So, welcome everybody.
Uh, as I said, my name's Stuart Stuart Easton.
I'm the CEO and one of the founders of Transparent Choice.
And every month we do a guest webinar where we invite,
uh, an industry thought leader, uh, someone
with deep experience to come and talk to us.
Um, now, we couldn't find one of those this month,
so we've invited Tony.
No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Um, so this, this month, uh, we've invited, uh,
Tony, er,
and we were, we were having fun earlier, uh,
in the Green Room talking about pronunciation.
So if you're gonna talk to Tony, right?
You can't call him Dr. Tony. Everybody calls him Dr. Tony.
You can't call him Dr. Tony. You've got to call him Dr.
Preza. And you've got to make the sound right.
Preza, uh, uh, we were laughing
'cause I come from a Scottish family, so
that sound is, is easy for me.
But most English speakers struggle with that.
So, uh, so Tony, uh, is a, is a good friend of mine.
We first met,
I think face-to-face was in Atlanta, wasn't it?
Uh, the PMI Global Summit. Atlanta.
I think that you went to Vegas in 2022.
No, I didn't do Vegas. Didn't do Vegas wasn't there.
Oh, so what, so I Think it was Atlanta. Yeah.
Yeah. The first time. Yeah.
And, um, uh,
and in the, in the meantime, we, we've got
to know each other pretty well.
Tony's one of our partners, one of our consulting partners.
Uh, we're very proud to have him as a consulting partner.
Um, and he is a, a, a trainer
and a consultant, uh, in the PMO space.
Uh, clearly a very learned gentleman, uh,
and a lot of fun just to hang out with, I've gotta say.
Um, and, uh, so today we're gonna talk about how to develop
high impact, uh, PMOs.
Uh, Tony's gonna give you, give himself a bit more
of a formal introduction later on.
Um, and what, Joe, I like that.
What, what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Heck, it must have been good
'cause I didn't even make it to Vegas.
Uh, What happened on the way to Vegas stays in Vegas.
Um, so anyway, uh, Tony, Tony's gonna give us a bit
of a presentation, uh,
but as usual, I dare say, I will interrupt and ask questions
and do all that kind of good stuff.
So, Tony, why don't you, uh, pick up from there
and, uh, introduce yourself and let's jump in.
Thank you, uh, Stewart, for having me, uh, today.
Um, and thank you to everyone, uh, taking the time to listen
to Stewart and me.
Um, let me, this is the title of the topics that we have,
building a High Impact, PMO from framework
to Enterprise Level Execution.
Always like to, to start with a quote.
Sometime I made a quote, so sometime I just put something
to, uh, to set the tone for, for the meeting.
So, high Impact, PMO is not about establishing, uh,
governance, uh, departments
or audit in depending organization.
Um, when, when we say high impact, PMO is
to empower strategy, um, I like, uh,
is a friend of, uh, Stewart too, Laura,
and she has a book, um, in Impact Engine.
Um, uh, when we say, uh, high Impact, PMO, uh,
taking what she said in her book is also, um,
is the PMO to accelerate, um, a study delivery.
So with that in mind, so that's
how we are gonna be discussing.
I always like to always share number, people like
to have numbers story.
So there is a couple of interesting numbers from PMI.
For example, they say the PMOs that aligned
to a study are 38% more likely to achieve project success.
Another interesting number
that came out recently in the report, uh, that PMI, uh,
issue, uh, earlier, um, uh, this year, maximizing Projects.
It says 91%
of executive says delivering business value is more
important than finishing on time, on budget.
That was the all metrics a project was successful
with deliver according to people.
And there are other numbers that I, I'm gonna
go into all the detail. So,
And, and this is, this is really cool, right?
Because the, that, that 90, 91% number
is really important, right?
If you remember nothing else today, remember that number,
Right? Yeah.
Because that number tells us, tells us
that your executives actually don't care about your
project, right?
They don't care about your Gantt charts
and your methodologies and agile versus waterfall versus
banana scrum split, whatever, right? They don't care.
Yeah. As you said, they don't care about the ducks.
They care about the X.
Absolutely. We got the Duck famous famous
quotes from Stewart.
So, um, look at the bottom, it a failure
to demonstrate value.
And we can have different, uh, line item to consider
that it could be misalignment with strategic goals.
It could be pool, stakeholder engagement, consistent use
of processes, bureaucratic approaches,
uh, lack of executive.
Well, there's many reason why we consider
PMO failed.
But the only reason is
to demonstrate value.
And you can put different, uh, names to, to
that, uh, kind of things.
And, and so there's a first question then, uh,
Tony from Guy, guy Wolf.
Um, so guys, as in the instance where PMOs fail,
and you haven't put a statistic for that,
but, um, you know, two thirds fail within the first, the,
or half fail within the first couple of years.
Um, so in the instances where PMOs failed, um,
what are the two or three most likely causes?
And I think you've just hit the main one, right?
Which is that they just don't deliver business value.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I I would say we, we can call it different name,
but it is to demonstrate value,
and nobody wanna invest on something
that doesn't have any value for you.
So if you pay for, uh, movie tickets
because you think that movie going to add value, you wanna,
uh, watch the movie.
So, uh, the end of the day is, uh, failure
to demonstrate value and what is value.
That's an interesting question.
Yeah. And, and, and,
and I would say in vast majority of cases where A PMO fails,
it's just because they haven't delivered the, the value
that the business wants, right?
Fundamentally, that's, that's it.
So I don't think there are two
or three reasons. I think there's one reason,
Exactly, just one reason is to demonstrate the value.
And you can have a lot of excuses.
That's like, usually we, we, we do a lot of excuses just
to feel well outselves.
So at the end of the day, the second say,
you don't have value, so we don't need you.
Uh, a little bit about me, I don't going to say everything.
So people that follow me in lending, they,
they know me very well.
So what I, I consider myself, I am a, a life, um,
a lifelong learner.
And, uh, so the other day, I, I got a couple of books
that somebody suggested in a webinar that I attended.
So I, all the books that if you come to my house,
you are gonna see thousands of books.
That's the, that I have passions about reading, learning,
uh, exploring what other people think.
And that helped me to, to have some, uh, eh,
knowledge also, uh, to expand, um,
my ability to write.
So I wrote my own books, uh, that was launched, um,
this march about the, uh, project management,
if somebody interested in Amazon, uh, both,
uh, papers and, and details.
So that's, uh, me.
So I have passion for project management, um,
and digital transformation,
because that's, uh, the only thing that I have done in, in,
in my life since I was 17 years old.
I'm working in, in the it, uh, so I have the opportunity.
So I see that I have been blessed that I have opportunity to
perform multiple roles in technology until
that we consider the top.
So I, I been the, uh, in capital organization,
the chief information Officers, a lot
of executive positions in, in it,
but it is a heavy, um, uh, driven,
uh, projects, uh, kind organization.
So, uh, so now at this stage of my life,
so for me, it's more, uh, giving back to the community,
sharing knowledge, learning from a lot of people
I see in the audience side, a lot of people that I know,
some I have the opportunity to talk to them.
Um, so it is learning from each other.
That's my, my philosophy. So I am also a professor.
So I teach project management leadership courses for, uh,
uh, right now for one university
before I have four university that I teach.
I like to ride, so, and, and play golf.
That's, uh, that, that's Tony's life.
I didn't know you were a golfer.
Yeah, I played, played. Oh,
No, I've just gone off, you know?
Yeah. I have so many trophies. So I like to win also.
Excellent. Excellent. Love it. Love it.
Okay. So, um, and so I just do some of the ideas,
but I would like to gather some of the information
with all the knowledge.
I probably have, uh, 10, uh, thousand years of experience
representing the audience and you and me.
So, so what makes A-A-P-M-O high impact?
So I, I just put those, uh, key threats, uh,
strategic alignment, agility,
and adaptability, value focused delivery
and cross-functional influence.
So, waters right in the chat.
So when we talk about a high impact, uh, PMO,
uh, PMO should operate around those, uh, fall, uh,
uh, pillars of, of factors.
So what, so can I just, what I, in your mind,
Let me just check something, Tony, if I may.
Uh, is anybody else suffering with an echo?
Kareem's got an echo.
I just wanna see if anybody else has that echo. No.
Okay, perfect. It's fine for me. Um, yeah,
I, I don't have it. Okay.
Okay. That's fine. Super. Let's, let's keep going.
Kareem, maybe, uh, I dunno if you've got a headset
or drop off and rejoin
or something, hopefully that'll fix it.
Um, sorry about that.
Yeah, Brilliant. Sorry, on Tony.
So any other contribution?
So alignment, so we know what it is.
Uh, A PMO should be in alignment with the business.
That's the only reason, uh, uh, to justify the systems
of PM Did, you know, uh, align with the business,
making sure, um, we support those strategic goals
and the, the business pro prosper.
So what you doing? So the other thing is about adaptability.
So the day, uh, business change every day, the
word change every day.
So we need to move with the flow.
It's like, I, I like a quote from Bruce Lee.
Uh, you need to be like water.
So I am also a martial artist, so I am Blackberry ari,
so I love martial arts.
So, uh, Bruce Lee has an interesting quote.
You need to be like water, that means adaptability. Mm-hmm.
And value focused delivery is not about outputs,
and we are tired.
So, uh, leasing the same thing.
It is should be outcome based.
It should be that everything that you do
for the organization should add value.
It doesn't matter what you do.
Everything needs to add something that the company
or organization, uh, eh, enjoy.
And the other thing is the high impact PMO is not just
for it, it's not just for finance.
It should be a cross-functional influence.
That's the high impact. PMO.
Anyone that have a problem
or an idea, they should go to the PMO.
I have a ring last night.
Oh, let me talk to the PMO director.
That's the kind of things that I consider high impact PMO
To me. So, so,
so I'd love to come to some
of the questions from the audience, Tony.
Mm-hmm. If I may. So, so the first thing is, you know,
we're, we're using this word value.
Mm-hmm. And Angelique, um, uh, who I,
good to see you Angelique.
Um, uh, she asked the question,
who defines the values?
And there's a related question from Sarah, which is, um,
whose responsibility is it to communicate the strategy
to the, to the PMO?
So, if 33%
of execs believe the PMO don't understand the strategy,
then surely the execs aren't communicating it clearly.
So those, those questions are probably linked a little bit.
Yes, sir. Um, so, so what do you think?
What, what are your thoughts?
Yeah. Well, so the first thing the value is,
is very, uh, ambiguous.
Uh, because values depends on the people
that you serving, um, in, in that case.
Um, uh, so America Pinto, uh, they come up with the concepts
of perception of value.
So what is value for your customers,
your stakeholders?
They are the one that they need to decide
what is value for them.
So if they consider value is to, uh,
grow revenue, or that's value, if they consider value,
is to, uh, increasing market share that's value
for them, the operational efficiency, that value for them,
uh, reputation, that value for them.
So that's something that you need to figure out.
What value for your customers, your PMO customers?
And, and the, and there's two sides to this, right?
The one side is about what's valuable to,
to the PMOs customers as services, right?
So, so the executives might want, you know, visibility
and control, whereas the project managers might want a,
you know, lightweight templates don't do too much,
don't go over crazy with your templates, right?
But they want a little bit of structure just
to help 'em be more effective, right?
And helpful. Or maybe they want some reporting help,
or they want some other kind of help, right?
So there's that kind of value. Mm-hmm.
But the, but when, when Tony's talking about value focused
delivery here, that's about the value of the,
that the project's gonna deliver, right?
So, not the outputs, not the deliverables,
but the business impact, right?
So, shift from being about the duck, right?
It's not about the duck. We don't care about the duck,
the boy duck or a girl duck.
We don't care. We just want eggs.
We want the value from the projects.
And so this value focused delivery is all about
focusing on the eggs, focusing on the business impact.
Um, so, so there's a really, there,
there's another statistic, Tony, which was, you know,
because you're talking about strategic alignment
and value focus there, uh, no.
Brilliant. Do, do you know what, dive into this?
'cause I think you're probably gonna answer the question I
was about to ask, so I'll, I'll shut it.
Okay. Go for it. Go, go, go.
Yeah. I, I like frameworks, uh, um, uh, models.
Um, so I trying to make a framework for everything
or, uh, a models or everything.
So, uh, what makes A-A-P-M-O high impact?
So let me ask the audience, what do you think, what makes
a PMO high impact?
So this means that you, gu you guys need to jump into the,
uh, uh, jump into the chat.
What do you think, uh, what, what makes a PMO high impact?
Any thoughts?
Uh, I can see the, the chat too,
Level of trust when you help organizations
realize their strategic goals.
I like that one, Ethan.
Mm-hmm. That's nice.
Uh, projects deliver on their promises, guy.
That's a really interesting way of putting it.
Yeah. Uh, value to the leaders, they're driving
to the business needs and goals.
Achieving business goals. I love it.
Everybody's talking about eggs here. I'm loving it.
Exactly. So, um, a framework, uh,
that it can help.
And, uh, so I would say, uh, nothing is perfect.
And there are different approaches how to get there,
because everybody knows what the, uh, c-suites are,
are waiting, and everyone wanna be successful.
Uh, I am a people person.
I believe everyone wanna be, uh, successful, recognized
for what they are to the organization,
but sometimes we don't know how to do it.
So, uh,
and that's, uh, that I trying to, to create frameworks
that facilitate the process to, to getting there.
So, uh, I came up with this framework.
So first you need to start with the vision and the mandate.
So you need to have a mission.
Uh, we are in a world, so what
you gonna achieve?
What, uh, you need
to understand the purpose of what you're doing.
So that's the, in the, the, the pick
of the pyramid is the vision and mandate.
So now you need to establish the mandate, why we assist.
And also, but you need to start first with the organization.
Why the company assist.
Um, after you understand that, that, you know, I'm here
because I going to contribute
to the success of this organization.
I know the business. One of the questions
that I do when I do consulting first is on making sure if
you understand the business, how we make money,
how we consider, uh, the other day I was in a company, um,
in a consulting for A PMO that they are establishing.
And so I asked the audience, so how we make money?
So, so what makes us the number one in our market?
So you need to understand that if you understand that.
So, uh, uh, you need to do something else.
So then after that,
the next step in the framework is you need to establish the,
uh, governance structure.
You need to be organized. It is, is like in the military.
So you need to have the right people, the right structure
to make you successful.
And also, uh, you need to have a maturity path.
The other days, uh, um, uh, we had, uh, an invited guest
for, um, eh, in a webinar that we delivered,
uh, Jenny Fowler.
And, and she was talking about, uh, uh,
sometime we wanna, um, start
running without growing.
So, eh, maturity path.
So she was saying, so any things
that you're gonna do in A PMO, you need to give your time,
give it a year.
Or if you wanna be on a level, uh, four
or, uh, so first that takes us about three year, two, two
to three year cycle.
So maturity pastor, you need to have a Roma.
How you going to grow and serve better the organization, uh,
the value delivery model.
So everything's need to be measured.
If you can, uh, measure, you can control it.
So you need to establish a KPIs.
That KPIs not a a, a book of metrics
and those kind of thing.
Key KPIs. What make this organization successful?
Like in the car, in the car,
I take care about the heating other, the car,
take care about the gas
and in speed that there's a lot of other metrics, uh,
when you driving a car that you focus on those three.
So benefit tracking, the benefit realization,
are you gonna measure that?
And the other one. So it's a never ending story.
Continuous evolution.
Now, a lot of organization moving to ai,
'cause that's that we should do.
But tomorrow, I don't know what other things going, uh,
uh, we're gonna have available.
So, continuous improvement, not only, um,
so think about the three things that,
that are important in organizations are people,
technologies, and processes.
So all the improvements should be around that.
So, uh, so this is a, a simple framework
that you can implement.
Um, so I have a, I think I have a case study that,
that have a sample.
So how can you draft that?
And so I think that we don't gonna have time for SOI,
but, uh, from this, uh, pyramid, so the SOI was
to set assess your PMO across the issue of the,
eh, the pillars.
So, uh, you can implement this plan in your organization
to establish a, a, a scalable, uh,
project management, uh, office.
So, um, the first is to assess, identify the strengths
and place your PMO.
Where are you right now in the maturity to start, uh,
growing and, uh, moving that path to, to excellence,
um, and then the proposed actions.
So, so there's a couple of quick kind
of comments and questions.
Mm-hmm. Uh, I dunno if this is a good time just to pause
for a second, right?
So, so the, the first one is about, I wanna come back
to the question from Cs about, um, whose job is it, right?
Because we're talking about all these capabilities, and,
and the top of that pyramid was about, you know, goals,
understanding what are the goals, the,
the, on the previous pages.
So what are, what, um,
understanding, you know, what are the goals?
And you, you, when you said, uh,
you said something like understanding the goals
of the organization or the strategy of the organization,
and there are a couple of comments going, oh, yeah.
Like anybody understands that.
Um, so Sirius asked the question, whose responsibility is it
to cascade that vision?
Well, I, I gotta say, in my opinion,
and feel free to disagree, right?
Actually, as a PMO leader, it's your responsibility
to go out there and figure it out.
No one's gonna give it to you.
Nobody's going to magically hand you a book
that tells you everything you need to do.
You need to do exactly what Tony said.
You need to go and understand what are the drivers
of the business, what are the levers
that help us be more successful?
What are the goals that we're trying
to achieve as a business?
If that means you gotta go and take people out for lunch
or a coffee and talk to them,
then that's what you need to do.
Um, food always helps.
By the way, food and drink always helps.
Um, uh, and, uh,
but sometimes you gotta, you can do it more formally, right?
You can go and, and actually talk to the leadership team
and ask them and just say, and,
or you can read the strategy documents.
Uh, we've got a little AI agent that we use
where when we're working with customers,
we take all the strategy documents we can get our hands on,
and we drop them into this little agent that's been trained
to look for signals.
And then it comes back with kind of the summary of
what we think the prioritization criteria should be based
off all the strategy documents, right?
Great starting point. There's so much you can do to go
and figure it out.
Don't wait for someone to give it to you,
would be my suggestion.
Yeah, definitely.
Uh, uh, so one of the things that I say, um, is
that we need to switch.
Um, uh, our mindset is not about, uh,
asking is also, uh, helping
to co-create.
Uh, but how are you going to co-create,
but you don't understand.
So you need to be, become, uh, a student, uh,
passionate about the business.
Let's say, uh, most of my experience have been in the, uh,
financial sector in banking,
but I took the time to understand the business.
It's like a, a, you need to pretend
that you are the owner of the business.
So you need to have the same, uh, passions about the,
what the, the, the senior leadership have.
So in that way, you are gonna be one of them,
and you can, um, uh, ask them to help in the co-creation,
because it's not like a, uh, I gonna go
and talk to a steward, steward, the CEO,
and just gonna take no, but what he thinking.
So what you doing, that's a, a reactive way
of, of management.
So you need to be proactive.
So I need to know, for example, uh, something
that is happening in the world right now is the tariff from
us, from our government.
So, uh, how many, uh, leaders think, so
how the tariff will impact my business?
And that's the external factor.
So you need to be aware what is going out of the,
the four words that, I mean,
I say the four of your own company.
You need to go out
and see the external factor that impact your business
and understand that, because that's the, the, I would say
that usually the pain points
and the concerns that the senior leadership has, they are,
uh, care about the market.
They're about about policy, they're about compe competition.
Um, they're about innovation,
technology, all of those things.
But you need to be a master of your own business to,
in order to, to pitch the right message
and connect with the C-suite.
So the definition should come from them, but don't go as a,
because sometimes they don't know.
They don't know what they need.
Uh, so if you go just taking notes,
so you are taking the wrong notes.
Yeah. And,
and you mentioned a book earlier on, uh,
the Impact Engine by Laura Barnard.
Mm-hmm. Uh, Gregor kindly put the link
to the book in the chat.
Gregor, if you still have it, if you could do that again
for everyone, um, if you want to know
how to have that discussion.
Yeah, that's the book. That's the one I usually
have a copy lying around.
I don't have one today for some reason.
I think I gave it away, actually.
I think I sent it to Angeliki.
Um, anyway, the, um, uh, the point of that book is
that one of the really good things in
that book is it gives you a recipe, gives you a framework
for having that conversation with the business,
for discovering what are the pain points for discovering
what is the strategy,
and then structuring a PMO to maximize that.
And not in three years, right?
But doing it in, you know, 90 day sprints.
So you're always delivering incrementally more value
to the organization.
Uh, and when you do that, you end up co-creating a vision
for what the, the PMO is and what it should be
and what it could be, and how it'll evolve over time.
Um, so, uh, so I strongly recommend that book
for anyone who's, who's on that journey.
Yeah, brilliant. Tony, over, over to you.
We, we have more questions in chat,
but I'm gonna give you some more space now,
and then we'll come back to these
other questions in a while.
Yeah. Uh, I believe in co-creation, um,
because participation, uh, take you to, uh,
committed people if I don't participate is
you own decision is you own way of thinking.
But if I participate, I take ownership.
So that's a basic things in management.
If I, um, eh, co-create, that means
that I take people into a room and we have
and made them important.
So they are the, the one that deciding.
So the other days, um, in that,
that was in another countries that, uh, I just had a group
of managers in the room
and they decided what was the problem
and what the potential solution.
So I just put that in a papers
and send it to, uh, the senior leadership.
And they said, that's exactly that we were looking for,
but I didn't do anything.
They did it. That's the, we make a couple of exercises to,
um, understand the pain points of the potential solution.
They gave the solution.
So I didn't, uh, recommend anything from my myself.
They did it. So that's the, the thing of co-creation.
And they are supporting those because they did it.
It wasn't like a consultant came from somewhere
and told me what I need to do.
They know what I need to do,
but the management is supporting them doing.
So. I, high impact PMOs should
deliver from functional portfolio visibility.
Everybody need to know what's going on.
Uh, executive decision support, um,
risk mitigation is important from the S standpoint.
And again, the value driven, or I could focus
or value realization.
So a lot of people, uh, talks about benefication,
but are you actually doing ization in your organization?
So, uh, that's a high impact PMO should deliver.
So I have a question.
Uh, I have many slides that,
so you can answer those question is you, uh, PMO design just
to manage or to execute.
Ah, okay. So you're asking the audience, Tony.
Yeah. So if they can just, uh, interact with us.
So is your PMO design for administration or execution?
So that's, uh, another things that, uh, I,
uh, have over the, the year working
with different organization, uh, the, uh,
seven core components of PMO strategy.
So you need to, uh, establish, so A PMO, what is a PMO?
It is a, a department for, for me, uh, is a business unit.
If you need to make a business units
because you support the business, uh,
it is not a support department for me.
When people say, well, we are, uh, to, uh, we assist
to support the project managers, um, the
function manager, the business.
So that's, uh, for me, that's reactive.
So you are the business, like, uh, uh,
when I started in technology, the data processing, uh,
center, they will support now, uh, technology
with all the digital transformation is the business
no support function.
We are the business.
So the same thing that with PMO,
but those are the seven components of the PMO strategy.
You need to establish a vision
and mission aligned with the vision
and mission of the organization.
Uh, organizational alignment and the maturity
and the evolution roadmaps.
So the value journey, uh, define the metrics,
KPIs, OKRs, customer engagement.
So the, uh, PMO practice guy from PMI, they have a lot
of thing about customer centric organization.
So you can learn from, from the, they have a roadmap, um,
the PMO, uh, customer lifecycle.
So I recommend you to, uh, take a look.
Your are PMI member, you have access to the
practice guide, uh, free.
So this component, we had you to create a foundation
for long-term value.
So going to, I don't think
that we're gonna have the time to go.
So, uh, they're gonna have access to the slides.
So I I shared it with you. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
So you, you can take for example, when I said that, um,
this is the roadmap for aligning,
because a lot of people talk about alignment.
So, uh, PMO should be aligned
with organizational strategies.
But how I do that, so I created like a, a four steps
that you can, uh, working alignment
with the strategic goals.
Um, so the first, uh, stage is the strategic discovery.
So what activities you're gonna do there
to review the strategic plan that you were saying.
So you need to go into those document that
what I figured out in certain country,
that's like a top secret,
because they say, I, I talked to one PMO, uh, manager,
and I say, I don't have access to that information.
My senior leadership that says it's not top secret.
They, they don't share the strategy,
but you need to look, if you don't have a formal written
documentation, so do some observation
finding, but you need to find it.
So review the strategic plan, um, stakeholder engagement.
So you need to, to talk to them.
So you need to develop the connection, uh,
with the stakeholder, with your customers.
So a difference.
So if you go into the PMO practice guide,
there is a difference of PMO stakeholders
and the PMO customers.
And you can have one customer that also a stakeholder,
but there are two different things.
Um, there, uh, you need to assess where you are.
So in order to establish a, uh, roadmap, so you need
to understand where you are
and where you wanna, uh, be to identify those gaps
and define the, uh, some these things.
So I like to keep the momentum.
So you always need to have something.
Um, uh, so I always suggest to, uh,
the, the customers.
So what we are doing, so we are in the innovation path,
so that gonna be your strategic things.
We are in growth, we are, uh, increasing,
let's say, our reputation.
So you need to, to understand that from the organization.
So where you gonna be focused on, uh,
the second stage is to define, uh,
the objectives and alignments.
And there are multiple. So,
So Tony to Tony.
Sorry, sorry to interrupt. So there's a, a bunch
of chatter from various people, including guy and,
and others, Michelle
and others, um, on the, this issue of KPIs.
So I think first of all, we need to be super, super clear.
Mm-hmm. There, there are two types
of KPI that we care about.
There, there, there are the business KPIs.
So these, this is things like revenue growth, market share,
customer satisfaction, things like that, productivity.
That's what the business cares about.
And then there are PMO KPIs, right?
So that might be things like project completions,
and, you know, how many projects actually deliver the
intended benefits and so on and so forth.
Mm-hmm. So, so question from the audience, Tony, is, um,
do you have any, any recommendations
or a list you can share of sample KPIs
for the PMO side of that?
Right? Because every business has its own
business KPIs, right?
So we, there's no, there is no magic bullet, right?
We, we've got a, we actually have a, a, a, an ebook, lenora,
if you're on, perhaps you could share the ebook
to the criteria, uh, ebook, which has, um,
about 80 something criteria.
The criteria are basically business KPIs, uh,
when you're prioritizing, um, so you, so it's got about 80
of them structured into groups.
So if you're interested in that,
that's great, download that ebook.
But for the PMO, the, the, the KPIs for managing the KPO,
for the managing the PMO, Tony, what,
what would you recommend there?
Yeah. So, and you said that, well, so, uh,
KPIs, so I have seen, uh, books
or KPIs that prepared by the PMO,
but they have, uh, like you mentioned, uh,
project management k uh, KPIs that only care, um,
is they only add value to the project managers.
Um, the, the PMO has their own KPIs,
but, um, uh, the KPIs
that the C-suite care about is the business KPIs.
And you need to do the, the same that I'm saying, the, the,
uh, value delivery outcome base.
So you need to attach, um, the KPIs
to the value that you add into the business,
because who cares that you completed the projects?
Uh, you have like, say a hundred percent, uh,
success rate in, in complete projects.
So who care? So, uh, that's the, the kind of
of KPIs I have, um, the,
that we go deeper in the workshop that, that we have
of the certification as a certified business practitioner.
So I have, um, um, menu, so KPIs that I can share
with someones that you send me a, a connect
with me in LinkedIn or,
or send me an email so I can share the list.
So, so you can pick
and choose which one are applicable to you,
because in order to establish KPIs, you also need
to analysis, uh, make an analysis what things you,
what behavior you want from your company.
So, uh, that, that's the reason that I said KPI in a car.
So I, I put too much attention to gas
because I don't wanna my car
to stop in the middle of the highway.
I put, uh, attention to the speed
because I don't wanna get in trouble with, uh, the police,
uh, and those kind of things.
So, uh, but I have a list of, of KPI sample KPIs
that you can pick and choose
and see if they apply to your organization.
Um, the stage is execution enabled meant, uh, in that,
um, a stage.
So we have different activities.
And so what I'm providing you is how you align
a PMO objective with strategic goals.
That's the connection with the business.
So those are the steps.
So activities in that, um,
stage is the portfolio prioritization.
So steward is the magician that with the solutions
campaign choice, if you wanna talk a little bit about
why portfolio prioritization is important in establishing,
um, the alignment with, so I have results, um, eh,
and capability alignment, go governance, calibration
and communication, eh, plan.
Do you have anything to say about the, the,
Well, this is, it's a little unfair.
We've got 10 minutes left. And Tony hands me portfolio
prioritization, resource capacity alignment, right?
That's, that, that's a two hour talk for me right there.
So, I mean, look, we, we have
so much stuff on our website about this.
Um, perhaps Lenore, you could paste one
or two juicy links to get people started.
Um, but this is,
when we look at the services that PMOs offer
around the world, um, there are certain services
that the good ones always offer, right?
The ones that are the value leaders.
Uh, so the PMI did some research a few years ago
where they looked at the, the champions and the,
and everybody else, and the champions were, were,
were the ones who delivered the business benefit 92%
of the time, I think it was, right?
So if any of you are doing that,
that then you're a champion, right?
But the average is more like 65, right?
And so what is it that the, the, that those leaders,
those champions are doing that everybody else isn't
this stuff, this is what they're doing.
So they're doing all the project management
stuff as well, right?
That everybody does. But what they're doing
that's different is this stuff.
So this is the piece that'll take you from
ordinary to extraordinary,
Right?
Yeah. So I, I think that gonna end with, with this.
So in this presentation, when you get the the deck, uh,
you will see there's many framework.
So the idea is not, uh, in order to, uh,
implement the high impact PMO,
that you're gonna do everything at once.
Um, so you need to have focus
or what, what framework you want, uh, to have, for example.
So you are struggling with aligning, uh, the PMO objectives
with strategic goals, these yets organization.
So you can take this framework.
So, so the, the four stages,
and you develop, so you see, um, in this slide,
so I have the activity, the description, why are we doing
that, the description of activity
and also potential, uh, tools that you can use to accomplish
that particular activity.
And you can take all the four stages
and create like a roadmap, uh, a project plan.
And, uh, so one of the things that I, I
recommend people think, uh, uh,
in agile, a framework.
So, so everything that you do is a sprint.
So you need to deliver value often.
So I have seen a lot of people that fail in the PMO
because they, they want do thing perfect,
and they only want to have one deliverable,
but that's the word for approach.
So take the other route, the agile approach,
do springs and add value.
So you need to make noise.
So that one of the things and the PMOs to be relevant
and also to be, uh, uh, I would say, uh, active.
But if you do take too much to deliver something,
but people, you're gonna lose the momentum.
And people, they will forget what, what the PMOs is doing.
So why do we need A PMO? We need better project managers.
We don't need a pmo.
So you need to, to work smart, uh,
create spring and deliver values that,
that are visible to your organization.
So the last stage of this framework to align, uh,
PMO objectives with strategic goals is the stage four is
to review, refine, and evolve.
Like, uh, we have said
before, the continue improvement evolution
and the activities of the perform monitoring.
So we already talk about, um, uh, KPIs
or what OKRs, whatever you use or balance scorecard.
Um, it is a feedback loop, so regular sessions.
So in order to, uh, to sit, uh,
that table that everybody wanna see at the table, uh,
continuous improvement
and also future, uh, trends, integration that's there.
So with those four stages, so you will do something to,
to make more noise, to be more impactful.
And so, uh, there are others, um,
it's a framework in this presentation,
but we run out of time. Yeah,
We're, we're a bit low on time then.
There's loads of really great stuff.
So check out the slides.
Um, Tony, there's, there's one discussion that I've sat on
to the end, um, uh,
because I suspect it could roll on for a little while, um,
which is people have reacted to this idea
that the PMO should be, uh, responsible for delivering the,
the benefits, right?
Isn't that what the SRO is for? Right?
The SROs accountable for the benefits. Mm.
I'm being quite careful in my language here.
So talk, talk a little bit about that.
Uh, the PMO respons of all delivering the benefit Yeah.
Make it, you, you said earlier on about the, the,
you know, that we should be value focused
and we should be, you know, responsible
for delivering the value.
So talk, talk a little bit about that.
Where do you see the responsibility?
Where do you see it beginning and ending?
Where does it hand over?
Uh, I mean, my view on this is really simple, right?
Um, if there's a car that's driving from Texas to New York,
the driver of the car is responsible
for getting you to New York.
But the PMO, right? That's the, that's the SRO. Yeah.
The PMO builds the road, right? The car runs on.
And so it's the PMOs job to make sure the road connects,
you know, is there that they, you can drive along
and that you don't have to go via Alaska
to get from Texas to New York,
Right? Exactly.
Yeah.
So the, the PMO on the standing
where the business is going to, so you need to,
to develop or the, the role where and drive, but it is not
because if you take the entire responsibility
of doing everything, so now you
getting disconnect.
So the idea is that you are the driver,
but soon you take an Uber,
so you have a good conversation with the driver.
So you need to be in that, uh, in that mode that always,
there is a conversation, uh, the feedback loop.
Um, but you are the driver.
So you are saying, so let's go to the right
and everybody's happy going to the right.
But, um, but, uh, i, I believe in is
that democratic system is, is a co-creation,
is engagement participation.
And we talk a lot about, uh, stakeholder engagement,
but you need to have that, uh, that vibe, that
that energy and that enthusiasms
that should become continuous.
So why we doing this?
Because we are achieving great things for this organization.
We taking the organization the in the right way.
So, so think about why people say the SRO has the, the,
the, you know, your exec sponsor has to be responsible
for the accountable for the outcome.
It's because they have the power within BAU
to make change happen.
But they are not change experts,
they're experts in their business.
It's not their job to be the change expert.
Their job is to be the person with the power
that tells people what to do, right?
So the job as the PMO fundamentally is to do anything
and everything from the, from the, from
from capturing strategy to selecting projects,
to delivering outcomes, to managing risks, to reporting,
to tracking benefits, whatever you need to do to make sure
that the business gets the benefit,
that's your job, in my view.
Now, the, of course, the, the, the
exec sponsor is still accountable
for banging heads together when they need to, right?
But your job is to make sure that all that infrastructure
and that process is in place and is working and is
and is efficient, right?
Having said that, having said that,
what you were just saying, Tony, about co-creating,
you can't jump to that end point
where everything is amazing mm-hmm.
On day in day in one day, right?
It's a journey, it's an evolution.
I loved what you had in your slides about that roadmap,
having the evolution roadmap.
Mm-hmm. So it's an evolution from where you are today to
where, where you should be,
where those benefits are being managed, right?
The way through the business. Um, right.
And at the end of the day, right, the PMO has one job,
which is to increase, to maximize, I would say
the re the business return
from the investment in projects, right?
That's it. That's the job description.
Mm-hmm. And, you know, you need to do whatever you need
to do to maximize that return on investment.
And so every organization's gonna be different.
You know, the, Tony, you were involved
with the PMO value ring, right?
Not that, that whole PMO global Alliance thing, right?
The whole point of that is that it's a,
it's an iterative process mm-hmm.
Of, of driving towards what those PMO services should be
to enable that value creation,
Right? Yeah.
I have talked to a, a lot of, uh, PMO, uh, managers,
like director.
So, uh, uh, this is, uh, like I,
I said never ending story.
So they said, oh, so I have a PMO, uh, I already don't.
So they go into the operation mode,
so making sure the projects are running, et cetera.
But, um, so it is
that when I got my blood birth in IESs, I thought,
I graduated from SI already have my blood birth first time.
And so they, grandma said, uh, Tony,
you are ready to learn.
You don't, you don't know anything about martial arts now.
It's that you are ready to learn knowledge.
So when you establish your PMO, you are ready to learn.
And that's need to be reviewed constantly
because the organization change.
So I already have a Roma,
but that Romas need to be, uh, review, um,
every certain time, quarterly if the business change.
So you need to go back, let me see if my Roma makes sense
for the, uh, actual context
that the organization is, is leading.
So it's, as you mentioned, it's a evolving thing.
Everything changed. So you need to realign.
That's the adaptability, um, eh approach take place.
So some reflection for you. So we already talk about that.
So PMOs align with executive priorities,
the pain points, what they care about.
So that's, that's the, uh, relevancy.
The, for the PMO, uh, you need to speak the language.
Uh, they don't care about, uh, projects, metrics.
They care about, uh, business metrics.
Otherwise, are you always saying any case strategically?
So you need to prepare.
You say, I always talk about, uh, elevator speech.
You need to have the elevator speech ready
because you don't know when you gonna come across
who some other, the executives
and you gonna pitch the right way.
Um, and then do objections into opportunities.
So just practice the objections, what people gonna say.
So before you, uh, uh, start having discussion.
So with that being said, um, there's a lot of two lenses,
like continued learnings,
and we always learning from each other.
So if you have questions when you get the, the deck, um,
so we have passions about talking that.
So absolutely, if you wanna learn more specifically,
you can attend to our workshops
and the business practitioner workshops
and get a credential.
And we have six, uh, PMO leaders
that facilitate the entire contents.
Um, we workshop a scenarios, so, um,
that awesome. More about it.
And, and the one thing
that I would recommend everybody does is, um, if you,
so we have a, we have a little offering that's free,
which is around building the business case for,
for building a high, high impact PMO.
'cause this journey, you can't just do on your own.
You're gonna need support from the people around you and,
and especially from your leadership team.
Uh, so Lenora, if, if you have it there, there we go.
Um, you know, book yourself a business case
and we'll help you build that, uh, book yourself a meeting,
I should say, using that link.
And we'll help you build a business case, um,
that you can use to get support from your leadership team.
We may well involve Tony
or some of his guys in that as well, um, to, to help make
that case and, and turn it into a
roadmap and all that kind of good stuff.
So if you're struggling with what do I do next,
that would be a good next step.
Um, uh, as well, uh, it just remain remains for me
to thank you, Tony, for sharing your wisdom today.
That's awesome. You can see people are loving it.
So thank you very much. Um, as ever,
it was great catching up with you. Um,
Yeah, thank you for inviting me and thank you to everyone.
I saw some, uh, known names, so thank you for attending
and listening
And, and I want to thank everybody in the audience
for making time to join us,
but also for, for getting in there
and making comments, adding comments, um,
and joining in the conversation.
Uh, it makes it much more interesting, much more engaging
for us, and hopefully you're getting the kind
of conversation and the answers
to the questions that you care about.
So, uh, you, you guys did a great job today.
Thank you very much. Watch for the next webinars, Lenora
or Kath or Pretty will be sending out, uh, in,
in about a week, the next set of webinars.
Uh, the next one will be a,
a demo webinar towards the end of the month.
And, um, uh,
and then we'll have another guest webinar next month, just
so, Tony, great job.
Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.
And nice to see you, and we'll see you all next time.