So, welcome to the webinar.
Um, my name's Stuart Easton, and I'm, um, I'm the CEO
and one of the founders of Transparent Choice,
and those of you who know us,
and there's quite a few names on, on the attendee list here,
who are sort of regular attendees on these events.
Um, uh, those of you know us will, will probably know us
as the project prioritization company.
Um, but, uh,
but this year we've launched a whole bunch of really
exciting new AI based capabilities
and in sort of the broader, uh, portfolio management area.
So, you know, portfolio optimization and,
and capacity planning, which is why we're here.
So we're not here to talk about the product.
Um, if you wanna see the product,
there'll be a demo in a couple of weeks.
Um, and, uh, you'd be very welcome to sign up for that.
What we're gonna do today is we're gonna, we're gonna go to,
um, uh, to, uh, two very good friends of mine
who also happened to be really experienced, PMO leaders.
Um, so we have editor
and Joe, I'm gonna let them
introduce themselves in a second.
Um, but, um, suffice it to say that, uh, I, I,
I first met editor out in Riyadh at the
PMI Global, um, project management forum out there.
And then she very kindly organized me
to a little event she was running in Vinia in Lithuania last
summer, last September, I think it was at, right.
And I was completely blown away, right?
So this event was fantastic.
There were loads of people there. So really good content.
Uh, it was called the Bridge Conference.
You can see Bridge right behind editor there.
Uh, it was called the Bridge Conference.
And, um, there were some really great speakers.
There was a lot of energy in the room,
and some really in, in innovative ideas.
Like, you know, at the end of the conference, instead
of everybody just wandering off, um, the, the, uh, editor
and the team had organized some on some site visits,
so you could actually go and visit people who'd wrestled
with issues similar to yours.
And you're doing it again this year, editor, right?
Yes. And, uh, nevertheless, we also have, uh, a great,
uh, panel of speakers and, uh, site visits.
Uh, but this year we also offer unique experience in cinema.
So our event will be in, uh, in, uh, cinema
area, and you'll be able to experience full sound, uh, full,
full screen and everything, what you can get out of there.
And, uh, this year conferences for two days.
The second day, we also dedicate for, uh, four
practice hands-on practice.
We'll have, uh, two outstanding master classes.
So a lot of opportunities for people
who joins us, uh, on site.
So, uh, this is hybrid event.
You can watch it online, but for sure come
and visit our beautiful Leia.
And, and it is beautiful.
I have to say I was, I was, I fell in love with the place.
Um, and, um, you know, some of the speakers, I, I'm,
I'm gonna give, do a little flag wave for the, for the one
of the workshops on the second day
where we're gonna be looking at AI in
and around port, uh, in and around the PMO
and project management.
And we're flying in a couple of, you know, it really is,
I know it's kind of based in Northern Europe.
Um, and, you know, most
of the attendees come from Northern Europe,
but we, you know, the speakers are coming in from Australia,
from Dubai, uh, all over the place
From Portugal, from uk, uh, from Germany.
We already can count many, many countries.
So we're really proud that it's international, it's growing,
thanks to all of, uh, the community
because our purpose every year is to connect with different,
uh, service providers, uh, certification providers, uh,
with public private companies, uh,
and to get out the best out of it,
to level up our professions and, uh,
and to mature project management and PMO.
Fantastic. And our other guest today.
Um, no, no music today, Joe, I'm afraid.
That's okay. We may get a ghost sighting, so
that may be even more exciting.
Absolutely. Um, so, so our other guest today is Joe Puzz.
Uh, you may know him as PMO Joe, um, uh,
Joe is I, I'll let you introduce yourself, Joe.
But, um, I first became aware of Joe, uh, from his, uh,
PMO uh, pm after hours office,
after hours, uh, podcast, which got, you've had
how many downloads, Joe?
It's like 10 million or a hundred million
or 13 billion or something.
We stopped counting at 40 million.
So I don't know where we're at these days, but yeah,
So, so that puts Joe into the,
into the superstar territory.
So, so editor, you know, next year it's, it's not gonna have
to be a a, a cinema so
that Joe could be on stage if he comes.
It's gonna have to be a cinema, because he'll
be up on the silver screen.
'cause he is that big biggest star.
I wanna go first time Store.
My family heritage is, uh,
a border town in Poland and Lithuania.
So I want to go just to, to go visit the area of,
of my family's origin. There
You go. There
you go. It is, it's beautiful.
You see, just made a little match, I think next year. We
Found you. It's effective. Yeah.
Looking forward, forward.
I'm your keynote speaker. Editor. Excellent.
So, um, uh, so, uh, uh, Joe, did you want to do any more
of an intro than that little bit about PMO squad, perhaps
so people understand the experience that you've got?
Obviously, I'm at the attendee list,
and I think most of the folks know me.
But, uh, PMO squad, uh, great exciting news
that came out this week.
We were, were in the top 23%
of the fastest growing companies in the
United States this year.
Um, so what we're doing, people are listening and,
and they're coming to us for our services.
Uh, so it'd be great to, uh,
to be able to share that with all of you.
Also, uh, founder of the PMO Leader global community,
as we're talking about conferences in October on the 23rd,
will be our fourth annual conference.
It's a follow the sun format, 20 plus hours
live consecutively, starting in Australia
and working our way across the world.
Uh, French, Spanish, Portuguese,
English, multiple languages.
An amazing, uh, conference that I would, it's all virtual,
uh, and would recommend everybody go out that free
to register and attend.
So that, that's the, the Bridge conference
and, uh, also the PMO Leader Conference.
Great. And
By the way, just sorry for jumping in,
but, uh, by the way, our conference,
it'll be also fourth edition.
So we have, we're counting this name. Yeah.
Some more account. Excellent. Excellent.
Rachel has kindly put the, uh, link
to the registration in the chat for everyone. Well
Done, Rachel. Um,
so, so, and I can vouch for the fact that some
of the PMO leader event will be in English,
'cause I'll be giving it, um, I'll be one of the speakers.
Um, uh,
but as for the stuff that's done in the us, who knows
what language they all speak,
it's certainly not English as far as I'm concerned.
But anyway, let's jump in.
So what I would love to do, folks, is, um, make this session
as, as sort of interactive as you can.
You can tell that the three of us, we all know each other,
we're good friends, we're nice and relaxed.
We're gonna have some fun with this.
And I think we'll all get more out
of it if you also contribute to the session, right?
So do jump into that chat
and share either horror stories, questions, observations,
things that you've struggled with, and, and we'll try
and weave that into the conversation.
We do have a little bit of an agenda laid out, so,
so if you're all kind of shell shocked to not,
not typing anything, we, we, we, we'll still fill the time,
but it, it, it'll be much more fun if you guys contribute,
comment, if there's something that you hear
that you think really resonates with you,
jump into the chat and go, yay.
Or whatever it may be. Right? Okay.
So the challenge has been issued. Let's jump in.
Um, we're here to talk today about capacity planning.
So I'm gonna kick off with a, a, a really,
really simple question.
Um, what is capacity planning?
Because I think people sometimes get a
little confused around this.
So, editor, what's, what, you know, from your perspective,
what, what is ca capacity planning?
Yeah. When I think about capacity, uh, planning,
it's always for me,
like a more forward looking approach of planning.
And it's not only about, uh, people resources,
but, uh, of course, uh, usually we start from there.
It's our, uh, precious, uh, uh, precious assets
and, uh, people, technologies, uh, and, uh, finance.
Uh, and of course, it needs to be in alignment
with organizational goals.
So when everything, uh, goes, uh, together,
when, when we start early to plan those things,
it could lead to better organizational outcomes to,
to better project deliveries.
So, yeah, um, first we need to think strategically in order
to, uh, to implement the right thing.
So a lot of capacity, uh, a lot of forecasting
and, uh, other techniques, uh, need to be involved in order
to make it work, right?
Because if we start only with, you know,
what people are assigned to which tasks, uh, it's,
it's not enough.
Because, uh, always if we have a plan, you know, we need
to think how much we can invest, for example, to technology.
If we choose the right technology, we can remove some part
of, uh, manual work and, uh,
and, uh, let people to focus our on other tasks or,
or just simply to take off their overload,
which is happening in organizations.
And I really liked, uh, you know, your example, uh, Stuart,
uh, in some video, I guess when you, when you compare to,
uh, capacity utilization with, uh, traffic jam
and you know, what happens when, uh, when it's 100,
uh, capacity, right?
And, uh, do people feel happy?
Uh, does Phil Road, uh, happy?
Uh, we know what happens, right?
So we need to make everything early thinking about,
you know, few steps ahead, uh, in order to,
to make it right, in short.
Brilliant. So it's, so it's about looking ahead, uh, and,
and coming up with a, you know, matching the strategy
and the capacity and our ability to deliver and,
and trying to meld all of those together.
And, and Joe, what, how's that different to,
um, uh, sort of resource management?
Because they're, they're kind of related,
but they're not the same, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I, I take what editor had said
and add to that, it's how do we remove the chaos, right?
From the delivery of work,
by utilizing the resources we have at hand.
And again, those resources, as she mentioned,
could be people that could be
financial, it could be others, right?
Resource management is when you're in it,
or you're, you're not planning for what's coming.
You're actively in a project
and you're trying to get resources to come work on it.
So you didn't do any planning in advance to say, how many,
maybe not of the people you need,
but the role we need, how many
business analysts will we need for this work?
How many project leaders will we need?
How many ses will we need?
When you get to the resource management component, you take
that role and you shift it
to an actual resource name, right?
So if you wait to the resource assignment
to see if you have people available, you've got chaos.
If you do the capacity planning upfront, you're now
as an organization becoming collectively
aligned on what to work on.
Because we understand what type of people we need, what type
of funding we need, what type of technology we'll need.
And if you don't do that work
until you've started, you've got chaos.
And, and I mean, that leads into the next,
into the next sort of I idea
or the next question, Joe, really is so, so
what are the benefits of doing capacity planning?
And, and you, you sort
of hinted at some of them there, right?
You, so, you, you, um, you know, so, so for those of you
who don't know Joe, uh, and,
and I think, was that the last webinar we did together?
It was one we did back in January where I, I,
I put together a little, a little musical tribute to,
to Joe, uh, which included a photo of Joe
with a, with with his, with his, with,
with a much smaller beard.
I have to say at the time, much younger Joe. Yes. Smaller
Beard. The wisdom has brought
more hair. Yes. Well,
Yeah. Well, it's just moved,
right, because it was up here
One point a long, long time ago.
And so, so you know, that chaos of capacity planning, uh,
lack of capacity planning may have contributed to the shift
of, uh, of, uh, of hair on, on Joe's head there.
But, but joking aside, right?
So part of it's about controlling the chaos.
Um, what, what are some of the other benefits of,
of good capacity planning?
Yeah, I think the organization collectively
moves together, right?
Um, it adds to employee morale and employee satisfaction
because people aren't feeling overwhelmed
because they're being pulled into a work to, uh, uh,
to serve as a hero on a project,
because they need to get something over the finish line
that wasn't planned appropriately upfront.
And now they have to work over time
and extra hours to be able to get that done.
Uh, so that sinks, uh, in addition to that,
your reputation within the industry may suffer
'cause you can't deliver the way that you intended to.
So if you're a public company out to your stockholders
and shareholders, uh, you may had
to release some results about projects being delayed.
And that never hurts, uh, an organ.
I mean, that always hurts an organization's stock price.
Um, also within the,
you may not have the appropriate funding approved.
So budgets may not be where they need
to be, uh, for the year.
And because of that, the project may not be able
to get the resources they need.
It. Again, it's, it's the organization.
Historically, as we've all seen in our industry, we,
we haven't yet had the magical elixir for every company
to come together and deliver projects the way they need to.
Much like they do on the operations side, operations,
they have things figured out.
They have a cadence, they have a rhythm for
how they do their budgeting, how they do their delivery.
When we don't do proper capacity planning,
we don't understand the future based
needs for delivery work.
So therefore, we constantly have this black eye
of not being able to deliver, being rushed,
not having funding done,
don't have enough resources in place.
So all of those things are, are always pulling us down.
When we do a better job upfront with the capacity planning,
those things can lift us up.
So all of the benefits are tied to our ability to show,
we understand what we're trying to do
when we deliver projects,
just like the operations team understands what they need
to do, and they deliver on the repeatable,
consistent work that they perform.
So for me, the, I mean, the benefit is just the collective.
We get it. We control
and understand what we're trying to deliver for the company.
Brilliant. I, I think, uh, Stuart, I could also add to, to
what Joe said, uh,
from looking from executive level per perspective for, for,
uh, from, uh, from organizational perspective, for me,
it brings transparency as well,
and helps to make better decisions.
Because if we know how much we need, right?
And, uh, and this chaos, this control is better to see,
which is our first priority project,
and, uh, dedicate, uh, teams, uh,
appropriately and things like that.
So, so I think, uh, transparency is also important thing,
which, uh, which is a part of, uh, satisfaction of, uh,
employees and, uh, and our users as well.
And, and the, and one of the key things is that there's a,
so, and, and, and often people miss this, right?
It, it's sort of obvious.
And, and if you think about it for a second,
everybody knows this, but sometimes they forget, right?
So if you're not doing capacity
planning, you've got this chaos.
And that means that people are being pulled in five
different directions at once.
Okay? How effective are you? Here's the question.
I I do expect answers, please, everybody,
everybody get your fingers ready on the keyboards, right?
Do you feel when you've got five things you're trying
to do all at the same time, are you more effective
or less effective, more efficient, or less efficient?
Let's see, let's see what people say. So does multitasking.
Yeah, less, less. A little bit less or a lot.
There we go. I think we've got a consensus here, right?
Uh, I, I, who said that? Hang on. Where is it? Laura?
Laura, I love that. No such thing as multitasking.
You are correct, actually. You are absolutely correct.
So the, what the research
that the psychology research tells us is
that there is no such thing as multi multitasking.
What we actually do is we task switch, we jump from one task
to the next, to the next, to the next,
go back to the first one.
And, um, uh,
and when you're doing that in a, in a, in a,
in a complex setting like managing projects, you,
you lose up to 40%, four zero, 40% of your capacity
just because you didn't have a plan.
Jeepers. This is terrifying, folks, right?
So, so this is not about, oh,
let's all feel nice and have a plan.
This is this, this is not about, um,
there's a capability model
or a maturity model somewhere that says, we have to do it.
Let's put a check in the box. It's not about that guys.
It's about, first of all, um, uh,
helping your people, protecting your people, right?
Because people generally do not enjoy task hopping, right?
That task switching environment,
having too much work on, right?
So people don't enjoy it. So
that's the first reason to do it.
I think the second one is about this productivity.
If you, if you can stop this task switching going on,
you can get that 40% capacity back, guess what you can do
with 40% more capacity, more projects?
Yay. Right? That's great. Good news.
Um, so, so it's about that.
It's absolutely about decision making
and transparency so that your executives actually understand
what the plan is, right?
So, um, editor, have you ever had the situation where
the big bosses has come in and said, do my project?
Now, that never happens, right?
Yeah, yeah. Never happens. Never yet.
But in fact, uh, it's, uh, uh, it's a daily life
of every project manager, I guess, or, or VMO as well.
And, and, and do they ever, do they ever say,
do this now, do this project now?
No. They say, but, But feel free,
but feel free to stop other things, right?
They don't say that, do
They? Usually
they say it needs to be done yesterday,
Right?
So if you don't have good capacity planning,
you can't respond to that, right?
That's not the executive's fault.
They just don't understand the impact
of what they've just done.
So if you have a good capacity plan,
you can actually reflect that back to them so that they can,
and I, I pointed that one at you editor,
'cause you mentioned decision making, right?
So it's, it's about, you know,
if you give them the information, show 'em the consequences
of what they're asking you to do,
then they can actually make better decisions.
And if you have data to show it, uh, data accuracy is
as well, very important, right?
If you, if you show on how many projects you are working,
and it's so crystal clear, you know,
there is no such question, you know,
do another project, right?
But, uh, yeah, you need to, you need to have good facts, uh,
to, to prove for this.
So, so, Joe, Can I give, can I give an example? Yeah.
Of, of, of how we, you know, we're involved in this.
We had a, an IT department in the healthcare industry
that had a $500 million budget,
and 200 million of that was allocated to operations,
and 300 million was to a project portfolio.
And we had to submit this to the board
of directors for approval.
The expectation that we had was the board would not approve
all of that $500 million.
Some of that money would be rejected,
but we had a plan as if it all would've been approved.
And what would we do if they actually approved all
$300 million in order for the approval to take place?
We had to show them, we understood how
to utilize the investment they were gonna give to us,
and $300 million for a healthcare system,
which is a nonprofit organization
as a tremendous investment.
We went through all of the projects in the portfolio
and understood what technology we would need, how many
of the different roles we would need the funding on
that project, the duration.
'cause most of them were multi-year engagements.
And we put forward this entire plan to the board
of directors, and they approved every project.
They said that you had never come
to request funding from them
before, as organized as they were.
And they could understand what the future looked like
because of that planning that we had put in place.
When, when executives and leaders
and people who approved funding can see what you're going
to do with their investment dollars,
they're willing to give you the money.
They've been burned so much in the past by failed projects
that they're hesitant to do that, right?
So now giving them an opportunity
to get a glimpse into the future,
the capacity planning allows for that to happen.
That's a real world example that we were able to utilize
and put into practice
that then the project delivery team
could go execute against.
But had they not done the upfront planning,
they never would've got the funding required
to go get that work done.
And, you know, the executives still would've asked 'em
to do all the projects, right?
Even if the funding wasn't there.
Figure out a way to go get it done.
So instead of figuring out why you're in the thick of it,
be proactive to do it upfront, to be able to put it forward
so you're organized and can show a path to executives.
Brilliant. Joe, thank you for that.
Um, Arun has asked about, uh, what tools that are available.
We'll probably touch on that in a little while.
We'll come back to that. That,
and, um, I,
I wanna be careful I don't wave our flag too much.
'cause of course, my answer is transparent choice, right?
So, so come check that out.
Um, but we'll come back to that one later on, uh, ura.
So I'm gonna park that just for a moment.
Um, what I want to do now is just ask the audience
for a second to rank your own ability
to do capacity planning, right?
So, so scale of one, you know, zero to five, five being
what Joe just described, right?
You're absolutely on top of it.
You've got a plan, you understand the resource requirements,
the executives are looking at the plan
and taking the time to understand it, right?
So that's, that's a five
zero is we have no idea, right?
People projects just arrive and we,
and we say, what, what resources, right?
That's a zero. So just, just, oh, I shock.
Hey, great to see you, man. I didn't see you come in.
Fantastic. Okay.
So we're getting some three point fives,
lots of twos going on.
Um, just jump on in. Just give us an idea.
Yeah. So there's, there's one
or two people who are feeling reasonably solid.
Most people are kind of in the, in the,
in the lower echelons on our made up scale here.
So this is a, this is a good place actually, Joe, I wanted
to come and ask you a little bit about, um,
this capacity planning thing.
And, and, um, it doesn't just stand on its own, right?
It's, it's part of a process
and it's, it's something, it's, it's,
it's an organizational event, if you like, or a process.
Yeah. So talk, talk, talk to us a little bit about,
you know, where does it fit in the whole context of planning
through to execution
and who needs to be involved.
We'll come right back to how to get them involved later on,
but who needs to be involved?
Yeah, I, for me, it's,
the entire organization needs to be involved, right?
It's, again, we don't deliver projects in a silo.
We're delivering organizational projects.
But we, we often view an inward looking perspective of,
to the PMO and think there are PMO projects.
Well, they're not our projects,
we're just delivering organizational initiatives.
So really we need to involve everybody.
Um, you know, it, it's great to see these rankings here.
'cause it makes me think of OPD, right?
The organizational project delivery journey that we have.
And a lot of the twos
and threes in here are showing that on the OPD journey,
they probably haven't reached organizational capability yet
to really do capacity planning at an organizational level
because the organization hasn't accepted
that we do this at an organizational level. Just
Take 30 seconds and explain OPD to, to those
who haven't heard about it, Joe, for a second.
I, I know what you're talking about,
but there'll be some people out there who don't.
Yeah. OPD is a way to measure an organization's capability
to deliver projects.
Okay. It's not, it's not something we
need penicillin for then.
No, no, no. Okay. That's,
That's good.
Might it might afterwards, but, but the,
but the contrast is a lot of PMO maturity models.
How mature is our PMO?
The challenge with that is you may have a very mature
resource management process and the PMO,
but the organization doesn't follow it.
So does it really matter how mature your PMO is?
Your organization isn't capable.
So we built OPD to be able to show
how capable is your organization
to deliver projects raining from ad hoc at the lowest level,
all the way up to where your organization uses project
delivery to generate value in its industry.
So it, it's a continuum for an organization
to be able to develop on that way.
So when I see people saying two to three from a, a, um,
capacity planning perspective, to me
that means they're early on, they're probably in stage two
where they've standardized the project work.
How do we deliver projects? We've standardized that.
How do we have a portfolio? We've standardized that,
but the organization hasn't accepted those standards yet.
And if they haven't, we can't do capacity planning
across the organization.
'cause I still have resource managers
and financial managers
who haven't bought into what we're doing.
So trying to do capacity planning without
them is gonna fail.
You have to have everybody involved in capacity planning.
'cause it's an organization, it's an enterprise wide event.
And it sounds like Dora would a hundred percent kind
of recognize that situation, Joe.
Uh, 'cause she's saying that's, that's the big challenge is
that the, the, the leadership,
she's in a university setting, the leadership, um, doesn't,
doesn't really have an understanding of
what project management is.
Nevermind portfolio management and capacity planning, right?
That's right. And, And so op,
If you don't, Haved
Is almost like, So OPD is almost like the, the, the,
uh, a framework that you can use to kind of,
to help you take that journey
Abs. Yeah, absolutely. And
obviously you can go out
to the PMO squad YouTube channel
and watch our videos on that or, or out to the website
or reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me an email
and really talk to you some more about that.
Fantastic. Now, um, editor, you know,
when we were doing the prep, you told an,
an interesting story about, um, case, a case study.
It's something you lived through, right?
So with your, taking your hat, your bridge hat off
for a second and putting your Bentley
systems hat on, Mm-Hmm.
Yeah, I think it was. So
tell, tell us a little bit about that.
'cause that was a really interesting story,
and it might bring some of this alive.
Yeah. I chose one initiatives, uh, initiative where we,
uh, we had at Bentley, um, a, a year ago, uh,
which was called, uh, support Experience Refresh.
And I thought I could use this example
as a good capacity planning example.
Uh, not that capacity planning was good,
but good example to illustrate this, uh,
forward looking approach
because, uh, first of all, uh, we already had, uh,
support from our, uh, chief of Product Officer.
And, uh, the problem was clear, our users are not happy
with our support function.
So what the support I work for engineering software company
and, uh, uh, support might be, you know,
some software doesn't work, right?
Uh, something is crashing
and we get tickets, uh, just to imagine the whole situation.
So we saw all the customer satisfaction service
and, uh, it wasn't good.
And, uh, our, our end goal, uh,
and forward looking approach was
to add more technical perspective to it, to automate
as much as possible.
But until we reached the final destination, uh, you know,
it required very baby steps
because, uh, we started this project, uh,
uh, at a chaos.
As Joe said, uh, I, I was, uh, in a group with, uh,
10 or or 15 support managers from different parts
of the world, and everyone was telling me
that we have resource problems and, uh,
and, uh, we need to hire more people if we want to,
to improve our res uh, response time.
Which is, you know, answering, answering to the ticket
and resolution time, which is fixing the issue itself.
Because those two criteria were our key measures, uh,
in the very beginning.
Uh, so what we did, actually, I was happy
because, uh, we followed such like a
fusion team approach, which means, uh, we, we, um,
merge, uh, cross collaborative teams together
with different digital talents, with different, uh, um,
subject matter, uh, expertise, uh, in order
to deliver the best results.
So, uh, so even myself,
I wasn't leading the project alone.
I was sharing the leadership with customer success manager,
which is personally involved in the, all the surveys
and person personally interested in the success of this.
And, uh, and, uh, also product expert who,
who knows all our product lines
and all the issues that might happen in development levels.
So three of us, we thought how to create the best framework,
uh, uh, and, uh,
and out of our brainstorming, we figured out
that first we need to find, uh, the root cause.
You know, uh, maybe it's not that people, uh, maybe,
maybe it, it's something else.
And the resource issue might not be the root cause.
Capacity planning might be the issue.
Uh, so what we did, uh, actually, uh, we,
we asked every support manager, uh, to work
with their teams and to identify in each product line,
uh, what is holding us to, to better respond,
for example, to the ticket.
So, and, uh, this study, this analysis simply showed that,
for example, uh, when support people are the, are, um,
dedicated to multiple countries,
they have different mindset, different, uh, uh, different,
uh, uh, understanding of the priorities simply,
uh, our problem was to convince them that
critical tickets should go first,
because the number of how many tickets you fix, uh,
doesn't mean that you did, uh, that, uh, you did very good,
uh, job, you know, if you,
if you fix critical complex issue first, uh, it doesn't mean
that you need to, to numbers of them.
You know, not, not the number of tickets matters,
but complexity matters, things like that.
So it requires a lot of change management explanation,
documentation, uh, you know, what is it?
And coming up on the, uh, united governance, uh,
going back to more centralized work, I would say,
when we know the same, when we use the same terminology,
when we use, uh, uh, the same team work, uh,
we split our team to, to different work streams
to focus on the targets every month.
And we were monitoring closely, you know,
how much we improve.
And in the end of the pilot project,
after talking to the people, uh,
training them on change management, uh,
we improved our response and resolution time by 85%.
So it was a really successful pilot project.
Moreover, I was happy to see the evaluation of those,
because eventually we hired more people
because, uh, you know, low hanging foods were to improve,
uh, response and resolution time.
But when we come up with, uh, more difficult issues, uh,
with, uh, technical issues, we figured out that we need
to change system, that we need to add proper tools.
And, uh, eventually, you know, it's, uh, grow up, uh, to,
I would say improvement every day, continuous improvement.
And not a single project, but the whole company is briefing
because, uh, finally we have a buy-in from all the groups.
They understand the importance of this, uh,
of this initiative.
So, so a couple of really key things outta that.
One was, um, you know,
you'll notice editor didn't say, we finished
that project on time
and on budget, what editor said was, we, we,
we improved ticket handling by 85%, or the volume by 85%
or something, right?
So number one, right?
And this is general, this isn't just
about capacity planning, right?
Projects are not about the triple constraint of, you know,
on time, on budget, on, on scope.
It's about delivering business value.
So I really love that, thank you, thank you,
thank you editor for, for talking about the business impact
of what you did.
So the only reason we do projects, folks, is
to deliver that business impact.
The second thing that jumped out at me from that little,
that that little case study is that, um,
capacity planning isn't something
that is just a point in time.
It's part of a whole process that started with the,
you know, there were ideas about prioritization in there,
there were ideas about resource management, right?
And, and actually the resource management problems were
being caused by capacity planning failures, right?
So, so if you're sitting there thinking, ouch, this hurts,
it's chaos, right?
And, and you know, we've got a,
we've got a resource management problem,
just take a step back
and ask yourself, do we have a resource management problem?
Or do we have a capacity planning problem?
Are we just letting too many projects through?
We're not prioritizing properly,
and we're not scheduling the projects in a way
that gives our people a chance
to actually deliver them, right?
That's, that's not about resource management, that's about
planning, that's about the resource, uh, capacity planning.
Um, so, so, so it's, it's all about a process,
and it's all about delivering
that business result at the, at the end of it.
And, and you can't, Joe, part of your OPD thing is
that you can't really tease these things apart
and treat them as separate things.
It's, it's sort of one process, right? Yeah.
It's all connected, right?
We all, we all function within an organization,
and we don't have silos around processes of project delivery
that are independent from other siloed processes, right?
Resource management is impacted by
how well we do capacity planning, capacity planning impacts,
budgeting process, budgeting process impacts our ability
to do change management.
Uh, they're all connected,
but we treat them as if they're standalone items.
And if I go fix resource management,
everything will be solved wrong.
If you haven't fixed capacity planning, you're, when get
to resource management,
you're gonna have the same issue still.
So it's that, that's why we take an
organizational view, right?
As opposed to a PMO project based view,
which historically our industry has been doing for 50 years,
we look inward and try to improve ourselves.
We haven't fixed the organization.
When, when we go out
and do PMO discovery work for our clients,
typically we find about between 10
and 15 items for them to improve,
to deliver projects better.
And we're doing that in the PMO.
But the findings of those 10 to 15, 75 to 80%
of them are organizational findings.
Not PMO findings.
The organization needs to do, the organization needs to do
not the PMO needs to do.
If we don't have an organizational view on fix fixing
project problems that the organization isn't going
to accept, we have to be able to understand.
These are all connected,
they're all rooted into the
organizational fabric and culture.
And if we don't train that, we're gonna continue to suffer,
even though we're doing our best
to improve the project pieces that we own that, right?
Uh, for everyone
when we work within the finance industry,
if gonna send out an invoice to a vendor,
the entire organization knows that goes from the finance
or accounting department, right?
I can't send that from, it has to go out of that.
So the organization has accepted that way of working.
If we don't do that in a project delivery
where the entire organization accepts our way
of project delivery, we're gonna fail.
And we know, how do we know that? Because failing, right?
Our project delivery access rates are way too low.
So we have to take a different change to the, to this,
and the best to look is what's working in the
organization where we work.
And operations works a lot better than project delivery.
So let's observe, let's understand how they have success
and then try to replicate in the project delivery world.
It has to be an organizational approach.
Fantastic. And,
and, um, I'm actually gonna come back to the,
the question about tools.
'cause we, we've taken, you know, Joe and editor
and others are a constant inspiration to us
as we develop our software.
So thank you to you guys for, for leading the way
and, um, sort of inspired by some of this stuff.
Uh, we've taken our project prioritization software
that we've been doing for years.
And the important thing about prioritization, actually,
yeah, of course you reduce waste
and everything else, which is what everybody thinks about,
you know, get strategic alignment, blah, blah, blah.
But the, the really huge value in prioritization is
what you then do with it, right?
So it's taking that prioritization forward into the capacity
planning, because that's when the portfolio becomes real.
That's when you bake in success
or failure at that capacity planning step.
And so you can only do capacity planning if good, you know,
good capacity planning, if you have
good solid prioritization.
'cause otherwise you don't know which projects
to prioritize in your plan.
And so, so, um, uh, you know, we, so
what we've done is we've built some AI that sits on top
of the, the prioritization tools that will, um,
run thousands of scenarios.
The AI will, will guide simulations,
and it will actually suggest portfolio based on
your resource assumptions.
It'll suggest a portfolio that maximizes the value
that you could deliver as an organization.
And then you can run scenarios off of that.
'cause that's, that's the hard part in, in, in
capacity planning is running the scenarios, right?
You, you can kind of come up with a plan.
The question is, have you come up with a good plan
and you don't know until you've tried
a few scenarios, right?
So, so we, we, I was telling the guys in the green room,
actually yesterday I was doing a, we were doing a demo
to a a, a bank
and, uh, there, there was something like 46
projects in this, in this little portfolio.
And we were, we were gonna try and schedule them.
And the, the, so I, I asked the PMO,
how long would it take you to come up with a, a, a plan,
a capacity plan, a a project roadmap that was,
that had balanced resource utilization.
And he started, he started telling me about, you know,
how long it would take, uh, you know, it would take a, uh,
take him half a day, a day, something like that,
and the steps he'd have to go through.
And by the time he'd finished saying that,
took him maybe 10 seconds to answer,
the software had simulated over 180,000 permutations
of, of the roadmap.
And it'd come up and said, TA here's the best one. Right?
And so, so, you know,
capacity planning in the past has been a really,
really difficult slow process.
And, you know, the new technologies
and transparent choices, just one of them, right?
But new technologies have, are coming along now where,
where we're leveraging AI
and other, other tools to really speed up this process.
And, and that matters because it means you can react.
You can react when the executives say,
what would happen if we put this project in?
We've gotta do that one. Or
what happens when you suddenly discover
that project you thought was a six month project
is actually a two year project?
What happens, right? What do you do?
How do you, how do you reschedule around that?
And the, the, and
so the technology is really changing in this area quite
quickly, um, to give you the power to make those decisions,
to run those scenarios, um, at, at, at a speed
and a scale that, that, that nobody's ever been,
been able to do before.
So, so this makes capacity planning achievable
and, and a lot less scary.
Um, and, you know, one of the side effects,
somebody asked the question earlier on, you know,
capacity planning's, okay, but how do you do
the estimation in the first place, the project estimation?
Um, I dunno if one where you want to pick that one up, but,
but if you can replan quickly,
'cause it doesn't matter
how much effort you put into estimating your projects,
your estimates are going to be wrong.
Of course they are. Yeah. They're estimates.
So, so this ability to replan really quickly is,
is I believe actually the key
to solving the estimation problem.
Because it means that, you know,
when you discover which direction your,
your estimate is wrong, you can replan
and react to that really quickly.
And 'cause they're not always longer than you think,
sometimes they are shorter than you think.
So, I dunno, Joe, Joe, editor,
do you wanna pick any of that up? And
Well, uh, with respect to estimation, I think, uh,
I could just tackle what you, you
and, uh, just, uh, uh, words, uh, from, uh, Jack Dugal,
who is also very well known in in our project management
and PMO world is, uh, is, uh, ringing in my head,
you know, that, uh, he always keeps saying
that there is no such thing as a plan.
We can have only planning
and such a fast paced environment when everything, you know,
is changing, uh, so much.
But, uh, but it's important that planning needs to happen
and, uh, a adjusting it, adopting to the current situation.
It, uh, it's always, uh, um, a way of working, uh, for,
you know, always improving.
So this works for me, running the Bridge conference
and the team, uh, uh, which is, uh, you know, always, uh,
always on, on the edge with, uh, with, uh,
critical priorities and things like that.
And, uh, and the same works with,
with multiple projects I've been assigned to.
Fantastic. So I've just in the chat, Lenora, I, um,
there are a couple of videos that if MD's interested in, in
how some of that stuff can work.
Um, there's a couple of little videos that we've got
that sort of describe how the AI stuff can work
and why it matters, right?
So it's about increasing the flow of projects
and all that kind of good stuff.
Uh, thank you Lenora.
We're getting close to the end of our, our session,
and I wanna come back to an issue that, um,
I think it was Dora earlier on had, uh,
and that was on our list to talk about, which was how to get
that organizational engagement, how to get your executives
to buy in, how to get people to participate.
Um, uh, Joe, do you wanna go first
and then I'll, then we'll jump over to editor?
Yeah. I, I think for me, the perspective on this,
when we go out and engage new PMO leaders who are asking
for our help is we say, the first place you have
to look is not to your executives
or your team members, it's to yourself, w what are you
as a PMO leader going to do different?
Because what you're doing today isn't working
and the mindset of we're gonna improve our PMO and
therefore the organization will get better
is only gonna take you so far.
We have to recognize that we're business leaders
inside an organization,
and we have to go work
with our peers at the leadership level
to help them understand the benefits
that project delivery can bring to the overall organization.
So for me, the best way to be able
to go do this change is understand how we have
to change ourselves, understand our role in the
organization, not our role in the PMO, understand
how we're agents of change
and what messaging we have to bring forward to our peers
to get them to buy into what we're trying to accomplish.
And understand that we're not trying
to deliver projects, right?
We're trying to deliver strategic
initiatives for the organization.
And having a complete mindset shift
as an PMO leader is required for us to get out of the morass
that we're stuck in of being a project management resource
and a project management department trying
to do project management, thinks
the organization doesn't care about any of that stuff
they care about, did you get our initiative
accomplished so that we get value?
And if we don't understand that
and we don't start adjusting as leaders,
we're never gonna get the progress that we need.
So to me, that's the first thing we have to change Yeah.
As the ducks, right? We have to be able to change ourselves
in the way we think and how we act in order
to get the results that we're looking for.
There we go. And, and, and a big piece in that is, uh,
and I feel like I say this on every single video and webinar
and things that I'm on, so I apologize if you've heard it
before, but here it goes is the, as an industry,
we've gotta stop talking about project stuff.
'cause the executives really don't care, right? Yeah.
So I was waving ducks around, uh, a second ago.
So if, if your, if your projects are like ducks, right?
The ex your executive team really doesn't care if you've got
a boy duck or a gold duck, they just want the eggs, right?
Mm-Hmm. So, so they only care about the value
that comes outta the project.
So when you're trying to get their buy-in for something,
don't go and talk to 'em about maturity models.
They don't care. Go
and say, do you realize that our inability
to deliver projects cost us a hundred million dollars, uh,
uh, uh, of, of revenue last year?
And that we, that we failed to deliver a target
of $30 million of cost savings?
Because okay, now you've got the retention
'cause you're talking in their language,
not in project ease, right?
And, and that's, that's one of the steps,
and that's a step, that's not a step
that anybody else needs to take.
The people on this call right now can take that step
right now, you can swear to yourself
that you're never gonna talk about ducks again, right?
Talk about those projects
and just talk about the eggs, talk about the value
that the projects are delivering that the PMO is delivering.
And, and I I, I promise you, it'll change the way
execs that you engage.
It will change your relationship forever
with the execs editor.
Same question to you. What do you have any advice for
for getting started and getting execs
to start engaging around this stuff?
Yeah, I guess, uh, to get buy-in, I could, uh,
echo with, uh, Joe.
And, uh, I think just small thing to add
because, uh, if we do our homework
and find the places where to, to how
to get the low hanging fruits first, right?
To bring value quickly, uh,
and uh, then have a roadmap how we will evolve.
So I think every organization leader, you know, would like
to get those first results
and to see that, uh, that it's improving.
So, so it's again, all about value,
but also we need to think which things will bring us short
term value and how we will get in a long term.
So it also need to be forward to looking, thinking
and, uh, the first steps, uh, don't start big, start small,
I guess, uh, with pilot project
and then look how to scale, uh, when you want to implement,
let's say capacity planning techniques.
Yeah. And a lot of people, that's,
that's super advice editor, you know, a lot.
So lots of the people that I see being really successful,
not once, but people who do it again and again and again.
Um, often they will do something like either start
with little pilot projects
or they'll figure out what's really bugging the execs
and in, in, in a 90 day sprint, they'll fix it,
whatever it is, fix the root cause of that problem,
and then do another 90 day sprint
and do another 90 day sprint by the, by the end
of your third 90 day sprint,
they're gonna be really listening to you, right?
Because you're actually solving problems.
And, um, so, you know, don't, one of the things I, I,
again, another little things.
There is no such thing as a teleport system, right?
If you want to get from this corner of the room to
that corner of the room, I have to walk, I have
to go one step at a time to walk from here over to there.
I can't teleport. So don't, don't try 'cause you'll fail.
Yep. You get scrambled eggs,
You get scrambled eggs.
Excellent. Excellent. Fantastic.
Um, so, uh, so, uh,
s has a question, uh,
which basically boils down to it, I think.
How do you estimate how many projects 1:00 PM can handle?
How do you work out what the capacity is?
Is there a simple answer?
Well, to me, it, it's, you know,
organizational dependency.
There, there isn't a one size fits all
really for, for any of this.
So at your organization, it depends the, the size
of the project, it depends, depends the industry
or for, it depends
Complexity as well.
Uh, yeah, data has come up, right?
What you collected, how much work that a,
a project manager can handle
and have successful outcomes on projects, um, estimates.
Our estimates are going to be wrong,
but if you use some data to try
to help form those estimates,
you can them be less wrong in the future.
Yeah, yeah. AB absolutely.
And, and DA data is a really good, um,
input into this process.
Of course, not everybody has lots of data,
so sometimes you just have to guess
and do that pilot project and, and build some data, right?
And, and figure it out. Um, a couple more questions.
Uh, Joe, do you have a written step by step process for, for
or template or anything like that for capacity planning?
I'm not sure it's that simple, is it?
No, I, I'd say to give a a, a pitch
for another conference, uh,
Laura Bernard's Impact Summit is coming up shortly.
Um, I'm one of the presenters and there,
and I talk,
talk about OPD.
So I'll give a pitch, go register for Laura's conference
and watch the OPD session
and you'll get each of the five steps of capability.
I walk through each of them.
So that might be a, I think that's better than a template.
Templates me are just tools there.
No, I think we've lost Joe to the, uh,
to the ghost in the hotel.
Joe's actually on vacation at the minute in a,
in a haunted hotel.
Perfect. But I think, I think the ghost has it.
Nevermind, nevermind. Um,
Back in vacation mode.
Yeah. Yeah. He'll, he'll, he'll turn up again, I'm sure.
Um, so, uh, ano another quick question is, and,
and this one's a tricky one,
generally not just about capacity management.
Uh, capacity planning, I should say.
Um, how do you effectively balance the long-term
strategic goals of the PMO with the day-to-day constraints
of actually just running the PMO
and I I, I've, I've got kind of one thought on that,
which is that, um,
that would be a really good time when you are asking
yourself that, that would be a really good time to reach out
to somebody like editor or to Joe
or Joe mentioned Laura Barnard,
or if you're in Australia, uh, Louise Gardner pledge,
or, uh, you know, I could give you a list of people
around the world who can help you with that.
It's really tough to,
you can absolutely can do it on your own.
Um, and you know, Laura Barnard's program
and a book, which I happen to have a copy
of on my desk here, um, we'll help you on that journey.
But it, it's actually quite difficult for a number
of reasons for PMOs, especially if you've been in, in role
for a while to make that transition, in my view.
Um, so I would reach out for some help because,
because believe it
or not, just, just having somebody with that fantastic,
uh, Aristot look that Joe carries off so well, right?
Come in and tell your executives that they've got a problem
and they are the problem, right?
He'll be able to say that and they will believe him.
They won't believe you, right?
So my advice would be get some help from outside, uh,
if you can, and, and, and help from outside.
Doesn't necessarily mean engage someone in a really big
transformation project, right?
It can just be, do a quick maturity assessment
or, you know, just get some advice.
Just something that you can read back
to the leadership team to get their attention.
And, and I would start there
and then, you know,
then it's like any other plan, any other project.
You just gotta build a plan.
Make sure you've got the capacity to deliver.
'cause if you haven't, you'll fail, right? It's that simple.
So if you haven't got the capacity, then maybe buy it in,
rent it something, um,
or get or carve it out.
But make sure you have executive support to do that.
Uh, 'cause they're still gonna expect you to do the day job
even while you're transforming everything, not the answer.
You, some of the answer you are looking for. I, I hope.
Um, fantastic books.
Any suggestions for books
Practical guides on the day, day in,
day out work of the PMO?
I'll start the bidding.
I'm gonna start the bidding with this. Oh, hang on.
Lemme turn off the blur. Just gimme a second.
Um, alright. Get rid of the blur. There we go. All right.
So if you could see this, this is the Impact Engine
by Laura Barnard, uh, which is coming out next month.
I think I've got
quite a few copies in my garage outside here.
Um, it's, it's a superbook for any PMO, um, to
not just think about what you need to do,
but how to, how to manage transformation, you know, how
to manage that process editor, what's your,
what's your current favorite?
I just happen to have that one at hand
and it's jolly good book.
Uh, well, uh, pillars of, uh, organizational excellence,
uh, uh, also, uh, written by, uh,
collaborating with, uh, Ricardo vi, uh, Vargas.
And, uh,
Yeah, where You can read a lot of
practice based stories and, uh,
and, uh, uh, view, you know, how we need to get, uh, better
to improve and, uh, and to stay on top of it.
Brilliant. Do you wanna pop the details in the
chat editor, if you would?
And, and, and, um, Ricardo and
and Al are both just phenomenal people as well.
They are so experienced.
Um, so that, that is a, that's a good book.
Uh, Joe, Joe, anything from you? Any thoughts from you?
Yeah, I'll go a little oddball
because that's just who I am, right?
I'll say your resume is the book
that gives you the best experience on, on
how to be a PMO leader.
Um, what's it called?
You can read about your resume,
your own personal resume Yeah.
Okay. Of the work you've accomplished. Right.
The re you know, I love books.
I, I, I think Better books, leadership books as opposed
to PM books, every PMO is unique.
What you're going to need to do
to be successful in your organization is going to be unique.
And I think experience is the best practice
of be your own author of your own book, of how
to build your PMO.
Um, and then I would recommend going out, there's a billion
of course leadership books out there, uh,
but extreme ownership, uh, would be one
that I think is something that
we would all benefit from in the PMO world, uh,
by Jocko will link, uh, to go out there
and understand that we own this
and we're accountable for this.
Um, so we have to go make the change
possible to go out there and do that.
So leadership
and your own personal experience
to me are the two things you need to focus on.
Fantastic. And We have a lot
of great personalities in this industry.
It's not about the personalities, right?
It's about, it's about getting stuff done.
I wanna Jocko Willink for those who don't know
as a Navy Seal, a little abrasive, some people,
but he's gotten stuff done.
And, and I am, I am.
I think that the strength of our industry needs more people
like him, uh, people who have executed out there.
And it's not just about our industry.
It's about being leaders and getting stuff done.
Brilliant. And, and I'm gonna,
I'm gonna pitch one other one, which is, uh,
actually coming out again later on this year.
Um, so if you, uh, so lots of leadership books out there.
Uh, but here, Shahi is launching a leadership
book for PMOs.
Um, I've had sight of an advanced copy.
And, um, again, if, if you know Hiba, which, uh, the three
of us are lucky enough to, to to know Hiba, um,
she's not only really experienced
and great PMO leader,
she's also just a truly beautiful human being, um,
and very artistic.
And, uh, thank you very much. This is fantastic.
My son just brought me a cup of tea.
It was meant to arrive an hour ago, but it did arrive.
So thank you, James. Um, uh, so she's
Also strategy and execution.
That's it. Extreme accountability, Joe. That's right.
Uh, the, um, uh, so Heather's book's coming out
and it's, it's a beautiful mix of, of, um,
a poetic worldview with a very pragmatic set
of values
and guide, guide guidelines for, uh,
PMO leaders specifically to, to get through their,
uh, their life.
So I, I'd recommend that one as well.
That's coming out later on.
But yeah, and there's always, you know, the old, um,
actually the, the, uh, management
of Portfolios book has been around for a long time.
Um, uh,
and Steve Jenner is actually launching a new book again
later on this year, um, which I, uh,
I've written a little book bit in,
but the, the, uh, you know,
that's gonna be an interesting one as well.
That's, that's, that's an update, really an updated version
of the, the MOP, which has been out for, for, uh, I dunno,
almost a couple of decades, in fact, um, since he
and CRE created that little beastie.
So there's, there's lots to get your teeth into.
Hey, we turned it into a book club at the end there.
That's kind of fun. We've not done that before.
Thank you for that question. Um,
but we are actually just a little bit over time, so, um, uh,
and really appreciate everybody coming to join.
Um, I, i, I, I want to thank Editor
and Joe in particular for taking the time to, to join us.
Thanks. And I, I,
and I'm assuming you guys are happy to talk
to people if they have questions afterwards.
Absolutely. And editor,
where do they sign up for the Bridge Conference?
Just Google Bridge PMO conference.
Pm conference.org.
You'll find all the information or reach out directly.
I'm happy to collaborate.
Fantastic. And,
and Joe, where, where are they gonna find you?
Where's everybody gonna find you?
LinkedIn, great resource. PMO Squad, PMO Leader.
Uh, yeah, Joe's everywhere.
The corner in our industry, you'll find.
Yeah, Joe Joe's everywhere. He's, uh, all over the place.
Um, fantastic.
And, um, and of course you can connect with me on LinkedIn,
Stuart Easton, um, uh, or just jump into our, our website
and there's a load of free resources there
that you can get hold of.
We'll be, um, sending out an email in the next couple
of days soon as the recording is processed
and edited a little bit.
Uh, we will send that out.
So watch for the email, um, in there, uh, Lenore is on here,
who's, who owns that.
So in there we will try
and scrape all of these links that editor
and Joe have shared with you,
and incorporate those into the follow-up email as well.
Um, so, so you'll have all those wonderful resources, um,
uh, and then links off to videos and tutorials
and all kinds of things to help get you started.
So, uh, thank you everybody for, um, for joining.
Thank you for participating. It does make it more fun.
Hopefully it's more fun for you as well.
It's certainly more fun for us.
So, uh, so thank you very much.