3 Ways Your PMO Can Give the Gift of Unlimited Upside

About this webinar

Mike Hannan starts with a reframe: the people who fund projects are investors, not just stakeholders. Investors and project managers already agree on two things: earlier returns through faster completion, and dependable returns through reliable delivery.

They split on the third. Investors won’t back work with wildly uncertain timeframes, while project managers can’t see why worthwhile projects struggle to get funded. Mike’s three gifts, framed through A Christmas Carol, are how a PMO closes that gap:

• Speed: stagger project starts around the most constrained resource instead of loading work from overall capacity alone.
• Reliability: drop task-level commitments the customer doesn’t care about. Task dates invite padding, and work expands to fill the time allowed. Pool the uncertainty in one project-level buffer instead and let teams move as fast as they can.
• Selection: use consistent logic, weighted criteria and informed human judgement so investment choices focus on organisational value rather than political bargaining.

The three depend on each other. Faster, more reliable execution makes estimates of timing, cost and return more credible. That gives investors greater confidence in funding decisions, while better selection raises the value of the work entering the system.

Mike’s bonus gift is purpose: help project managers see themselves as part of the engine producing investment return, not simply as keepers of schedule, budget and scope. That also recasts the PMO as steward of the system supporting speed, reliability and sound investment decisions, rather than as a compliance layer people groan at.