually physically got our hands on a copy
of the Big B.
There it is, the big B, the body of Knowledge.
Um, so, and there you go. Dan's got his out as well.
So, um, so we thought we would celebrate the launch
of the Big B, uh, with this webinar.
So with that, I, I, my job here today is really just
to make fun of everybody else.
Uh, so it's an easy one for me.
So with that, uh, Dan, why don't you introduce yourself
and then you, we'll do a little bit
of a Bridget Jones moment here.
I'll introduce you, you introduce David.
Fabulous. There you go. We've got slide and everything,
but, uh, so I'm down.
I look after Custom Success Partners
and things here at Transparent Choice.
Um, occasionally write the odd blog,
appear on the odd webinar and,
and generally, uh, make it nuisance of myself.
So, um, yeah, I'll, I'll be here to, to help, I guess, show
how prioritization can kind of slot into big.
So we, we've tried to sort of highlight, if you like,
what we think is an important common ground, um, between
what we do and, and, and what, what and what
and sort of framework that David's developed.
Um, talking of which David, um,
why don't you introduce yourself and, and your framework?
Uh, well, I'm, I'm David.
Um, uh, the big framework, I must, uh, be clear.
It's, it's not mine. It's, um, it's been, uh, it's owned
by a community interest company called, uh,
the Business integrated governance, CIC.
It's been developed with inputs from over 138 people.
Uh, there's a couple of, uh, contributors on the call.
Uh, Pam, for example, was instrumental in a, uh, uh, uh,
creating the, the, the product perspective on all this.
Um, so I, I'm, I'm, uh, uh, uh, leading the charge, uh,
in the, uh, business integrated governance community
interest company that develops that knowledge.
And I'm also, uh, uh, a, a member of, of Deep Team,
which is a, a professional services company
that helps organizations, uh, make, make best use of it.
Um, so we've, we've, we've got a couple of perspectives and,
and, uh, I, I think they're very two very interesting
perspectives, which, um,
hopefully the material we present today will, will, uh,
will be really interesting from,
from, uh, from both those points.
Very good. David, I think you're driving, uh, for now.
Yes. Um, well, um, EE everyone loves a bit
of motherhood and apple pie.
So, uh, I guess the, these are some, uh, fundamental beliefs
that I think will, will drive, uh,
what we're gonna discuss today.
So you can agree or disagree with these things.
Um, but I think, uh, the, I'll, I'll just read this out,
but, um, uh, for us,
business success is based on achievement of purpose
via the decomposition of purpose into operational
and strategic objectives
and effective delivery against business
as usual change and value creation.
So, uh, that's,
that's pretty much setting the scene quite big, Dan.
I don't, uh, I think
I think of it, it's like
everything everywhere, all at once.
Yeah. Yeah.
We, we've got And, uh, and
and your perspective of PMOs and e PMOs, Dan?
Yeah. So, you know, we,
what we've discovered recently up in Edinburgh chats people
has of PMO, um,
every organization probably has a slightly different
definition and a slightly different
understanding of this space.
But broadly, for, for the sake of
what we're talking about today, we're seeing the PMO as sort
of the owner of, um, if you like, deli owner of, um,
best practice and delivery of value within a portfolio.
Um, so very much kind of in, in, in sort
of leading the charge on that side of things.
Um, and,
and, you know, for us is often, often the,
the core custodian of good prioritization.
And then the EPMO is, is more of a, a sort of broader role
where we're seeing that connection to strategy
and sort of joining all the bits together in
that broader governance role.
So, um, yeah, hopefully many of you'll relate
to the different, um, levels.
Feel free to challenge us, uh, in,
in terms of the definitions.
And ultimately, yeah, we,
we hope everyone is gunning towards the
EPMO level in terms of the impact. And
This is, and this is more just kind of,
so we've all got the same terminology, right?
I mean, there are so many different flavors of PMO
and definitions and all the rest of it.
So this is just so we're all working from the same
definition for today, I guess.
Yeah, I, I think the big guys to you, you, you,
you talk about sort of support functions as a sort
of nice neutral term that wraps up everyone
who could be all these different kind of acronyms,
Uh, business support, you, you can offend everyone
as opposed to just one or two, uh, uh, perspectives.
But, but, um, yeah, we, uh, we,
we using these general terms just to discuss today.
Um, but I think the, the thing is, if, if,
if business success is based on achievement of blah, blah,
blah, and, and we see, uh, PMOs
and emos as instrumental in, in, in labeling that to happen,
um, we, we can't, we, we we're still so, uh, agree, um,
that we need prioritization to be effective.
If we can't prioritize, we can't deliver.
We'll, we'll dig into that a little bit later,
but if we're gonna prioritize,
then we need to be systematic.
We're not gonna prioritize out thin air
and without any coordination or organization.
Uh, so our proposition is that if you're gonna prioritize
and you're gonna do it systematically, then we need to be,
um, uh, we need to have an operating model, uh, that,
that's gonna frame how we can do that.
Um, so that, that's the big motherhood apple pies, uh,
statement before we get going.
And anything to add Stuart down?
No, it's, it, it's brilliant.
I mean, it, the, it's a, it is a very simple concept,
and it's one that we rattle on about time and time again.
Yeah. Just don't, don't get me started, David.
'cause you're up. Stop.
Okay. Well, um, if this doesn't work, it, it's not just
that, uh, some, someone won't get a bonus.
It means that organizations don't fulfill their purpose.
Uh, so it, so it has, uh, big, uh, rewards and consequences.
So then what is, what is this big thing?
Uh, I'm not gonna bore everyone to, to death.
Um, we we're gonna, we're gonna go through, um,
the big thing as, as, as well as, um, everything else today.
So we'll try and tell this as a sort of a story.
Um, we'll, we'll introduce, um, uh, big as the,
as a framework to help you get from purpose
to strategic objectives to effective delivery.
Um, I'll, I'll introduce then the, the, uh, the, the place,
uh, uh, of, of APMO within big, uh,
Dan Daniel, and, uh, show you quite a bit more.
Do you wanna signpost a little bit of that, Dan?
Yeah. So, we'll, we'll talk about the, uh, I guess,
prioritization, the PMO and,
and introduce what we think the, kind
of the fundamentals are in terms of, you know,
really good core operations.
And then we'll start to look to the horizons
and see what we think, you know, imagine, imagine the kind
of the, the, the, the, the future as, as, as, as it could be
with, with everything connected with, with the right sort
of systematic approach to, to value generation.
We'll ask, we'll ask you guys, um, so what's,
what's stopping, um, effective prioritization,
if it is indeed stopping effective prioritization?
What, what is stopping you? And we'll use Slido for that.
Um, slido.com.
You can get up on your phone
and if, dunno if you've used those sorts of things before,
but we'll have a little poll on Slido
and we'll give you a Slido code to tap in.
So you can, you can just tap in your, your thoughts
and we'll, we'll, we'll capture some thoughts live
and comment on them as they come in.
And we'll do a couple of those little polls, if,
if that's okay with everyone.
It's just, it's good to see what folks are thinking.
Um, we'll then, um, introduce, uh, where, uh,
an EPMO can add, uh, can add value.
We'll ask, ask you guys, uh, what, uh, uh, uh, you,
you'd like an EPMO to do and,
and offer you, um, how, uh,
an EPMO if we do continue to call it that.
We'll offer you what that can do within business at greater
governance and,
and wrap that up, uh, with some calls to action, links
to stuff and, and, uh, proposal for, for next steps.
Uh, so that, that's where we are.
Um, shall I just dive in? Down, go.
Let's go, let's go. So then, um, what,
what's big business integrated governance?
We, we've just said in a, in the definition earlier, it's,
it's an operating model to enable, to connection, uh,
to enable connection from purpose, to strategy, to delivery,
and back again, we can visualize it.
Uh, business integrated governance is a
set of a set of cogs.
A lot of, a lot of cogs for delivery and,
and governance all happening at once
within our organization.
Um, and if we're not careful,
those cogs misalign, they great.
They don't work. Um,
and the, the proposition is that if we can smooth our, our,
uh, uh, our governance operations, then, then we can, um,
uh, more, more reliably and,
and effectively, uh, deliver our purpose in, in all shapes
and sizes of what that means.
So, um, if, if we're gonna take a, a,
a catchphrase away about big,
it's getting the organization governance cogs
to work together to achieve purpose.
And there's, there's a link, um,
to the body of knowledge there.
And we will repeat this link later, but it's, it's free.
You can be a member, it's no charge.
It's, um, as I say, uh, delivered
by a community res company.
Uh, you can, you can, uh,
feast on it at your, at your leisure.
But, um, having introduced that high level concept, uh,
what does it then, uh, what does it then mean to the PMO?
Well, um, if, if we're gonna operate business integrated
governance, we're gonna have some components in place.
We're gonna have an effective organization where,
where there's clear structure, there are clear roles,
there's, there's some, uh, corporate process that works.
We're gonna have effective governance, we're gonna be able
to make decisions, and we're gonna be
able to manage compliance.
Um, we're gonna need information
and data to enable that to happen.
We're gonna need to hold people, people accountable, uh,
and have accountability is,
and in, within our culture to make it happen.
We're gonna need effective business support, uh, which
of course, PMO fits in there.
We need effective assurance
to make sure we're doing the right things, the right way,
and leadership to enable us to get this going
and to help us sustain it
and to, to keep it embedded within our organization.
So those, those are the, the, the big components.
Again, uh, I'll,
I can explain more on a different date in, in some more detail.
But with APMO perspective, well,
for PMO enables achievement of business objectives
as we discussed earlier.
Then there are a number of huge contributions, uh,
APMO will provide.
Um, it'll, it'll be providing the project governance.
It'll be, um, uh, providing lots of information to internal
and external stakeholders.
It'll be supporting people to be accountable.
Um, it'll be carrying out a service
level to, to make this work.
So the, so PMOs al already, um, uh, are providing a, a,
a chunky aspect to what integrated governance, uh, can be.
But the, the, the, the tricky, there are tricky bits
that maybe it may be APMO will find it less easy
to carry out, uh, less, less easy
to perhaps carry out independent assurance.
Um, perhaps simply because of its place in the organization,
its visibility in the organization, or perhaps even
because it can't e so easily access information
that's outside its domain.
It might well have, um, uh, a, a leadership, uh, that,
that is, that is senior and and respected,
but perhaps not quite at the level in the organization
where it can be the, can be most effective.
Um, we, we might also find that, um, uh,
APMO doesn't necessarily have access
and integration to all of our corporate data sources.
Um, I've, I've come worked with many PMOs that have had
to collate their own data and had to gather information and,
and, and pull it together and not truly been integrated like
other core business functions.
And, and I, I hear, uh, many people, uh, uh, uh, complain
or, or worry about, about their,
their remit and responsibility.
And I hear, hear many, uh, PMOs, uh, offering to, to, to,
to explain to their business what the PMO does
and what services it offers.
Uh, it, it's, I find it really curious that, that
that's necessary if, if APMO is well embedded, understood,
and has clear remit and role within an organization.
So I think, I think we can help APMO carry out its duties
very effectively, and I think we can make it,
um, bigger and better.
If you, excuse the pun, if,
if we can plug it in, plug it in with big. So,
David, can I ask a really, really, I'm gonna be the one
who asks the stupid question that nobody else dare.
And actually, it's not really me asking it.
I had a conversation with someone who is very,
very experienced in this kind of area earlier today.
Told them we were gonna do this webinar, uh,
about business integrated governance.
And, and they understood what business meant.
They understood what integrated meant,
but they were puzzle, they were a little puzzled about this
term governance and what it really means.
So in this context, right,
you've drawn this beautiful wheel.
What does governance actually mean in, in, in this context?
Uh, decision making co, uh, compliance management.
So governance is, is what helps us, uh, uh,
carry out our accountability.
It helps, helps us make decisions, helps us set the policy
and the recipe with which we do business.
So, so in, in, uh, so governance of a project, for example,
is, is, uh, compliance, uh, with respect to how it works,
it's compliance with respect to business case,
it's decision making around it.
So it, so, so governance, um, it is all about, uh, getting,
getting the, the, the, the acceptance of objectives, the,
the, um, uh, acceptance of responsibility for,
for getting them carried out.
The, the acceptance of, um, explaining to the business
how progress is happening, and for somebody to stand up
and say, that's my job.
I, I'm gonna take, take responsibility
and be accountable for that.
Um, d differentiating between governance and accountability.
Governance is about, uh, sorry.
Account governance is about accepting accountability and,
and management is about executing responsibility.
So we, we can def definitely distinguish
between responsibility and accountability.
The, the bot covers all this stuff.
Um, it in, in quite, in quite some depth.
There's, there's this big chapter on, on, on
what governance is and what it,
what it means in this context, uh, governance itself
and what governance bodies are.
There's, there's, uh, is quite a bit to, to chew through,
but if we think of it as, as, uh,
the framework within which decisions are made and,
and the, the pro the orchestration of
that decision-making process,
that all those decision-making processes,
and then we've, we've summed it up.
Beautiful. Thank you.
So, um, if, if, uh, if, uh, we've got, uh,
we're in good shape with respect to what we can do
with the PMO already, um, uh, what else can, can, uh,
ha having a, an integrated framework within which the PMO
sits, how can it help, uh, the PMO?
Well, uh, if you have an integrated framework within which
the PMO sits, then it, uh, the, the idea is that remit
and responsibility quite clear,
that the business understands what, what, what, what we do,
because it's, it's defined as part
of how the business works.
Um, the, the, the, how, how we fit
with corporate governance
isn't something we have to explore.
It's defined. It's, it's part
of the integrated governance approach.
So those are two, two key things that, uh, will help
PMO function straight away.
Uh, tactical things.
Um, if, if, if, if APMO has,
has defined its own information sources
and compiled its own tools, then with an integrated approach
to governance, uh, there's,
there's greater focus on sharing data and, and,
and justifying, uh, bigger and better tools.
So we, we should find it less difficult to, uh, to manage,
to gather and manage information, um, with respect to,
to leadership and accountability.
Um, we can lift up the, the level of leadership perhaps
that, that we have for APMO, because it's a more corporate
and integrated business service.
It's, it's not something that's, uh,
for a particular program or a
particular, uh, area of the business.
It's, it's now got a, got a senior, uh, uh, uh,
pivot point within the organization.
And, um, if it, if it's charged with, um,
supporting people discharged their accountability, um, the,
the people are, will be much more grateful
to receive support if,
if they're accountable than if, if they're not.
Um, that, that's certainly a, a,
a quote I've had back to me a few times.
Few. And, um, what it means is that, um,
we can be clearer about the, the service level
that, that we provide.
And, and we can change, uh, our PMO from perhaps being a,
a support office to being a, a,
a fully fledged business function.
That's, that's alongside the other key business functions
that we have in our organization.
So for, for some, it might just up the visibility
and up the profile and up the resourcing and,
and leadership level that, uh, that they, they need, they,
they, um, are subjected to, uh, day-to-day.
So I think there's some real benefits, uh, of, of big
as a concept to, to, uh, uh, promoting and,
and plugging in, uh, PMO, uh, uh, more significantly.
But, um, moving on to our, our subject of prioritization.
Um, for example, uh, if, uh, in, in, in most scenarios,
uh, our PMOs support the prioritization of projects
in most scenarios.
They're looking to compile information for,
for project prioritization, looking to oversee and,
and support fair accountability,
because projects have been prioritized correctly.
Um, and another comment here, if we, if we can't prioritize,
um, how can we manage accountability?
Um, if you don't have accountability established, um,
perhaps, uh, strategic planning is, is pretty pointless.
'cause we, we can plan all we like,
but we're not holding people to account.
It's, it's pointless. Some would argue.
And, um, I guess our, our PMOs assist in the redness
for prioritization and,
and we'll be able to ask the questions, um,
are we prioritizing the right projects?
So, so A-P-M-O-A PMOs already doing lots of big stuff,
but there are things that it, it may find difficult to,
without a big context, there's lots of benefits
for a PMOs being part of business support in a big context.
And, and, uh, certainly prioritization is, is a,
is a key big, uh, facet that, um, that we need
to enable APMO to support more effectively.
So that, this is when I think we move on to, to,
to Dan's piece where we talk about
prioritization. Is that about now?
I think so. Have I got control, David,
or am I, uh, gonna do the magic eye movement every time I
want to, to, to do a build
Or just, uh, uh, I failed to work out how
to give you remote control, so just gimme a thumbs up, or,
or, or shout at me or something. There you go. Yes.
Uh, just do the bills and company style.
I'll kind of surf along with 'em
and just catch up as you do them.
Um, so look, the prioritization, like, you know,
let's be clear, it's not rocket science.
Um, we are gonna talk about three basic steps
that can deliver prioritization.
And again, this is our sort of, this is our sort of with,
with, we think every PMO should be doing this, frankly.
And this should just be a basic function of the PMO
to David's point, if you can see it in the context of big,
it will increase the probability of the succeeding, um,
and will hopefully push an open doors.
So we're gonna have sort of alongside, you know, what,
what the, the, the context David's given us.
We'll just look at the, some levers for how we do it.
And I was thinking about doing a live demo, then I decided
that, uh, a live demo with Slido
and everything else, which just invite disaster.
So we just do kind of regular screenshot type approach.
So, um, I would say, if you like the look of it, Stuart,
and I'll probably be doing live demo later in the month
and join us then.
Um, so we're gonna organize backlog.
We're gonna define value,
but we're gonna define value properly rather than in a way
that's a bit naff.
Uh, and we're gonna pick the right projects.
So organize, define
it, hit it. David,
I'm trying to click it. There
we go.
So, can software really deliver uniformity in a
diverse organizational culture?
Can we go from a situation where we've got, you know,
feline based chaos on, on the left
to herded cats on the right?
Can we big fat? No, no, you can't.
Um, and frankly, anyone selling software that says they can,
I think is probably suffering from optimism bias.
Um, why? Because I don't think software alone can solve a
human issue.
And, and collaboration is predominantly in our experience,
a human collaboration issue.
It's about people working together, um, in order to, um,
in order to come up with the right
choices for the organization.
So at the end of the day, there's
so much subjectivity inherent in good prioritization
that you need to get a system that gets people working
with people in order to deliver good outcomes.
And that, by the way, was partly an excuse for me to use,
but generative AI as to
what organized group of cats look like.
Um, so use software,
but you, you obviously, we can use software
to create common structure.
So again, this is, this is how we we approach it.
So I'm gonna introduce three kind
of personas on the left here, right?
Um, and, and,
and we're gonna think about what prioritization means with,
with three very kind of crude hats on
in terms of different types of people.
So we got a finance guy, you,
uh, we've got the, the next one.
Now you can tell she's the boss
because she has a steely look about her and, uh, a suit.
And you can tell that she's the workout
because she has a vis jacket and a hat.
So, um, what we're doing with, with, with, with these groups
is we can actually then provide the structure
that brings requirements
that they have in their areas together.
Um, and we can have a documented process.
We can have transparent backlogs,
we can have shared decision gates.
So decisions are made with a,
the same sort of structure and logic.
We can have a live database rather than little pots
of stale data hiding in Excel in
different corners of the organization.
We can automate data collection, so it's not kind of death
by attachment, uh, and, and, and, and outlook.
And we can work with integrated connectivity.
So we can start to make it easy to say, you know what?
You guys like Jira, you guys like Excel, you guys like
napkins in Starbucks.
Um, we are gonna struggle to force you
to use a different system or tool because you are people
and you resist that kind of uniformity.
But we can bring together the, your different outputs
and put them into one place in order to enable us
to prioritize properly across these
different bits of the organization.
So what does that mean? How do we do it?
Uh, we start by collecting projects.
So, you know, we can do, you know,
we do sometimes we do kind of, um, uh, request forms
where you can really, um, share the,
uh, the ability to, to ask for projects and, and, and,
and ideate, uh, broadly across the organization.
Sometimes we'll connect to another system.
Sometimes we'll bring stuff in from Excel.
The idea is that, that, you know,
the software should be flexible to the organization.
Uh, the stage gating is again, flexible to the organization.
So the idea is you focus on the decision and the outcomes,
and you have transparency and a lack of ambiguity.
So many places are never quite sure if something's,
if something funded, not funded, what's the status?
What's the stage? Where are with that data versus that data.
So just having a bit of structure clarity is in via,
in this case, Kanban is, is we think,
a really valuable support.
And, uh, thirdly signals, David, there we go.
Defining resource. So again, if you want to be able to be
flexible and agile in how you allocate resource,
it's important to get an early in the process
and have common definitions so you can actually understand,
um, who wants what.
As in parallel, you, you work out who should get what,
based on the value that
they're gonna deliver the organization.
So just a bit of common structure enables much,
much better collaboration through the process.
And that's a really important point there, Dan.
'cause we might prioritize,
but what, what are we prioritizing for?
It's, it's to deploy resources,
funds, and leadership, I guess.
So the the resources bit is, is crucial.
Exactly. And this is where, you know, a framework like big
and, and, and just a conscious deployment
where you're trying to do this on purpose, uh,
is really useful because you don't have
to get everyone using the same PPM tool.
We know that takes years and,
and half the time doesn't work.
This is about saying, right, we just need a little bit
of structure to bring us together.
So the second point we want
to talk about was value creation, uh, uh, and, and,
and how different definitions
of value are massively divisive within an organization.
So gonna go back to my simple stereotypes for,
for this piece.
Now, here's finance guy,
if you remember, spot the calculator.
Um, and, and he's probably looking at
predictable modeling data.
He likes, he thinks cost savings are fantastic.
Uh, he thinks revenue growth is pretty good as well,
although bit, bit shakier.
But he can put stuff in his Excel model point to a number,
generate an ROI, and know that the project is good
because the finance data says.
So that's his point of view.
Let's bring, go back to our steely eye leader. Now.
She's looking at her hard to quantify strategic objectives.
It's the big picture stuff.
She could kind of come up with a business case for it,
but there'd be a lot of assumptions in there.
Or maybe it's the really impossible
to quantify stuff like the ESG agenda.
Uh, you know, and, and, and delivering some
of those stakeholder commitments.
They're important. They're her perspective.
Or we can go to the other extreme, go to the front line.
They're in the front line, they see the reduce.
They, they see, you know,
reducing the risk of things breaking.
They know that machine's on its last legs and needs fixing.
Uh, they, they, you know, this, the frontline is, is,
if you get it right, comes up with some fantastic ideas
that are simple common sense things, not sort
of big picture, big ticket items.
So there's lots of different threads here in terms of, and
To be, and to be really clear, right?
Um, you know, sometimes we talk about this stuff as if
strategic objectives and operational objectives
are somehow different.
They're not, they're just objectives.
And so your big strategic objectives will drive
operational objectives.
And then within those operational units, you, you, the,
the executives within those units will have a strategy
for delivering their operational goals, right?
So within that unit, those become the strategic objectives
within that unit and so on down the organization.
So, so, you know, this,
this conversation about strategic objectives
and operational objectives, it can be a little confusing,
but it's really just, it just, it,
it's really just a matter of perspective.
What's an operational objective to the strategic, you know,
to the, to the, to the boss with a jacket on?
Is, is gonna be, is gonna be, you know,
that's gonna be an operational thing.
It's gonna be strategic to the person
with a hard hat, right?
So, so don't get too lost in some of the terminology here.
It's, it's just, you know, understanding
that you've got business to run business as usual,
which are the, which is what,
what I guess we really mean when we're talking about these
OB objective or these, uh, operational things.
And then there are change projects, which are,
which are about changing the way we do business.
Da David, have I, is that a reasonable way of describing it?
Yeah. We need, we'd line of sight from,
from the purpose we have as a business, the objectives,
the organization set through to what it is
that we're gonna need to do, some of which will be changed,
some of which, which will be value creation, some
of which will be, be operational.
So we'd need that line of sight to, to connect us all up.
And, uh, what, what what's very interesting is when,
when we can spot that, um, uh, a project in,
in this domain has no a no strategic connection,
and that then you can, then, then that's gonna, I guess, uh,
be flagged up in, in the prioritization process.
Um, and that, that's what, uh, that's what we we're trying
to, uh, deal with in big.
And I guess that's what prioritization helps us,
helps us, uh, uh, spot.
Uh, and Dirk, Doug's just asked the question,
what does ESG stand for?
It stands for egregiously sloping ghetto, which, which,
uh, which, uh, ghetto is the Spanish word for cat.
And it's the name of Dan's cat.
'cause it's only got three legs. It is in
fact egregiously sloping.
Um, so no, it's, you not know Stuart,
You bragging.
Yeah. And,
and Pam Pam's, uh, uh, asked a question about objectives
and key results, OKRs, that the, that's, that's the, uh,
the, the way that we can, we can cascade from our objectives
through, through to the organization so that it has, uh,
things it can, can prioritize and, and,
and focus on delivery.
So OKRs, if you've used to that acronym, uh, that, that,
that's the backbone, uh, for, uh, and I,
and I guess ultimately the, the, the, the items that, uh,
that we prioritize of, uh, objectives
and key results too. Yeah,
Object prioritization
criteria, which will come under in a second.
And OKRs, they're probably some close cousins
or all kind of, we'll roll into that as we go through.
So just on this perspective, right?
So dude with his calculator is like,
people are bean counts, never get it right?
Leadership will be like, ah, they've got some pet project,
some idea they like, operations are like, oh,
you never understand the business.
You just don't get it. You're often doing your own thing.
And what you're doing by allowing these silos
to build up and jump on the chat if you see these silos
or if you think I'm speaking nonsense.
But, um, the, uh, the, the, the idea about these,
um, these perspectives is
that people don't always understand someone
else's definition of value.
They can be in the same organization, they can sit next
to each other in the office,
but they have a different perspective on
what value means for the organization.
And if they don't share a perspective on what value means,
they're never going to be able to prioritize
beyond horse trading, uh, which is not very productive, um,
as a way of getting things done.
Oh, let's press the right button.
So we've got our diverse perspectives now.
So we've got diverse perspectives.
Um, we resolve this through, we use a system called AHP.
Um, this is a hierarchy from AHP.
If you press the button again, a little thing will,
a little snazzy bill will come.
There we go. So, um, back to our personas, right?
Calculate a guy, he's like, right,
these are my key financial metrics,
and hopefully he can then explain why they're important, um,
and, and, and bring people on board with that.
But actually they need to sit alongside the strategic
objectives so we can see what matters.
What are the key tenets of the strategy?
What are the key high level, um, goals?
Um, the ESG, which Stewart Science
for Environmental Societal Governance, I think
basically kind of green stuff, governance stuff, all
that malarkey, and doing the right thing
on a broader community basis.
Um, obviously every CEO is highly committed to that agenda.
Um, and then, you know, again, over in the operational side,
um, why my IT manager is wearing a hard hat, I'm not sure.
It's obviously very dangerous code.
Um, but, but you've got, uh, you know, the idea
that sometimes common sense ideas,
there's some simple common sense things,
or the value of fixing stuff
before it breaks the kind of maintenance agenda,
which has value.
It's just not necessarily the value
that the finance guy thinks of or that the strategy
or the, the, the leader thinks of, but it has huge value.
And anyone that's had to deal with a broken
thing could appreciate that.
So we're starting to deconstruct
and define value in a way
that opens up all those different perspectives
and gives us the platform to quantify the value
of different projects in a single framework.
So we build our framework,
and then if we roll to the next slide, we use,
uh, oh, look at that.
We do have, I forgot to say, yeah, we've got, if,
if this is interesting space to you, we've got a free ebook.
We'll send the link out after this, um, where you can
explore how this works.
It's not, again, it's not rocket science.
Few, few principles, bit
of learning we've made along the way.
Um, so have a look at that or, or reach out.
Remember folks that, that free download link,
I've stuck it on the links that, uh, at the end
of the presentation.
So, uh, bear that in mind and it will come up.
So you can click it later or, or write it down later.
Yeah, we can't click in Zoom. We're not that better.
So the way we actually then start
to merge all those different perspectives is via a system
called Pairwise, which does pretty much
what it says on the tin.
Um, so, you know, you, you can have, um, a debate
where you're literally saying, what is more important?
Is it the finance metrics or the strategy metrics?
And you go, well, of course both are important,
but as a group, you can then start
to discuss their relative importance.
You can represent one point of view,
you can represent another point of view.
And the little screenshot underneath is just a,
a illustration of capturing that data where you get people
to say what they think and then bringing it into one place
where you can have a good structured debate.
And there's also huge value at this point, of course,
in focusing on what drives value.
Remember, we're defining what is valuable to us.
We are not looking at projects.
So once you get into projects,
you're getting into horse trading, you're getting into
rabbit holes about specific bits of functionality.
This is a little bit more
esoteric, a little bit more theoretical.
Why are we here? Why do we do projects? Why do we do BAU?
Why do we spend money? Let's have a debate
and learn from each other.
So the stuff you get at the top is effectively a nice
normalized scoring framework.
So hopefully you can see you've got the platform, um,
for scoring projects, but critically on the right,
what you're seeing is a debate.
So it's important we balance hard and soft goals.
Oh yeah, it is, okay. So there's strategic goals of this.
The financial goals, we can start
to understand they both have importance,
but we can decide which is more important to us now
as an organization, we can start to understand the point
of view of that person sitting next to us in the office who
before we thought was just a sort of, you know,
being counter who just didn't get it.
And then I think if our final bill there, you know, you,
you're starting to have a debate we should have had before,
and we hear this from clients,
it's ripped off of a quote from a client.
You know, this is debate we should have had years ago
because we go round and random circles.
But until we have this debate, we don't sort anything out.
Because fundamentally,
if you've got disagreements at this level,
it ignoring them doesn't make them go away.
It just pushes the debate out into endless cycles
of meetings where you never get anything done
because you have fundamentally different beliefs about
what defines value.
And this is, you know, going right back
to David's first slide, right?
Uh, and I'll read out that first, first bullet point of the,
the whole presentation again, just for a second, right?
So business success is based on achievement of purpose.
Okay? That's the fir the very first bit
of the first bullet point, achievement of purpose.
This is us getting agreement on what that purpose is,
how we can measure purpose.
And so that is the absolute foundation for everything else
that that follows, right?
So, so this is, we, we belabor this.
We spend a lot of time thinking about how
to make this process better, slicker, more compelling, um,
uh, and the reason is 'cause this is the foundation
for everything that you do in the, to, to, to, uh,
to deliver both operational change and,
and, uh, transformational change within organizations.
Um, there's this comment from Nicole about, uh,
uh, emo uh, maturity.
So I personally, I don't think you need to be
from an organizational point of view, huge material.
I think where you need maturity is
in a leadership perspective.
So the alternative to doing this, arguably,
is just the boss says
what they want, they shout and they get it.
It's mature. Exactly. It's maturity behavior.
You need the person who's in charge to go, do you know what?
I know that I'm probably not right all the time
because I'm a person, I'm human,
and there's, there's knowledge around me
that can really help me make a better decision.
So I think the best leaders are, mature leaders are the ones
that can recognize
that they don't necessarily
have all the answers in their head.
And that syndicating that decision making process, um,
through the experts actually produces a better result.
And, and I think it is important to draw a difference
between the process maturity.
'cause we've seen customers that have deployed our software
that have gone from the very lowest level of maturity,
total chaos to a really high level of maturity in a couple
of months, deploying the software, right?
But we've also seen customers where, you know,
their processes have all been very mature,
but the, the supposed adults in the room have behaved like,
like toddlers, right?
And, and they've really struggled.
So you're absolutely right. It's about a des it's about the,
you know, I come back to that first sentence, David,
that you had on the first slide.
It's about an acceptance amongst the leadership team.
The, the whole point, you know,
the business success is based on achievement
of purpose, right?
That, that's the, the first few words of the,
the bullet point, right?
And, and, and so if there is buy-in into that statement,
then this, this process can work.
If there's no buy-in into that, you're gonna have a,
it is gonna be difficult to make big
or anything else stick, right?
So, so you need some buy-in into that statement first.
But, and I think just to, I, I need to shut up and, and,
and let, let, uh, Dan go on.
But, but maur maturity for me isn't a barrier.
It's what you need to achieve so
that you c you can carry out the capabilities
that you need to carry out.
So for me, maturity is, is just a measure.
And, and if we need to be more capable
because we need to do more sophisticated things,
then we need to develop the maturity.
But I don't see maturity as something,
uh, which we have to leap.
It is something we need to develop.
That's just my, my viewpoint. Yep.
Brilliant. Next slide, please.
What a concept. That's a new concept for me, by the way,
David is letting Dan get on with it.
You're joining us,
otherwise, I'd put this in for an hour and a half.
Uh, so automate targeted data capture.
So, you know, again, this is,
this is how you score projects.
So we've built our framework, we can actually now start
to pull a lever and see the results, right?
So the point is, uh, you can actually get experts,
not necessarily project owner,
not necessarily all the same person.
You can get the people who know most about projects
to give you feedback in a structured way as to
how useful they are.
There's a bit data science in here in terms of like,
nice, of like at scale.
Um, but technology for targeting all good or good.
Press the button one more time. We are on double speed now.
And you get this.
Um, now I like this
because this, we see this for real all the time.
Um, you know, if you work as a team, you'll reduce noise,
noise being like one person on their own
will make stupid decisions.
Read a book by Dan Kahneman.
If you wanna go further into that.
Reduce bias because one person
who has skin in the game isn't necessarily gonna be the best
judge of value.
You'll reduce gaming.
Likewise, similarly, you know, people kind of thinking, oh,
I'll just put a high mark on this,
and, you know, I'm not accountable for
what, what happens later?
So I'll just get the resource. And then, ha ha or stupid.
Um, again, we all have moments when we put stupid
data into the spreadsheet.
Um, if there are three of us, four of us,
we are less likely to be stupid.
Um, and if we, if we then work together as a group
to understand outliers, we can flatten those mistakes
and come up with a better data,
better data point as a group.
So, and like any process prioritization,
garbage in, garbage out.
So this is how you stop putting garbage in.
And if you've got a spreadsheet with like one person putting
in data, chances, you've got a lot of garbage in there.
Indeed. Next Slide, please.
We're nearly nearly at the slide though, aren't we?
Uh, nearly not quite. Yeah,
We're getting there, right?
So good data needs buy-in, right?
So we, in the software we'll produce a
prioritization matrix, right?
You've probably all produce one in Excel or on a whiteboard
or something at some point, right?
But the point is that definition
around project value is something you've
worked together to build.
You've listened to each other, you've worked together,
you've been systematic about
how you get the best data from the experts.
Therefore, you have that critical second ingredient
of buy-in.
People know the data is good.
And with that, we can then move on to picking projects.
So we put the data into a nice, call it efficient frontier,
uh, and effectively you can then pick the best value
projects based on resource constraints.
So you can start to say, you know, this is my portfolio.
There's a little bit more to it than this,
but this is my portfolio based on the resource I have
that delivers the most value.
So you've got a real fact-based data led process
that's rational, fair,
and gets the answer more or less, right?
And in terms of time saving, you're also now starting
to save time and benefit
because you're not gonna spend your time doing U-turns,
having meetings about meetings and, and trying to backtrack.
'cause nobody agreed on the value definition.
And critically, we've now got our three bots here,
building collective commitment,
collective accountability against the choices they've made,
against the choices they've not made.
Um, so there's clarity, uh, as you move into execution
to say, who's got the resource, who hasn't got the resource?
Who's accountable for delivering value?
Who's accountable for making do with what they've got?
Database decisions, less politicking, um, uh,
what more could you want?
Absolutely. Uh, just, just a really,
really quick thing before we leave this slide.
If I, if I may, sorry, I'm gonna derail everything again,
David, but the, so the prioritization matrix
that Dan's got there, I, yeah,
if you google project prioritization or,
or ask chat GPT what, you know, what methods you could use
to prioritize projects, you will find prioritization matrix
as a way of prioritizing projects.
And I have to tell you here
and now, it isn't
prioritizing ma prioritization matrix is a visualization.
That's all it is. It's a visualization tool.
It doesn't help you prioritize anything.
Prioritization is figuring out where
projects go on the vertical axis, right?
The value access, that's the prioritization process.
And so just having a chart isn't enough.
It's the process for putting the dots in the right place on
the chart that is the prioritization.
So please, please, please, when you're out there Googling,
looking how to do things like project prioritization, um,
don't necessarily believe what you see, there's a whole body
of knowledge and research into how to do this, right?
And, um, uh,
and most articles that you find on prioritization,
at least online, really are incomplete at worst, uh,
at best, excuse me.
Um, but just plain wrong in many, many cases, right?
So, so when we, you know,
when you see things like prioritization matrix, remember
that's just a visualization behind that.
It's the process of putting the dots, how you put the dots,
how you calculate where the dots go on the chart
that delivers that buy-in.
And it's the buy-in, actually, that is the important bit.
The, the data is just a number, right?
But it's buy-in to that number that matters.
That's what lets you make good decisions quickly.
David, I'm gonna shut my mouth now
For About the next 10 seconds. Anyway,
I, I'm, I'm biting my tongue.
I've, I, I, I've answered the question.
Terry's raised in, in the chat.
We, we could, we just don't have time to dve into it.
We'll come back to it at the end, Terry, if, if that's okay.
But, uh, I, I recognize your point.
Let's hit the next slide
and then, uh, I think we're into the slide after that.
So, and quickly look.
So the point is, I think it's important
to understand we are giving the
organization the right to say no.
Uh, David pulled me up earlier
and this says, is not the PMO necessarily saying no,
it's recommending no, but we all know that recommending no,
in some organizations is a real career limiting,
uh, thing to do, right?
But now, if you've got a process in place, no could mean no.
We, we, we, if we do this, if we take on more projects,
we're gonna mess up our productivity.
And if we mess up our productivity, we will deliver less.
No, because if, you know,
what we'll do is we'll delay our most important projects
because we're putting too many projects in.
We say yes to everything. We're not gonna deliver
the most important things.
No, because we have a robust, fair process that says so
because there are more important projects
that we are going to do instead.
And then no, because, you know,
I arguably there are better projects for the organization,
projects that deliver more value in a way
that hopefully everyone can say, yeah, that's fair.
We can't do everything. We will do better if we
are able to focus.
And I can feel empowered
and engaged knowing that the right thing's being done
Information rather than emotion-based decision making.
Yes. So, um,
uh, let's, let's, um, everyone's got their phone,
phone hand, um,
and if you hit slido.com, we're gonna, uh, ask you to,
to just, uh, give us a a few remarks, if you wouldn't mind.
Um, so what's stopping you from systematically
prioritizing at the moment?
Maybe you are systematically prioritizing,
I don't know, give it, give us some comments.
Uh, if, if you're struggling to systematically prioritize,
is it because you don't have a method?
You don't have a tool, there's no framework within
which you can manage it.
Um, there's, there's lack of will to be objective.
People like their politicking.
Uh, there's no one to champion the process. Um, what is it?
What, what are the, what, um, what are the barriers?
What are the pain points you're, you're facing in, in, in,
uh, systematically prioritizing?
Now, um, when I flip to the next slide, uh,
tho wow, those of you that are, uh, generous enough to have,
have put in comments, will have, will have put them there.
So we, me
and Dan, we're just going to, uh,
wa watch them come in, but you've been so quick
Frantically put something in ourselves Yeah. Uh,
Start Really, instead of typing,
It wasn't me. I other hands,
I was, I would,
that's really, thank you everyone.
Uh, conflicting metrics.
Um, yeah, how, how, how do you,
how do you capture the conflicting metrics,
the conflicting priorities by stakeholders?
Um, the, these are all things to be dealt with, I guess.
Um, you, you guys are the experts on
the prioritization piece.
So, um, uh, yeah, remark
And yeah, thanks, thanks
for anonymous for that third point.
Now, the, uh, the, the, the conflicting metrics is,
is absolutely what Powerway is there to do.
You can't prioritize between areas.
If everything has its own special axis,
everything is its own pot.
Um, you need to be able to kind create that,
that aggregation, um, in order
to have some agility as an organization.
And, and, and that lack of priorities,
conflicting priorities by stakeholders.
I think that one is, uh, I, I don't think I've ever seen
an organization where we've walked in
and that has not been the case.
We've had organizations tell us that's not the case.
And as soon as you start asking questions,
they start arguing different points of view, right?
Yeah. So, uh, so that one, that one's very astute.
I like that whoever that anonymous was, that's,
that's bang on the money, I think.
And, and similarly, the, the lack of discussion,
um, yeah, absolutely.
If, if you have the loud, the default often
for prioritization is the loudest voice, right?
The hippo, the person in charge
says, this is what we're doing.
I have decided, um, which usually goes wrong, particularly
as you get to an organization of a scale,
that person is simply not able
to get across all the details.
So they're gonna end up picking the, the thing
that's in the back of their head, the thing that they relate
to from when they were, you know, more operational.
Um, which is generally not a great idea.
Um, and, and, and the,
the poorly stated strategic goals is, is kind
of the other side of the same coin of not having, you know,
of different priorities from different stakeholders.
You know, if those goals were clear
and it was beautifully laid out
as David's first slide implied it should be, then,
then you wouldn't have that problem.
Uh, but again, just about every organization we deal
with has, has this challenge to a greater or lesser degree.
Yeah. And we find some,
sometimes building criteria is a case of, you know,
making the best you can with some interviews
and some sort of bits of, you know, bits of presentation.
And sometimes it's a case of going, oh,
we've got a very good structure,
we can just put it in the right format.
So yeah, different, different PMOs have different levels of,
um, strategic kind of qualities to deal with.
And that last answer captures, so we've got a little list
of, of, uh, the top 10 pain points
around prioritizations signs.
You need prioritization.
And we, we track these out at all the trade shows
and have people kind of tick 'em off
and doing a, a straw poll.
And, and this, this answer at the top
of the screen right now,
that's hit a whole bunch of them, right?
Then we've got, we've got,
that's pretty priority number one.
We've got, we've got big project stealing resources,
we've got the loudest voice, right?
The political sponsors banging his
feet and saying, give it to me.
Right? You've got everything going on in that one.
So whoever you are, please go to our website,
fill in a form, tell
Us, yeah, We need to talk. I,
I know we should probably go on with the
presentation, but this is fascinating.
But the, it's the, it's, it's, there's a sort of,
it's interesting that execs will, will,
will observe the problem that we need better prioritization
and then fail to recognize that they are in set,
in fact, part of that problem.
'cause they're the one setting, you know, all sorts
of chaos going on by interfering
and frankly, by not having a proper governance process.
And this is why, you know,
this is why we like talking to David, right?
This is, this is the governance structure is actually
what starts to control this kind of rogue behavior.
Um, and, and hopefully, you know, as an industry we can kind
of grow up a bit and be a bit more data led rather than
like crazy. COO led.
Terry's, Terry's asked sort
of Terry's getting a bit worried about resources
and where are resources in this whole discussion.
So Dan, do you wanna talk a little bit about
resources and where they come in?
Yeah, look, I think I sort of flashed 'em up at the
beginning and then, uh, decided to sort of, um,
control myself about going down too many rabbit holes.
So resources, you can, in a way it's, you know, you can,
you can do estimates a little bit like you do, um,
uh, value.
You can sort of ask people what they think
and you know, a bunch
of wet fingers is better than one wet
finger in terms of estimates.
Um, you can build detailed models
and put that data in every,
everyone has different maturity depending on well,
what stage they're doing prioritization.
Um, so yeah, you either get the data you've got
or you estimate the data.
You don't have the code.
The key point is there's no point in ranking projects if
you've got no sense of scale.
Yeah. So you just have to be able to differentiate,
you know, the monsters from the tlers, um,
because the tlers are not going to deliver as much value
as the monsters, but that doesn't mean you should
just do massive projects.
And I think we all see, sometimes, you know, a bit of
like project constipation where you sort
of get blocked up trying to only do big things.
Um, but you need a little bit of that kind of velocity
that comes from just delivering smaller, quick wins.
This, this, this, this is a big discussion.
So, so we, we, when we're prioritizing not just coming up
with a score, we do need to understand a rough idea
of resource, demand, cost, demand, leadership time.
We also need to understand risk.
So, so that the, we, we are flip flipping through it.
But, uh, I, I, I guess we need to offer folks a, a,
a more detailed deep dive.
And may maybe, we'll, we'll, in the follow up blog
that we write, we'll, we'll signpost
how the resort resource funds leadership time
and risk also come into the prioritization process.
So, uh, not, not, not trying to avoid the subject.
Just got other, other stuff to, to ping into.
But folks, thanks very much for, for the,
for making these notes.
We'll, we'll record them and pass them on.
Keep tapping away if you want to,
but we're gonna answer some of these things
'cause some of these things are about strategic goals
and, uh, that's, that's where I think we are going
with the EPMO.
So for some, uh, EPMO, uh, so at the start of our session,
EPMO said, uh, to enable definition
and balancing of business objectives.
Well, that, that's, that's a, a nice definition that, um,
we stated at the start,
but many others, uh, don't have that as their, uh, uh,
definition for an E-P-O-E-P-M-O.
Uh, some people, um, uh, see an EPMO as, as the, as the, uh,
um, focal point for project management with within,
across the enterprise.
Some people see it as the focal point
for doing big projects.
Um, but clearly, um, we, we believe that, uh,
the EPMO can do something else.
Um, we, we've kind of, um, run out a little bit of time now
to ask you about, um, what it is that, uh, you, you do,
you have an EPMO
or what it could do that it's not, which we just, uh, would,
we've just run, run out of time to, to pick up on that.
But, but this was just basically setting up the presentation
to, uh, and, and please do, if you want to chip,
make some notes and add comments, uh, please chip in.
It'll be, the poll will be open.
But I, we're gonna then, um, move on to say, well,
what else can the EPMO do beyond be a big PMO
or be a a, a a place where project management is, is, uh,
focused for the organization?
And it, it all, all, um, revolves around, um, uh,
the p uh, several things.
It's, it's the relation to strategy.
So, um, those of you that have been looking at some
of the big stuff, we'll see that, uh,
as an organization at the very highest levels will be,
uh, a, an org.
An organization will have a current state.
It'll have, uh, opportunities and threats that hit it.
It'll have imperatives from, from regulation,
the STA shareholders expectations.
There, there's, there's a pathway
and a, a strategic process that, that, uh, processes all
of the, um, drivers we have as a business, um, comes up
with a, AAAA vision and a, and a strategic plan and cas
and breaks that down into objectives
and related key results, uh, OKRs as, as Pam asked that,
that we can then, uh, cascade into the business.
So, so if, if this strategic process isn't functioning,
then it's very difficult to prioritize our projects
because we don't have that, that, uh,
strategic basis to, to aim for.
So, so this, this is a, a, a possible area
that our EPMO can get into, um, or, or,
or if it's already occupied, uh, uh, to not get into,
but to, to connect with more effectively.
So, purpose, uh, places the e pbi to, to look
after the, the pathway from purpose to strategy.
Um, another, another candidate area, uh,
uh, strategy to delivery.
So we've, we've talked about the,
the process, strategic process.
How do we get strategy into the business?
How, how do we, um, take those objectives, prioritize them,
deploy our funds and leadership time between those threads
of activity to achieve our strategy?
So remember, strategy isn't just about change,
strategy's about developing products.
It's about, um, our business performing as, as well as,
uh, change happening.
So, so how does, how do we get resources deployed
effectively between these different threats?
Uh, and again, this is a, a can,
a strategy implementation as we're calling it.
This is a candidate area that an EEP EPMO can step into.
Maybe folks have this covered already. I don't know.
Um, I just, just, uh, firing on, I, I realize we're at,
we're over time and people may need to go,
but I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll just finish this point.
'cause it'll be, it'll, it'll,
these points, it'll be in the recording.
Um, and, and in, in addition to the, the, the, uh,
strategic, uh, uh, process, in addition to the, uh,
the implementation approach, we, we'll, this, we'll need
to rebalance and rete as time goes on.
This isn't prioritization, isn't it?
One-off exercise we're gonna have to keep on top of this.
So, so, um, it is, is an opportunity for our, for APMO
to help, uh, organize the, the balance
and choice making between, um, things in, in change world,
things in a per project, things in business as usual world,
and things in value creation space.
Uh, this is certainly an opportunity for, uh,
for a an EPMO to step beyond.
Its, its, uh, project limitations to, to connect
and orchestrate decision-making across all of these,
these different priorities.
Um, so big, big discussions, big discussions.
Um, and, um, Dan, I think this, this goes back,
back to you now, doesn't it?
Yeah. Look, so, so, you know,
EPMO takes you into a new space, right?
So we, we've got a, a spaceman.
So we, we've, we've, we've sort of gone from, you know,
into, we're now heading into strategy
development, implementation, delivery.
And yeah, actually you might start
to push out towards other teams that do this.
And to some extent,
the key point is you've got a successful function
that owns this space, whether it's the EPMO,
whether it's change management office
or a strategy office, doesn't
particularly matter what it's called.
But the key point is, if you don't have this function,
you'll probably struggle to reach that next level of, um,
competence in terms of, of that kind of governance framework
and the prioritization that flows through it.
And those issues about not knowing what the strategy is
to collect more projects to will persist.
Yeah, absolutely. Or,
or, you know, the strategy will be sufficient,
won't be well defined enough to be useful, uh,
in terms of prioritization.
So we'll whistle through the last couple. I think idea,
A picture is the idea of that picture
that if you don't do your strategy definition, you don't get
to where you're going because, because the guy
thinks he's on the moon.
But if you look in the
background, the moon's still up there.
Very good. That's very good. Ah,
Anyway, sorry.
The reason this, there's run over, but by the way, folks, is
'cause I joined the call, so my apologies.
It's always my fault. I get the blame anyway.
Ok. Okay. Right. It's all good. It's all good.
Let's, uh, it's been a good debate
and, uh, you know, the last slides are a bit weak anyway.
No, they're not. They're great. So let's, uh, let's,
let's hit it, right?
So now just let it build, David. We're good.
Uh, now this is a little bit from our kind of point of view.
This is where we're heading, as you know, in terms
of software, in terms of how we think we need
to support the, the, the, the, the market.
So we've talked a lot about prioritization and, and typic.
Often it's in a growth portfolio
or a defined portfolio, you're prioritizing what needs
to be done, uh, in order to deliver better value.
And there's huge value in that,
and lots of organizations can benefit from it.
So we are happy that today works,
but actually, if we think of this tangentially,
maybe we need to be a bit more prioritization driven in BAU
and maintenance stuff, we can spin into change
and transformation, the big stuff as well.
So we need to sort of go vertical and,
and think of prioritization as being something
that exists everywhere, not just in a portfolio.
Next, we talk about the portfolio of portfolios.
Um, we actually need the ability to put these different
backlogs side by side in order
to make good agile decisions about
where we're gonna place our betts.
If you've got huge swathes of resource locked in BAU,
that's kind of a blob,
then you are not, you've not got control.
Your leadership don't have control of the organization
because they can't make decisions about where they want
to put their resource.
So portfolio, portfolio is the idea that you can then have
that kind of quantified visibility at a higher level.
Next level, we took about value led scenarios.
So again, as a service,
what do we think the execs want?
Do they want to see loads of chart detailed?
No, they want to know which can they have AP
and l that delivers their objectives over five years?
Can they have reassurance that their strategic plan will be
met if everything goes according to plan?
And of course, that the plan underneath is reliable
and deliverable and credible.
So it's like, actually, we are not just convi,
we're not just slapping ourselves on the back
and saying, great plan, knowing that it's a pile
of horseman year.
We know that it's a good plan,
reliable plan, and what it will deliver.
And we're giving execs the choice of how to do it.
And finally, top of our pyramid for now, where we want
to get to probably sort of back into of next year,
is the ability to then turn value
that we've talked about into a live data point similar
to OKRs, really, that then flows through the project.
So the point is, you can't just say, yes,
that's a valuable project, it's great, tick, tick, tick,
because we wanna hold people to account for that projection
of value through the delivery cycle of the project.
And if that value doesn't materialize,
people are held to account.
If that value doesn't materialize, we can stop.
Um, because actually, you know, things change
and we need that kind of responsiveness.
And finally, I think on my slides,
just build it up, right?
So again, how do we maybe see this kind of P-M-O-E-P-M-O,
um, sort of division?
So, you know, as APMO,
we should be taking the criteria across different silos,
getting people to work together
and relating that to the backlog and creating value
and choice based on that data.
And that's that, again, huge progress.
Probably kind of 99% of, uh, of, of organizations out there.
EPML goes up a step again, where we say, actually we need
to understand the impact those projects are having on the
organization in the context of market behavior,
in the context of dumb luck, how things kind of work out,
because actually the outcomes are gonna be related
to the backlog and, and it's success,
but it's not a one-to-one relationship
and actually then owning the outcome for the p
and l, the non-financial KPIs, all
that stuff that pops out the end.
And then how that relates back
to those choices we made at the beginning is where we see
that EPMO connection
and it's really being not in charge of it.
That's someone else's job, right?
That's, that's the exec's job,
but it's being that support function
that's gonna make a data led process, a data led connection
between where you put your
betts and where you get your returns.
And the big spin here is, is, um, does, do you, uh,
do you grow up or,
or expand your, your EPMO from being something
that oversees the projects
to also having a greater connectivity
with the strategic pipeline, with the product portfolio and,
and your BBU workloads
and help prioritize across not just the project portfolios,
but, but the other workloads that you have as well. Mm-Hmm.
And, and, and to some extent, you know,
if you can prove it works in the project space, hopefully,
that the execs will kind of bite
and realize, Hey, I want that across more areas.
Because actually that ability to control
and that ability to make choices is, you know,
hopefully the basis of their success.
So we cut through a lot.
Um, the, what, what we covered today, well, we've, um, ex,
uh, offered you the vision that, uh, purpose
to strategic objectives
and effective deliveries is what, uh, uh,
defines us as business.
We've offered you the big framework, um,
which essentially help enables you
to connect all those things up.
Um, we've, we've, uh, explained how,
and Paul, we feel, uh, PMO is in the context of big
to certainly help us deliver, uh, projects.
And, and, uh, we, we've suggested how, how, uh,
PMO can benefit from being in a big context as opposed to,
uh, fighting for itself, uh, on it on its own.
Within the org. Um, we've, um, introduced prioritization
and capabilities, uh, that, that Dan's described.
We, we can systemize and,
and lift up prioritization from, uh, a simplistic, uh,
scoring to a more sophisticated, uh, discussion, uh, and,
and, uh, business enabling process.
Um, we, we asked what's stopping you?
And we, we took a whole bunch of things there, um, that, uh,
will summarize and play back to you.
Um, we, we we're gonna ask you about, uh, what, uh,
what your EPMO did or,
or whether, what it could, what it could do for you.
And instead of asking you,
we then said, well, you could do this.
And talked about the strategic process,
the strategy implementation process,
and the ongoing balance of BAU change and products.
And, and Dan's laterally wrapped up with, with the, the,
the showing how PMO and EPMO sit alongside and,
and how, how immediate term value can, can emerge from,
from those, those two bodies.
And, and like, like most things, I think with,
with whether it's big
or prioritization, um, hopefully we're starting
to give you a sense of there is a ton of stuff out there
and, and, and a world of possibilities
and lots of opportunities to improve.
And actually, actually don't be too intimidated
by the fact there's loads,
because there are some simple first steps you can make
that will send you in the right direction.
Um, and you know, this can be iterative over time
as you build up that value in layers.
Um, 'cause most organizations respond to success.
So if you can introduce one thing
successfully, it, it'll spread.
So the, the, uh, we'll send you some links
to the big body knowledge
so you can consume that at your leisure.
Um, there's deep team, we did a, uh, a session on how
to promote your PMO
and to, to grow it up with using Biggers,
the, the enabler to do that.
Uh, the, the links that, uh, Dan showed
to the prioritization criteria that's there,
we'll, we'll send that out too.
And, and the call, finally, the calls
to action are essentially, um, uh, if,
if you think Help Big can help you promote your PMO,
then we're more than happy to talk to you about that.
If you'd like to make, make a case for an EPMO or,
or a, something bigger than your EPMO,
we can help you make a case for that.
Um, if you'd like to have a strategy
to delivery conversation, if, if that's not something you,
your PMOs have got into so far, we can support that.
And as, as, uh, Stuart
and Dan have said, uh, if you want
to explore the capabilities of, of,
of systematic prioritization, if you, if you get it, if you,
if you really understand that, that, uh, it's, it's, it's,
it's a really good thing to, to make, make this systematic
as opposed to a BUN fight, then, uh, then certainly speak,
we'll, we'll have to have those conversations too.
Um, anything to add, chap?
So I think, I think that's pretty much us.
Um, if you wanted another picture
to look at us in a different way, there's,
there's the pictures again.
Uh, there, there's our email addresses and,
and websites if you, if you'd like to, uh,
to, to have a dig.
Um, we've talked about prioritization, the PMO
and the place of the EPMO Business Integrated
Governance and Business purpose.
Um, that, that's, that's it.
That's, that's all folks as the big bunny would say.
Um, are there, are there any questions, Stuart,
that you've spotted that we haven't picked
up, up on in, in the chat? There are a couple
Of interesting comments that we didn't really get a chance
to, to dig into, but I think we've answered most of them.
And so, David, I just wanna thank you, Dan, thank you
as well for putting the effort in to pull this together.
Um, I, I, I, I love it when, uh,
when you guys take over.
'cause normally I'm kind of ring ring leader for these,
these things, and, uh,
you just come at it from such a different
direction to, to me.
Uh, so I always learn a bunch of stuff, David,
when you're on in particular.
So thank you very much for, for, for doing that.
And thank you, Tiffany, for joining.
Uh, and for those of you stuck around to the end, well done.
And for those of those of you who didn't
and watching it on the recording, you losers.
All right. Thank you everybody. Take care.
Bye.