An executive has administrative or supervisory authority in an organization. That authority is used in a number of ways on projects. An executive is typically responsible for the Business Case of a project, which is used to determine whether the project should even be started. Once the project is approved they can impact the success of your project in four key areas.

1. Sponsorship and Funding

Every project within a company starts with an idea. It’s hard for that idea to go much further without backing from the right person and some money to make it happen. An executive can provide the sponsorship and funding your project needs to get off the ground. They are responsible for signing off on the project charter, which describes the project, gives you the authority to manage and, most importantly, allocates the necessary funds to keep it alive.

2. Escalations and Resolution

The second role an executive plays in your projects is to be the go-to person when unresolved problems surface. An executive needs to be on the escalation path, and more importantly on the resolution path of your projects. There are going to be times when others are unresponsive to the project’s needs, or in a dispute about the best direction to take. An executive can use his position to break through these bottlenecks. Here’s a hint: shorten the escalation process as much as possible. Rather than go through a gradual escalation of layer after layer of management, take it to the highest level of management and get it resolved in a fraction of the time.

3. Monitor Projects

Executives sponsor and fund projects. They should also be interested in how the project progresses. They should be interested in ore than when the project starts and when it finishes. They should monitor the project. This includes reading and understanding status report, approving major deliverables and being involved in gate reviews. Of course, the projects that are of interest will vary based on the level of the executive. Senior managers should monitor the larger and more strategic projects. Middle managers monitor more tactical projects.

4. Coach Project Managers

Let’s face it: despite the stereotype, most executives are talented, skilled, and experienced people. Tap into their knowledge. You’re going to run into rough patches on your projects from time to time or will need to make decisions when answers are not so obvious. Sit down with a respected executive and bounce some ideas off of them. At the very least, they may validate that you are on the right path or give you the encouragement you need to keep going. More often than not, they will provide you with a fresh perspective to help make your project a success.

If you want to benefit from the value an executive brings to project management, it’s up to you as a project manager to optimize their role on your projects. View them as another resource you need to bring your project to closure. Who knows, with such a great track record of project success, you may end up sitting in the corner office yourself!

1. Make sure you can deliver clear, measurable objectives beyond ROI

We have observed that many project proposals are submitted to the PMO organization — complete with management approval and funding — but without any clear measurable business objectives. By insisting that such measurable objectives be a required part of the business proposal, the PMO not only adds value to the organization, but can also save the PMO trouble down the road, when the lack of specificity in results becomes a sore point.

2. Speak the Language of the Business

Make sure that the justification for a project is consistent with the business strategy. Often, the business strategy is vague (“Deliver Outstanding Customer Service”) and a projects objective is more tactical (“Upgrade CRM”). Its imperative to align to two so that the project team knows what the underlying strategic objective is. We have seen too many projects completed on time and on budget but without delivering the business value that was sought.

3. Deliver Consistent and Reliable Results – Not Process

We have heard and seen this many times — “we have a consistent process that all projects must adhere to!”. This false sense of security that masquerades as project governance or PM/QA — while a valuable tool — does not guarantee reliable project results and success.

PMO leaders need to get out of the mindset of ticking the box — and focus on delivering reliable results. Project overhead needs to be scaled appropriately to the size of the project and the appetite of the business.

4. Identify Resource Capacity Constraints

Many PMOs we have spoken with are saddled with too many requests, too few resources, or the wrong mix of skills to achieve the project.

Regardless, the PMO leader needs to ensure that projects launch only if the resources are identified and in place before the project starts. Failure to ensure this basic project requirement means that — before it ever starts — the project has almost no possibility of completing on time.

If your PMO is one where you think your job is just to execute and you have no control over anything once told to start –we strongly suggest you flag the project risk immediately and get it documented that the project is inadequately resourced. Build in as much contingency time into the schedule as appropriate given the high probability that this project will be challenged.

5. Make the Business Case the Gold Standard

Unfortunately, too many PMOs rely upon the Project Charter as the primary document of record for initiating a project. While the Project Charter certainly should be a required document — realize that it serves a different function than the business case. The business case focuses on the “what” while the Charter focuses on the “how”.

There needs to be management and stakeholder consensus on what needs to be done, how much is worth spending to get it done and how value can be measured at the end. Everyone accountable for the success of the project must agree to the terms of the business case. If they cannot then there is no project. If no one really knows exactly how the project will achieve the business objective, there is no project. Only when there is agreement and the funding is approved can the project proceed forward.

– Implement Governance. Methodology and governance are closely linked. Project Management Methodology creates a framework for what specific decisions and processes are needed. Governance defines who should make each decision and be accountable for each process. Governance, therefore, extends the project management methodology to all people in all roles in the company, and beyond using specific project management software. Implementation of governance is a way to extend the methodology so that it includes all project stakeholders, not just project teams. This improves communication, leading to higher quality and more efficiency.
– Perform Assessments. Most assessments will be used to determine the overall state of use of the project management methodology across the organization. An assessment is a general checkup telling the PMO how well the methodology is being used.
– Perform Reviews. Reviews occur at the end of each project phase, and phases are defined by the project management life cycle in the methodology. Changes to the life cycle will change the review schedule.
– Perform Audits. Audits compare actual performance to the project management methodology and the standards it contains.

Auditing should not be implemented until the methodology deployment and training are complete. All project managers should be empowered to use the project management methodology before they are evaluated with regard to how well they are using it.

Most projects go through the same steps towards completion. They start up, then they plan ahead, they execute and they close. That’s the nature of Project Management. So it stands to reason then, that most projects create similar documentation deliverables. These standard deliverables has been replicated as Project Templates, within our project methodology suite.

For several years now the phrase ‘Zombie PMO’ has been used to describe a PMO organization that is barely alive — more focused on mundane self-serving practices than delivering business value.  Be sure that well before the ‘Zombie’ reference was born, this has been a crisis in the PM community.  For years we’ve seen PMOs come and go in and out of fashion, not because the concept of a PMO lacked business value, but because those executing the PMO have failed to focus on the business value they should be delivering.

We staunchly support the idea of embracing best-practices, standards, governance, and employing sound methodology.  But, without an understanding of how these characteristics should be leveraged to deliver for the business you run the risk of becoming antiquated, unnecessary, and overhead that the business will either ignore or disband.

One of the critical actions that I would encourage for any PMO leader is to engage in a healthy dialog with the business counterparts and ask them directly what they are looking to achieve.  Not surprisingly, I have found in many organizations a huge disconnect between what the PMO thinks its job is and what their business sponsors think their job is.

Much has been written about the tell-tale signs of a Zombie PMO — lack of a PMO strategy, vision, mission — and an equal amount has been written about how to become a relevant player in the eyes of the business. But, just as all organizations are not the same nor should all PMOs be the same.  The alignment needs to start with an honest conversation that clearly outlines what a business wants the PMO to achieve for them.  Often, the PMO feels they have the monopoly on understanding the value of a PMO function. However, if you adopt this strategy of trying to convince the business that PMO-knows-best, you do so at your own peril.

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